$$$ Australia tries to keep its win streak intact. [WSJ]
$$$ CIT bondholders pass the hat and $6 billion may appear by next week. [Bloomberg]
$$$ Accounting and securities violations at Icelandic banks? Can it be? [Telegraph.go.uk]
$$$ Senior citizen was quite active fleecing people of $200 million. [Bloomberg]
$$$ Job of the Week: Macquarie needs an Equity Research Associate. You. [DBCC]
Archive for October 2nd, 2009
Irving Picard promised Sunday that he would bankrupt Andy and Mark Madoff and he was not kidding! The spawn of Satan, along with their cousin Shana and uncle Peter, have been sued for $199 million. The good news is that they’re not being accused of actually taking part in the Ponzi scheme, but only for being possibly so fucking stupid that they had no idea it was going on right under their noses. I can’t speak for Peter and Shana but in M&A’s defense? They were never there! They literally spent 4 days of every work week on a boat fishing and posing for pictures. (They do strike me as himbos, however, so it’s possible they wouldn’t have caught this thing even if they did have more regular attendance at the office.)
The complaint does not accuse the family members of participating in the Ponzi scheme — indeed, lawyers for all four have repeatedly insisted that their clients had no inkling about the fraud until Mr. Madoff confessed to his sons in December, prompting them to turn him in to the federal authorities.
Rather, the trustee’s complaint describes the relatives as “completely derelict” in carrying out their professional duties at the federally regulated brokerage firm.
Joe Biden’s stimulus goals better lead to a lot more people being hired to make the celebratory signs. The government only has a few months left before the ultimate jobs number fudge factor, the birth/death model adjustment meets its maker in the form of the annual revision by the Labor Department. While each month the government gets to use the honor system for estimating how many new businesses are created, existing ones fail, and the resulting net impact on payrolls, once a year the Labor Department utilizes the prior year’s tax records to produce a more accurate count. Hard as it may be to believe, the government may have painted a slightly better jobs picture than was warranted. Just how far did they overshoot?
When you’re a nation that absolutely nobody else on the planet will give a loan to, the IMF is volunteering to be the one to provide . A day after people threw both questions and shoes at IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, he said that the organization’s new mandate is to be the global lender of last resort.
The international monetary system must be more stable, and anchored by a global lender of last resort,” he said, outlining his vision for the IMF.
So now we’re going to have the IMF there to cushion the world from another near economic meltdown. It’s a simple as that. Problem solved. What could possibly go wrong?
This one didn’t come at the hands of a fellow inmate but everyone on the inside would be wise to stay out of Sir Stan’s way to today, as odds are he is in a mood. One word– and I mean one!– and you’re gonna get punched in the mouth. We knew this was coming but no one could’ve prepared us for what it would feel like to see that Stanford, officially, was not named one of the Forbes 400. The incarcerated Ponzier told ABC in April that what’s been so upsetting to him through this entire ordeal of being accused of fraud is not the going to prison part (it’s actually not that bad), not the dragging of his name through the mud, and not the loss of his investors’ trust. What really chafes– and what brought him to tears at the time and probably still now– is that the actions taken by the SEC “deprived” him of being publicly recognized as one of the richest guys in the world. So what you can do right now, Mary Schapiro, is go to hell. Go to hell and die.
And yet! We are pleased to a whole bunch of our favorite money managers made the cut! Despite many of them taking it up the tailpipe last year, they were able to pull through, which brings us immesurable joy. Hopefully their investors can “big picture” it and see things the same way, particularly those in Kensington and Wellington. It’s not all about you. Just be happy for him. Lastly, we’re told PTJ has decided that this achievement will be the thing that finally gets him to make his fantasy of fucking on a bed of fried chicken* a reality. There’s no other way to properly celebrate. Sign up now.
*Or should it be a handy in the bathroom of the Norwalk KFC (his prefered location)? I couldn’t decide.
While there may be tears of sadness flowing all around the Windy City for being eliminated in the first round of voting for hosting the 2016 Olympics, tears of joy should be shed when thinking about the fiscal crisis that will be avoided courtesy of the IOC. The prospect of running up billions of dollars of debt and passing it on to Chicago taxpayers was so attractive to local politicians that they voted unanimously last month to put residents on the hook for cost overruns. As entertaining as it might be to see whether or not the city can survive a good game of multi-billion debt chicken, being a spectator for once probably won’t hurt. For those that really wanted three weeks of the world’s best in Chi-town in 2016, you can blame it on Rio. For those that didn’t want to pay for it for generations to come, now you know who to thank.
[via NYT]
The $787 billion stimulus program has met 100% of its goals so far- according to Joe Biden. After eclipsing the benchmarks the VP set forth in June, the stimulus juggernaut has been given a new series of hurdles to jump over by the end of Q4.
The new goals include funding for battery manufacturing plants that can power 400,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; starting 34 more construction and modernization projects at veterans hospitals and medical centers; beginning improvements in 105 more national parks; lending and leveraging $5 billion to more than 12,000 small businesses; and providing loans and funding to finance, build, or renovate more than 100,000 housing units.
While you can debate the degree of difficulty in meeting some of these standards, whether it was the stimulus or just divine intervention, based on Biden’s comments this morning,there may be a reason to be genuinely hopeful about the standards the current administration is setting.
The Post makes two bold claims this morning. The first is that John Thain feels vindicated by Ken Lewis’s resignation (which we buy, and would probably say is an understatement) but simultaneously “harbors no ill-will toward Lewis” (really? because that doesn’t jibe with the account we have of Thain smearing on red lipstick and running his finger over KL’s name, which is at the top of his “To Kill List,” nightly since January).
The second, more pressing one, is that Thain supposedly has it in his head that Lewis is going to help him “rehabilitate” his image on Wall Street. Buying this alleged dream of JT’s would of course require proof that Thain came up with the idea towards the end of a night of very heavy drinking, telling a friend “Hey! You know what I should do? I should get that guy who had the genius idea to buy the asbestos company I was running, who probably has a worse reputation than this guy [points to self] at this point, to vouch for me…what’s his name again, Ben?” before falling off his bar stool, but no matter. It’s out there, and it’s probably going to catch KL by surprise.
Just who does Bob Diamond think he is, some overheated junior rainmakers at BarCap would like to know? Salaries for IB first years are apparently being upped to 70k while S&T employees (3 months counts) are remaining at 60k, a “snub” (obviously not my words) they are “none too happy about.” What are they going to do about it?
Perhaps misguidedly, that’s the carrot the casting team for Money Never Sleeps is dangling in order to get extras but whatever. The point is, the thespians among us should give this some serious consideration (we’re told you don’t actually have to be a Fordham student, though you will have to haul your ass to the Bronx). You needn’t be a SAG member and they’re offering “ample breaks” which is clearly the production team giving a a wink-wink go-ahead to break into ShiB’s trailer while he’s practicing his “trader face” and Ping Jiang him.
WANT TO BE IN A MOVIE?
The sequel to Oliver Stone’s WALL STREET is set to film at Fordham University October 10 & 11. It stars Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf who will be present for the shoot days. We are shooting a lecture scene in which we need both grad and undergrad students to play audience members. It is very important that we get a firm commitment from any students and faculty who are interested in participating.
