It would be difficult to make the case that, over the last decade or so, financial institutions haven’t begun to resemble the sovereigns that purport to regulate them. Certainly, with the news that the spying scandal brewing at Deutsche Bank is wider than initially realized, it becomes more and more obvious that global financial institutions have begun, also, to act like sovereigns, particularly with respect to the creation and use of intelligence services. For what it’s worth, 2008 revenues at Goldman outpace the Gross National Product (much less the tax receipts) of Panama, Estonia and Iceland- and the odd alien visitor could be forgiven for thinking that this latter had outsourced its central bank function to any of three global banks. (Take your pick).
Sovereigns are playing right along, sending their agents to penetrate and gather intelligence on Swiss banks (Germany, we are looking at you) as if they were the Abwehr, and though it might look like the United States has concluded swaps with Schweizerische Nationalbank, those transactions might as well be directly with UBS and Credit Suisse. And who would argue that the United States Department of State is really negotiating primarily with the Swiss Government, rather than UBS, on the issue of naming U.S. depositors? Of course, the result here (no fine for You and Us) reminds one of treaty negotiations more than a regulatory probe. But, then, when two or three big banks have the power to make (or break) the country’s economy, what’s the difference?
Bank Scandal Widens [The Wall Street Journal]
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- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
Awesome. I am excited for a fun filled week of too much text and too little pictures.
Yawn.
I don’t like this – the only female writer i respect for content is “Marla
Singer” from that other site, she is awesome
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
If you were offered a position at Credit Suisse would you take it?
@1: Here’s some pictures for ya. Hope you brought your crayons with you today. Your Mom told me you forgot your milk & cookies at home so she’ll bring them to ya with your blankie so you can catch a nap after lunch.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&q=disney+coloring&revid=100819106&ei=BOh2StzFLcmzsgaHhK39BA&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=2&start=0&safe=active
@5
No.I would though take a short position on CS.
I wish bess was here.
wtf was that…
Where’s the cleav? I was told there would be cleav.
Never thought I’d say this but….I would’ve preferred a GM post…he’s really stepped up to the plate with his recent boobage and what not.
EP, welcome back, you were missed.
@10 – here’s something to help out. Not great, but the best I could do on short notice.
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/443120
EP, good post. Mix wwtdd.com with your style and we have a winner.
EP- Welcome back. I, for one, missed your particular brand of eloquent paranoia. After months of waiting, I can dust off my tin foil hat and pick up where we left off.
EP is BACK. IN. THE. GAME.
1,2,4,
Go back to your game of beirut and homoerotic desires to see just how far drinking games can go in bringing you and your buddies closer. Mostly, get fucked.
http://aspotofblogger.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/slipnslide.jpg
I once knew of this person they call EP – could it be the SAME one?
“I can dust off my tin foil hat and pick up where we left off.”
They replaced tin with aluminum long ago.
Meh. The state maintains a monopoly on force, not espionage. Welcome back.
What is EP?
EP – don’t tell 15 that… now he’s going to spend the balance of his day looking for tin foil on eBay out of fear that the governement has figured out how to send messages through the aluminum (which is why the change).
@ EP, 21 and 15.
Who are you kidding.
You need Lead nowadays.
Tax Chick: You mean you didn’t keep a stash of the REAL stuff?
@15/@18, you really need 3M Velostat to be effective. For full instructions see the following site:
http://www.stopabductions.com
EP – I do. But the fewer people who know where to get it, the better.
@1- too few** pictures
@26: I don’t think you one draw that conclusion conclusively. NS could be referring to a week of “too-little” pictures if he prefers large ones; or “two little” pictures.
On obvi conclusion, howevs, is that NakedShort is a dumbass.
Just sayin’
@27 last sentence = Fact
@ 8- We all do. Greg’s posts are boring. Too many words and no pictures/humor