Julian Roberston: It’s almost Armageddon if the Japanese and Chinese don’t buy our debt. I don’t know where we could get the money. I think we’ve let ourselves get in a terrible situation and I think we ought to try and get out of it.
Erin Burnett: Ok, Mr. Roberston, but let’s say we don’t get out of it and it actually is Armageddon. What’s it gonna be like around here?
JR: 200 degrees in the sunlight, minus 200 in the shade, canyons of razor-sharp rock, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions, things like that.
EB: Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That’s all you gotta say, scariest environment imaginable.
Archive for September 2009
The ‘Dick Fuld owes me’ line runs over 16,000 deep and seeks over $1 trillion for the wide range of inconveniences experienced resulting from Lehman’s rendering of Titanic last September. It started out with Joseph Gregory showing up looking for a quarter of a billion in deferred comp. Now Lehman alumnus and New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek is coming forward with his tale of horror and hardship whereby the firm is about $60 million light on his 2004 separation agreement.
Clearly time does not heal all wounds when it comes to former Lehman executives going after their old employer. If everybody from the Giants to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to the guys who helped Lehman make it the success it is today wants a piece of the carcass, there’s virtually nobody left other than the firm itself without a pending claim.
Administrators representing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s main European unit have made the first of several claims they plan to make against the U.S. parent company that are expected to total about $150 billion.
WSJ: European Lehman Administrators To Claim $150B Vs US Parent [WSJ]
One half of this hedge fund couple has been named the 19th most powerful woman in finance (making the list for the third year in a row). And the other is still on track to meet the $1 billion dollars in redemptions he had last year, so that’s exciting, too!
White House economist Austan Goolsbee is calling for a little decorum from AIG CEO Bobby Benmosche after the wine aficionado’s less than complementary remarks about the people in Washington who removed the company from death row last year. While a simple ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds’ warning probably would have been sufficient, when you refer to the folks in DC as “crazies”, a more detailed dressing down is in order.
“I don’t know what the new CEO [Robert Benmosche] is referring to when he’s saying the government people are ‘crazies,’ but I would just caution them not to be too cheeky because, the government ‑‑ the American people saved the day and they didn’t do it because they liked AIG or they thought they were really great guys who deserve hundreds of billions of dollars,” Goolsbee said in the interview, posted online today.
“I mean, they did it to prevent the economy from melting down, and I think people ought to be a little more circumspect in their pronouncements about the government,” Goolsbee said.
Your reply Mr. Benmosche? In as much detail as possible please.
Ugh, Goldman. This probably seems silly to those of you who don’t work there, but it’s really hard being a Master of the Universe sometimes. Particularly on payday and especially when you know the ridiculous success of the last few quarters is going to mean ka-ching! on your face. Sure, it should be a cause for celebration but because certain jerkoff writers– no names necessary: Tatt Maibbi– have turned the public against you, what with his anecdotal evidence of sucking people’s blood (one time!), you can’t do anything that might draw attention to the jingle jangle of coinage in your pants. You can’t even dance. And when you can’t do that, is there even a point to this thing?
Goldman’s bonus pool is expected to swell to an estimated $16 billion after what’s expected to be another stellar quarter, and Blankfein is struggling to figure out how to pay his employees in a way that keeps them happy while avoiding another round of populist and political outrage like the bank experienced over the summer.
And while a typical CEO would be cheering such news, for Blankfein another gold-plated quarter represents a huge headache, as the firm’s success has been greeted with intense scorn on both Wall Street and Main Street.
Swiss private banks will probably observe a moment of silence today as the government rushes to sign the final tax treaty separating the country from removal from the OECD’s grey list. With the battle for airtight secrecy lost, Konrad Hummler, managing partner at the oldest private bank in Switzerland, Wegelin & Co, signaled the war is far from over. With the pay-to-play withholding tax proposal from the Swiss Bankers Association gaining momentum, the next phase of the struggle may be determined by testing the degree to which European governments are willing to walk the walk.
“Do they want to see cash, or are they ideologists who just want to be right?” he said. “Looking at their treasuries, I have the feeling that the cash argument is a good one.”
Given Europe’s penchant for royalty, there’s a pretty good chance cash is still king.
