$$$ Life Lessons From Donald Trump [Daily Intel]
$$$ Gagosian Art Store Debuts, Displays Damien Hirst-Signed Memorabilia, Richard Prince Nurse Hat Chair [WSJ]
$$$ Movie Derivatives [BI]
$$$ Leaner Times at Harvard: No Cookies [NYT]
Archive for October 8th, 2009
Jim Simons announced to employees today that he will retire from his role as CEO of Renaissance Technologies, a person familiar with firm has confirmed to Dealbreaker. Current co-presidents Peter Brown and Robert Mercer will be named co-CEO’s as of January 1, 2010 (Simons will remain non-executive chairman). Simons will remain the largest shareholder at the fund and will keep “sizable investments in RIEF and RIFF.”
Chris Dodd may be onto something. At some point, the gravy train has got to end. While his comments regarding too-big-to-fail were likely said with a financial product factory in mind, given who was saved over the past year and who wasn’t, it’s not just banks that should take notice.
I really would like to have the emphasis be that if you mess up, you’re done. We’re not going to provide that kind of perpetual guarantee that allows you to continue in existence. That ‘too-big-to-fail’ notion has to end,” he said.
Yes, Senator. You’re on the right track here. This sounds great, almost like the reemergence of that “anti-Jesus” economic system. But we need a test case to make sure you’re serious. Let’s see if we can find one.
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Method Man Issues Warning To Would-Be Tax Evaders: Uncle Sam Pimp Slapped Me
By Greg MichaelsDon’t simply take the government’s word about coming after tax evaders. Take it from somebody who knows first hand. The IRS is out to collect, Wu-Tang Clan member or not.
[SOHH.com]
It’s not just the Beard who can fall victim to a scheme designed to take his identity out for a test drive and then crash the car. Fraud almost victimized the longest arm of the law, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller. You’d figure it would take a pretty elaborate plan to fool the head honcho of the federal crimefighting unit. These guys can smell something rotten from a mile away. You don’t just stand there and ask them to fork over their social security number and PIN number and expect any chance of success. Or do you?
As impressive as the dollar’s recent ability to master the limbo is, Asian central banks have seen enough. In the race to see which side of the Pacific can tanks its currency enough to spur exports to anybody willing to buy them, the US was making alarming progress for the likes of South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand, each a proud new owner of at least several hundred million greenbacks. Not that basement level interest rates in the US weren’t enough of a problem for Asian export economies before, but now they’re fighting the uphill battle of the rate hikes and job growth recently seen in Australia potentially spreading like a plague throughout the region. So, in the end, Timmy G was correct. There is a real commitment to a strong dollar. It’s just coming 10,000 miles from DC.
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Is There Something Wrong With The Fact That Tim Geithner Talks To Blankfein, Dimon and Pandit All The Time And Rarely Checks In With Mack or Lewis?
By Bess Levin
The AP, which obtained the Treasury Secretary’s phone records under the FOIA says no, “there is nothing inherently wrong” with it but one does get sense the newswire thinks it’s dirty. Which seems kind of silly, since there’s a perfectly logical explanation for why T. Geith had “at least 80 contacts” with the former group of CEOs in his first seven months on the job and only three apiece with the other two. Lloyd is TG’s future boss who he’s gotta keep happy. Jamie Dimon is a hot piece of ass whose name is good to drop in meetings with the President (“Oh yeah I was just talkin to Jamie earlier, we talk all the time”), and Pandito is TG’s problem child who he’s trying to keep out of reform school (“You fuck anything up lately? Okay good, talk later. I rue the day I believed her mother when she said she was on the pill.”). As for Lewis, let’s get real for two– how often do you want to talk to the guy who mostly just breathes deeply into the phone and needs to be reminded constantly who he’s speaking with? With regard to Mack– I think we all know what the deal is there (nobody tells this Treasury Secretary to go fuck himself! Or everyone does! It’s one or the other). This, however, we cannot explain:
Given last year’s results, there is at least a chance that Bank of America’s risk management policies are undergoing a bit of an overhaul these days. There were clearly a variety of areas in which standards were either too lax or too ambiguous. However, there was at least one thing BAC was adamant and crystal clear about preventing: the reckless, unauthorized display of flags on bank property. The woman responsible for removing American flags that were part of a funeral procession for a Marine from the grounds of a BofA branch wants the world to know that where there is law at the bank, employees follow it to the letter.
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Sallie Krawcheck’s Imaginary Bid For Ken Lewis’s Job Gets Endorsement
By Bess Levin
Earlier this week, the Post announced Sallie Krawcheck’s intent to be named Bank of America CEO, based on the statement she made to CNBC that she’s “fully engaged” in her gig as head of wealth management. SK has yet to come out and admit “you got me,” and Charlie Gasparino has already thrown in his two cents to say that “this broad” would be a terrible choice for the job, but fuck that noise, the Post is going full speed ahead on this one. Krawcheck wants this thing, bad. You might as well be blind if you can’t see that. Today they claim that the Kraw’s “campaign” for Bank of America’s top job “may have gotten a big boost.”
