Ben Is A Long’s Best Friend. The First Long managed to pull safely into double-digit territory on the strength of the Fed rally. Whoo hooo!
The Obama Portfolio (Since Inception): +12.90%
Earlier: The Obama Portfolio
Archive for March 2009
Obama told you earlier to get off Geithner’s ass and shut it with the naysaying because the hardest working man in America isn’t going anywhere. So he’s probably not down with this, but who died and made him Queen of Sheba, right? Which is to say: go bet on T. Geith’s job security now. On a related note, not that we don’t have full confidence in the li’l fella, but just to be prepared, in the event Geither finds himself unemployed, who should fill his elfin shoes? Charlie Gasparino’s old short list? The Philly Phanatic? YOU? Weigh in now.
David Friehling skated after coughing up a $2.5 million bail. No word yet if the check bounced.
Bernard Madoff’s longtime accountant has been released on $2.5 million in bail.
The 49-year-old David Friehling was arrested on fraud charges Wednesday and accused of helping the disgraced money manager cheat thousands of investors out of billions of dollars.
The accountant was released after a brief hearing Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan.
Madoff’s accountant released on $2.5m bail [The Associated Press]
But balance sheet? Set to inflate. Whoo!
The dance of crude has slapped more than a few investors to the dirt-nap lately. Three fake rallies have throttled investors like T. Boone Pickens into equity unconsciousness and several of these black gold rushers are laying on the sidelines, out cold.
Crude oil fell after a U.S. government report showed a bigger-than-forecast inventory increase in the world’s largest energy-consuming country.
Stockpiles climbed 1.94 million barrels to 353.3 million last week, the Energy Department said today. Inventories were forecast to rise by 1.5 million barrels, according to the median of analyst estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Supplies of gasoline and distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, also increased.
Fourth time is the charm?
Oil Falls After U.S. Reports Supplies Rose More Than Forecast [Bloomberg]
Let’s do this.
1:26PM: Yes, Kanjorski, YES. “The signs of demonstration [which read, among other things, "Fire Geithner"] are to remain down or be removed. I’m a very patient person but don’t test my patience. The Pink Ladies’ signs are to remain down or leave the room. SIGNS DOWN!”
Kanjorski and Liddy had a “great meeting” in Kanjanx’s office two or three months ago. Then, a couple weeks ago, a “not so good phone call.”
Kanjorski wants to make it clear that Liddy is basically not being paid to do the worst job in the world, which Paulson forced him to do, since he knows Lid’s family has probably endured a lot of abuse by people who don’t get that. Awww.
“We do not intend to harass you.” Oh, thinkin’ of a few Reps who beg to differ.
“On the other hand…” (there it is).
1:31PM: Kanjorski says Lids should’ve broken the contracts, the worst that would’ve happened was a penalty fee (which, by most accounts, would’ve cost more money than the actual bonuses).
Kanjorksi plans to “slap the gavel” as much as necessary to silence, among others, the batshit insane ladies in pink in the back.
1:34PM: Opening remarks by Liddy. Read along here.
1:41PM: “We’ve been working on this issue of what to do with the retention bonuses. We–I– came to my decision based on two factors: risk assessment, and following legal advice. There is still $1.6 trillion of stuff in that portfolio, which could still explode [and we need those people to help us with the wind-down...I know $165 million is a very large number. In the context of $1.6 trillion, we thought it was a good trade."
According to Liddy, Fed Chairman Bernanke knew about the bonuses.
Liddy: There's no intent to do anything under the stealth of darkness, or cover. We've been talking about this with the Federal reserve for at least three months.
Kanjorski: And the Treasury?
Liddy: No. We talk to the Fed, and they go the Treasury.
[I don't know what's happening over here, but we're feeling sorry for Liddy, who legitimately sounds and looks like a wounded puppy or something, scared that Kanjorski's going to hit him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.]
1:54PM: Do it, Kanjorksi. GET ANGRY. “You’ve tried my patience. The signs are going to be removed from the room or you’ll be removed from the room. Which is it gonna be? [the signs, apparently] Officers, remove the signs. If I see one more sign on camera, you’re going to be physically removed from the room.”
Barney Frank does not want you to show us your tits. “Mr. Kanjorkski, I’m just glad no one was wearing the message on a t-shirt.” [They actually were wearing the messages on t'shirts, but go with it. Laughter erupts from the audience. That's what this is about, people. Gotta be able to laugh about this stuff]
1:58PM: Liddy says the only bonuses that’ve gone out are retention bonuses.
Frank wants the names of executives who got bonuses, then left AIG, and didn’t give them back.
Liddy says he’ll turn the names over if he has the assurance they’ll remain confidential.
Frank says fuck that shit, I won’t agree to that, and if you won’t give them to me, I’ll subpoena them.
Liddy wants to comply but is worried about the safety of the individuals, reads an excerpt from a letter received by AIG from sick classless scumbags that says, “AIG executives should be executed with piano wire around their necks….if we have to we’ll take it into our own hands…we want all the CEOs names, their kids, where the live, etc.”
Frank: I get those kinds of threats all the time.
2:11PM: Chuckles Ackerman suggests the $165 million get paid back, now, cause there’s legislation coming down the pipe called “We Can’t Believe It’s Not Waterboarding.”
Did your company lose, like, a metric ass-ton of money this year? Did you directly take part in the exercise of stuffing a bunch of cash in some paper bags and lighting them on fire? Or, if you don’t like to get your hands dirty, did you perhaps oversee the fun? Your employer has three words it’d like to say to you: never leave us. Bet ya thought it was going to be “hit the bricks,” right? Wrong-o. The Journal reports that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have decided to take a page from AIG’s play(a)book and bribe you geniuses to stick around.
Fannie Mae is due to pay retention bonuses of as much $470,000 to $611,000 this year to some executives despite enormous losses at the government-backed mortgage company. Fannie’s main rival, Freddie Mac, also plans to pay such bonuses but hasn’t yet provided details.
Fannie’s bonuses are smaller than ones paid by American International Group Inc. that have caused a political firestorm for that company. Many AIG executives got retention payments of more than $1 million recently.
The Prez defended his boy a few seconds ago, telling a reporter on the South Lawn, “Tim Geithner didn’t draft these contracts with AIG. No Treasury Secretary, except maybe Alexander Hamilton, has had multiplicity of issues that Geithner has had to deal with at the same time. Nobody is working harder than this guy. He is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand…we need to give him all the support he needs.”
Earlier: Mack: Geithner Should Resign Or Be Fired
No, not that Mack (we wish). Representative Connie Mack (R-Fla.), who apparently hasn’t like the Treasury Secretary from the beginning, is calling for T. Geith to take himself out or be taken out. From the Congressman’s office:
Well before Timothy Geithner became Secretary of the Treasury, he was working hand-in-hand with AIG and other financial institutions to provide them hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money as one of the key architects of the financial sector bailout. I was outspoken against the bailouts then, and I’m even more outraged now.
I’ve had serious concerns about Secretary Geithner from the moment he was nominated. In the months since, he has shown us time and again why he was the wrong choice for this critical post.
We aren’t sure if Goldman took lessons from Greenspan, or if Greenspan learned from Goldman, but either way, the density of the Goldman discourse on a given AIG question reaches neutron star levels while entropy is impossibly high. Consider this bit from a recent Reuters Q&A:
QUESTION: If Goldman Sachs was collateralized and hedged on its AIG positions, why did it take $12.9 billion of taxpayer money?
ANSWER: “Goldman Sachs has maintained that its exposure to AIG was collateralized and hedged. The majority of Goldman Sachs’ CDS (credit default swap) exposure to AIG Financial Group was collateralized. That means that Goldman Sachs had collateral. To the extent it wasn’t collateralized, Goldman Sachs hedged its exposure via the credit default swaps market. If the government had allowed AIG to fail, Goldman Sachs would have received its collateral. A credit event would be triggered, and Goldman Sachs would receive a payout from the credit default swap insurance that it had. This is from other counterparties.”
Separating out the money Goldman received due to AIG’s securities lending obligations, DuVally said: “AIG was not allowed to fail. So there was no payout from the hedges. Additionally after the bailout there was some additional deterioration in AIG’s position. Under the terms of the contracts that Goldman Sachs had with AIG, it was entitled to collateral. We were always fully collateralized and hedged.”
What he said.
Q&A with Goldman Sachs over AIG bailout [Reuters]
