Trader: The Documentary, which Jones requested be pulled out of circulation at some point in the 90s (and bought up all the remaining copies he could find), is now available in 7 parts on YouTube. Take the next hour to watch a 32 year old PTJ get psyched over a $5 million day, chill with a huge turkey who he think of as a pet dog, discuss his start as “a glorified secretary,” trade while kicking back with some Buds, use a huge ass cell phone and put it out there that “if I make the mark I want to make, I’ll stop, I’ll retire.” (No word on whether he’s yet to achieve that mark or if it had to be reset when he decided to start funding the greatest show on earth, which will cost you.)

It wasn’t one of the names suggested last week but supposedly Josh Brolin will be offered the role turned down by Javier Bardem at some point today. If JB says no to working with Shia LaBeouf, it will next go to Tommy Lee Jones, and then Woody Harrelson until producers run out of names from the No Country For Old Men IMDB page, at which time, you might get your wish (Stephen Baldwin, who probably can’t do it anyway, on account of the bug bites).

For those concerned that Switzerland’s recent epiphany on taxes was going to invigorate the global campaign against frauds of all colors, former Swiss grey list partner, Luxembourg, offered some soothing words. When asked about how the damage from King Ponz’s scheme was going to alter the local financial landscape, the director-general of the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, Jean Guill, likened the impact from the $50 billion fraud to a mosquito bite.

“I don’t think it has really damaged in any measurable way the fund industry here in Luxembourg … You have to start from the fact that this was fraud and there will always be fraud

One can only admire the tiny tax haven for taking a leading role in disclosure advocacy with its ‘there will always be fraud’ campaign.

This is probably going to come as a shock but making questionable calls, flipping the fuck out and just acting like a crazy person in general is not something Cramer simply picked when he started doing TV. Sure, he’s perfected things over the last few years (Bear, Dykstra, what what) but the JC you see today is a craft Uncle Jim has been honing since his days at Cramer Berkowitz, the hedge fund he founded after leaving Goldman Sachs. Memoirs of a Minyan, new book by Todd Harrison, who served as head trader and president at the firm, devotes five chapters (out of eighteen) to reflecting on the harrowing experience that was working alongside Jimbo, now that he’s several years removed and is ready to start the healing process.

“He would haphazardly make trades…We’d go from hugging each other to screaming at each other,” Harrison recalls. “It was so intense every day.”
Harrison writes about a memorable Cramer meltdown after one tech-sector buy, on Brocade Communications, resulted in the hedge fund losing a modest amount of money.
Keyboards were being smashed, “keys were flying, spit was flying,” and Cramer was yelling like a madman, said Harrison. Efforts to calm him down only resulted in more aggression, including Cramer accusing Harrison of not caring whether the firm made money, he said.
Fed up, Harrison got up to leave, which prompted Cramer to throw a water bottle at him.

Love them. Hate them. Lob somewhat imaginative insults in the general direction of 85 Broad. Suck on their gold-plated scrots. When it comes down to it, Goldman Sachs could really honestly care less. Sure, they’re not thrilled by this new (or if not new, intensified) trend in which everyone hates their guts, which would explain why the bank has begun allowing basically anyone into the building in an attempt to combat the bad press, the conspiracy theories, and the websites popping up daily claiming to have evidence that Lloyd Blankfein has been trafficking human fetuses created with the sole intent of one day putting grass on that field. They’re not idiots. They do want to at least make a vague effort to show they’re not “oblivious to public opinion,” and, seriously, if you mention the AIG thing one more time, or suggest there was some impropriety there, someone will be dispatched to go circus freak crazy on your ass, but really? So long as no one stands in the way of makin’ it rain? You can say or think whatever you want. Yes, even you, you hooker loving dick.*

The idea that things might just go back to the way they’ve always been on Wall Street is, of course, infuriating to those who had hoped the financial meltdown would be an opportunity for reform. A few days after Goldman reported its second-quarter profits, Eliot Spitzer, a critic of the AIG bailout, tells me: “If all we are getting are newly empowered and capital-rich hedge funds that benefit from market volatility, then we are not only rebuilding the same edifice, but we’re contributing to the underlying rot in our economy.”
In the end, Goldman’s reputation is a luxury they may well be able to do without. Robert Rubin has been privately critical of how the firm has handled the threats to its prestige, and Rogers recently addressed the firm’s reputation in seminars with Goldman staff. But a person who frequently talks to senior executives at Goldman sums up the company’s attitude this way: “If we can push the envelope without D.C. punishing us, we don’t care about our Main Street reputation.” Blankfein in particular is said to be dismissive of the firm’s critics. According to a person close to him, the CEO believes Goldman’s internal problems will disappear once compensation comes back. In other words, money will solve everything.

Is Goldman Sachs Evil? Or Just Too Good? [NYM]
*Goldman’s words, not mine.

Sir Allen is having a little trouble acclimating to his surroundings. Stanford’s attempts to reminisce about how much fun it was to be a billionaire have been interrupted recently by episodes of profuse sweating due to the Texas heat. The knight’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, is outraged that a member of royalty is being treated to the indignity of residing in a cell with 8 to 10 peasants without air conditioning (in addition to other insufferable conditions) and is demanding a room upgrade for his client.

“For part of the time last week, they were in total darkness,” DeGuerin wrote. “The cell has been without air conditioning for at least a week. There are no windows for light or ventilation and the conditions are intolerable.”

It looks like the guy who said,”I’ll die and go to hell if it’s a Ponzi scheme” is getting a sneak preview of what’s to come.

The Catch-22 game of lending in this economic environment is starting to get on the nerves of British Treasury Chief Alistair Darling. With the exception of the Russian solution, most global policymakers remain torn between the two worlds they live in: the one where banks are publicly crucified for reckless and deceptive lending; and the one where banks are publicly crucified for raising lending standards and reducing credit lines. As the British economy continues to contract amid rising unemployment, Darling is not amused by a mysterious phenomenon preying on small and medium size loan applicants.

“I am extremely concerned at what the banks are doing for the small- and medium-sized companies,” Mr. Darling said on BBC television on Sunday. “What companies are being charged does seem to have gone up relative to what banks are actually having to pay because of the fact that we have very low interest rates.”

And with that declaration, the concept of credit risk finally made its way to yet another global financial leader.

That we should offer to buy him a drink so he can tell us off the record how he really feels about the bailouts? This is what he said while (presumably) sober last night during a town hall hosted by Jim Lehrer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Imagine what would slip after we got him sufficiently lathered up? (About the bailouts, that “hayseed” at Bank of America,* and his predecessor, who, post two or three–I can’t decide which– scotches neat or Mai Tais with an umbrella, would be referred to as “that backpack of dicks. He’s not standing right behind me is he? Christ, you scared the piss out me.”):

“I had to hold my nose and stop those firms from failing. I’m as disgusted about it as you are.”

Also: “The Federal Reserve has been putting the pedal to the metal.”
*“I told Hank, fuck the threats, let’s end this guy now. One bullet, boom. Done. He’s going to cause trouble otherwise. And I was right. Beer wench, another round for my friends here.”

$$$ Dow 10,000? [The Atlantic]
$$$ Jim Dolan To Kill The Rockettes? [Cityfile]
$$$ Don’t Mess With Goldman [Reuters]
$$$ Job of the Week: Morgan Stanley needs a VP of mergers and acquisitions. You. [DB Career Center]
$$$ American Psycho Remix, Now With Lydia Hearst Getting Killed [YouTube]