Channeling his inner Oscar Wilde (and Lee Corso), judge Jed S. Rakoff had a message for BAC and the SEC on that proposed $33 million settlement: not so fast my friend. If the SEC is going to declare victory in the Merill bonus impropriety game, it’s not going to be at the expense of shareholders. Citing the comedy Lady Windermere’s Fan, the judge proved that there are those in the legal system tuned in to the symbiotic relationship forming between bailed out bank and failed regulator and overturned the Merrill bonus settlement.

The judge quoted Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan” in the end of his ruling to say that a cynic is someone “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
The proposed settlement, the judge continued, “suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth.”

If the SEC is going to seal the deal they need to understand the new landscape. Shareholders don’t pay for this sort of impropriety; multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout money does.

It’s now or never time for people deciding between trusting there will be any sort of amnesty as part of the IRS’ tax amnesty program or betting that between system glitches and the ability to flee the country in time, they can avoid the tax man’s reach. Come September 23rd, if you haven’t come forward to atone for your sins, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, warned “all bets are off”. Based on the revelation that 400 people turned themselves in during one week in July, the IRS seems to think they’ve got the upper hand and declared, “They are all terrified”. They should be. Based on regulators’ preference for speedy, low-ball settlements following crimes, the prospect of paying two to three times that amount for coming forward to avoid being charged with one is down right horrifying.

So Vanity Fair asked Matt Robson, that Morgan Stanley intern in London who wrote a memo this summer on texting that got circulated pretty widely, to assemble his own list of the most influential/powerful people in the world, based on the mag’s New Establishment compilation. The wee one’s ranking was a mini version of the real thing, only throwing ten names out instead of 100 but we assumed there’d be some overlap, including but not limited to The Big Kahuna and her competition. Not so! Girlies got burned. Doesn’t young Matthew know who they are?! Is he not familiar with their contributions?! What is the explanation here? These are the shlubbs Robson endorsed. Not really sure in what universe it makes sense that Bernanke would make the cut and Barnett would get overlooked. Has Benji ever blown a high-powered executive aboard a private plane? I submit he has not. (Robes also didn’t think to correct the error VF made in overlooking Steve C on it’s list this year, and he should know it’s been noted at 72 Cummings Point Road.)
1. Barack Obama
2. Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt
3. Ben Bernanke
4. Hu Jintao
5. Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch
6. Steve Jobs
7. Hakimullah Mehsud
8. Mark Zuckerberg
9. Richard Branson
10. Robin Li

His baseballs but if someone doesn’t seriously step up to the place and throw some money his way Nails is about two shakes from street walking. That’s not a threat, just a fact. Unless you want to pull up to a traffic light and be asked if you’re lookin’ for a good time from a guy gargling a Twizzlers and dip cocktail you’ll bid on these collectors items LD is hocking. Commemorative bats? Signed balls? World Championship ring? Putting up a little cash for these babies now will go a long way toward preventing the proposition of having “the Dykstras” on your chin later.
Lenny Dykstra Auction [via BI]

It seems fitting that in the midst of the round-the-clock coverage of the one year anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, the UK is in the midst of deciding whether or not to let one of its institutions fail. As much as lawmakers would like to make an example out of the Caymans and force them to fend for themselves, should the tax haven fail to find a way out of its budgetary abyss, the UK may find itself on the hook for far more than the £25bn its satellites cost the Queen through tax avoidance and evasion.
But it’s not just the Caymans that are cause for concern. As proof that misery loves company, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Gibraltar and the Turks & Caicos are all in one form of trouble or another. By now though you’d figure the lessons from Lehman had been learned and government officials would just bite the bullet and throw out the safety net in the name of overall global stability.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: “Britain obviously has some responsibility towards these small number of territories and that’s clearly right, but we can’t get into an open-ended bailout that would reward financial mismanagement.

Unless the UK plans on following Lehman’s lead and putting its sunnier territories up for bid on eBay, an open-ended bailout seems preferable overall to a close-ended bankruptcy.
Britain ‘may be forced to bail out tax havens’ [Guardian.co.uk]

Perhaps a safe room of some sort? Come on down to Goldman Sachs! Bloomberg guarantees it’s the place you wanna be, in spite of what some pusses (Lloyd) might think. Nothing’s getting in that place, and starting next month Charlie Gasparino will be running drills with the NYPD in which he belays himself down the side of the building in an attempt to make forced entry, just to keep everyone on their toes.

Goldman Sachs’ new Wall Street building is “the safest place you could possibly be,” Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
Bank executives have complained that there won’t be enough anti-terror cops to protect their $2.4 billion, 43-story headquarters on Vesey Street.
Bloomberg said don’t bank on that.
“We believe that the city has provided what we promised to do,” Bloomberg said, alluding to a building incentive the city gave to Goldman Sachs.

Police Eye Mysterious Death Of Financier (WSJ)
PEMGroup founder and Ponzi scheme confessor Danny died over the weekend, with the matter of SEC being all over his ass making people think the whole thing seems slightly shady.
Corner Office: At Goldman Sachs, Blankfein’s Lesson’s Learned In The Crisis (NYT)
We could’ve had a Justice Blankfein on the bench: “Don’t be totally obsessed about getting everything right. In my own experience, I plotted and planned my life when I was getting out of law school to know by what year I’d make it to the Supreme Court.”
Stiglitz Says Bank Problems Bigger Than Pre-Lehman (Bloomberg)
“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview yesterday in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis…It’s an outrage…especially in the U.S. where we poured so much money into the banks…The administration seems very reluctant to do what is necessary. Yes they’ll do something, the question is: Will they do as much as required?”
Banks change CEOs, but will that make them safer? (Reuters)
Brad Hintz called soon-to-be Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman’s lack of experience in investment banking or sales and trading “potentially troubling.” Dick Bové is still psyched.
Spitzer’s Sex Vixen Won’t Stay Down (NYP)
“What I meant by ‘I wish [Eliot] luck’ is that I felt like there was hope in the news that he may be entering politics again,” Dupre said, though she declined to say whether the Luv Gov would get her vote. “If people could forgive him, they could forgive me.” Also, check out her new single!
Lehman Had To Go So Global Finance Could Live (NYT)
Also, according to Joe Nocera, Dick Fuld is still bitter about the whole thing.
Jim Rogers: “When I heard Lehman Brothers was going bankrupt I thought, ‘this is great.’” (CNBC)

$$$ Citigroup is the ‘Bank of the Future‘ [The Deal]
$$$ Mack And Gorman Address The Troops: “Yes, there were tears.” [Dealbook]
$$$ Jamie Dimon: America’s Most Important Banker [Newsweek]
$$$ Value Line sets aside $48 million for SEC deal [MW]
$$$ Job of the week: Morgan Stanley needs an investment bank vice-president. You. [DB Career Center]
$$$ Bernie’s penthouse– on Lex– priced at $9.9 million [NYP]