Swiss Secrecy Onslaught May ‘Criminalize’ Elites, Hummler Says [Bloomberg]
Credit Suisse Bankers Poised For Pay-Out (FT)
About 300 employs could split an estimated $1.85 billion in March for promising not to leave the Swiss bank five years ago. Alternatively, they could get nothing, which is probably less exciting.
Ex-AIG Chief Greenberg Asks Court to Dismiss 2005 Spitzer Suit (Bloomberg)
Hank is somehow under the impression Spitzer used the case to promote his career: “At that time, Spitzer was planning to run for governor of the state of New York, and he has since admitted that his high- profile pursuit of Greenberg achieved its intended objective of enhancing his reputation as he pursued higher office,” Gravante wrote in the filing. “AIG was, at the time, one of the world’s most successful companies and Greenberg was the one of the world’s most successful business leaders.”
Insider Charged In Perot Deal (WSJ)
The SEC filed a civil lawsuit against Reza Saleh, an employee of Parkcentral Capital Management LP in Plano, Texas, and accused him of making $8.6 million in profit from trading stock options on Perot Systems ahead of Dell’s announcement Monday that it was buying the technology services firm.
Adair Turner, Top British Regulator, Takes On Banks (NYT)
Banks “need to be willing, like the regulator, to recognize that there are some profitable activities so unlikely to have a social benefit, direct or indirect, that they should voluntarily walk away from them,” Mr. Turner told the group of City financiers.
Swiss Secrecy Onslaught May ‘Criminalize’ Elites, Hummler Says (Bloomberg)
“If there is really a desire to criminalize part of the elite in European countries, then it would be a bigger problem for these countries than for Switzerland,” Konrad Hummler said in an interview at the offices of Wegelin & Co. in Zurich. The “majority of European clients were not criminals but just diversifying away from their home country.”
Hedge Funds Still Aren’t Reducing Their Fees (WSJ)
Everyone can now breathe easy.
$$$ The Most Powerful Women In Banking [AB]
$$$ Bank of America shareholder says Ken Lewis should resign [The Deal]
$$$ Move to Greenwich [WSJ]
$$$ The John Thain office chronicles are still going on [BI]
$$$ Hassan Nemazee Pleads Not Guilty in Style [Daily Intel]
$$$ Experts’ Perspectives on Systemic Risk and Resolution Issues, With Barney Frank, Starring John Cochrane, AQR Capital Management Professor of Finance [House]
Ralph Cioffi is starting to play with fire. While he’s currently walking around a free man, Federal prosecutors want a judge to reconsider the terms of his bail after RC decided to make a quick trip down to Florida to pick up the originals of some documents the government was already after in connection with a Sarasota condo fiasco.
With his freedom in potential jeopardy, and having close ties to south Florida, Ralph might just make a run for it from the Sunshine State. But he needs to do it the right way. Faking his own death or hopping the next plane to anywhere without a US extradition treaty have been done before. He needs something unique, something truly him. Maybe a boat. There are undoubtedly hundreds of people in that part of the state burned by one Ponzier or another looking for some cash from selling their yacht. But it has to be the right one. It has to be a yacht worthy of a guy looking to make up for losing two Ferraris. Where is he going to find a former master of the universe trying to get rid of his prized marine possession?
The hideous eyesore you see above isn’t just a bed, it’s a sleeping experience. It’s called the “Sphere” and it will run you about $50,000. I know, sounds kind of steep to pay for a mattress that doesn’t spontaneously blow you the moment you get in but guess what, this baby also comes bunch of other shit you probably already own, like an iPod dock and flat screen TV, and having it all in the bed will make you feel like a man (as will the cooler for drinks and the sweat-wicking system). The Journal reports manufacturers are hoping there’s a market out there for guys looking to throw down a bunch of money for sleep stations like the Sphere, which are centered around the idea of “macho mattresses” containing “muscle-recovery properties” and cooling technology (based on the theory that men are more likely to feel hot in bed than women) and then fully-loaded with special add-ons like a safe to hold your gun and other manly stuff. To that end, there’s this:
Luxury auto brand Lamborghini, which is owned by Volkswagen AG, has teamed up with Italian mattress maker Magniflex SpA to design a mattress aimed at men who love sports cars.
God, is there anything that makes you feel more like a man than laying down at night and dreaming about (sucking) tailpipe? One thing I’m troubled by is that the “Lamborghini bed” is really just this:
