John Mack said last night at panel discussion hosted by Bloomberg News and Vanity Fair that as an (outgoing) chief executive of a major bank, he welcomes, nay, begs for increased regulation by the Fed. He illustrated this need with a little story about how during the credit boom, he almost did a deal at 8 times leverage, and then someone else came in and did it at 10. And you know what that showed Mack? That “We cannot control ourselves. You have to step in and control the Street.” So there it is, the bottom line. We will not stop until you pry the crack pipe from our dead lifeless fingers. If you thought that time we got picked up by the cops for freebasing smack off a homeless man’s dick in a back alley was a wake-up call, you thought wrong.
Archive for November 2009
Is Wall Street Comprised Of A Bunch Of Crackwhores Who Can’t Help Themselves, Crying Out For Help? John Mack Says Yes
By Bess LevinDeutsche Bank moved a step closer towards buying parts of ABN Amro, while the Dutch government moved a step closer (albeit an expensive one) to ridding itself of the state-owned bank and a former Deutsche Bank CEO moved a step closer to jail on a busy Thursday for west European banking.
The Germans have agreed to pay €700 million to buy what it wants from its ill-fated western neighbor, as well as assume €950 million in financial guarantees. ABN Amro, which the Dutch government plans to merge with Fortis Bank, gets stuck with potential credit losses of €1.6 billion.
The deal–which Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos says is a foregone conclusion, despite the need for parliamentary approval–is expected to close next year. And while Deutsche Bank apparently didn’t need any help to make it happen, the same cannot be said of ABN Amro.
Ken Griffin, Who Hasn’t Had One Of His Favorite Milkshakes In Almost A Year, Does Not Want To Discuss ’08
By Bess Levin
But he’s trying to raise new money and every single time he sits down with a potential source of cashola, or tries to convince an existing one to stick it out, last year is all they want to talk about. While it’s unclear to us as to why Griffin doesn’t just put his foot down and preempt all discussions by saying questions about 2008 are categorically off the table and that if anyone in the room so much as thinks the words “fifty-five percent loss” or “ass bleeding” or “maday!” he is gone, we respect the guy’s desire to be seen as flexible, for the time being. Still, we understand how sensitive the subject of ast-lay ear-yay is with KG and so that he doesn’t have to suffer through anymore PTSD flashbacks, we’ve decided to put together a little primer/pitch for anyone considering throwing some bills his way. The year that came before ’09 will be touched on, so when you actually sit down with Kenny-b, there’ll be no need to bring it up. Got it? Let’s do this.
Most of you probably want to hear a little reflection on what we could have done differently. What our biggest mistake was so we don’t make it again, and lose a few billion of your money. Was it too much leverage? Too much hubris? Too much time spent away from the desk on photo-shoots? None of the above.
Citadel’s biggest mistake last year, Mr. Griffin said, was putting too much faith in regulators’ ability to deal with the global meltdown.
Now let’s talk sacrifices. Major, huge-ass sacrifices have been made in Chicago in an effort to turn things around. Whether or not they have to do with the firm’s bottom line so much as Ken’s newly taut one is not the point.
He occasionally dispatches his driver on a 200-mile round trip to fetch milkshakes from LeDuc’s Frozen Custard in Wales, Wis., near where Mr. Griffin grew up. The folks at LeDuc’s refer to the financier as “the man of a thousand shakes,” based on a birthday order in 2004 that was so big, it got shipped to Chicago in a truck. But Mr. Griffin’s driver “hasn’t been around in maybe six months or a year,” says Jim Shackton, owner of LeDuc’s, whose staff in past years came to recognize him when he’d pull up to the little pitched-roof custard shop in a silver Mercedes sedan. (“Nice car,” Mr. Shackton says.)
$$$ Heineken Chief Executive Officer Jean-Francois van Boxmeer told investors this month the decade he spent in Africa was “certainly worth three times Harvard Business School.” [Bloomberg]
$$$ The SEC’s latest badge of honor [GC]
$$$ Economy 2010: How Dick Bove Sees It [The Deal]
$$$ Should you kiss your boss’s ass? (Some people would probably say yes.)
$$$ Singed in stock sale, investors chastise Chase [Chicago Business]
What a day for Ken Lewis & Co.! First, one of the savviest hedge fund managers out there gives BofA a big thumbs up (take that, Steve Cohen and Jim Simons). Next, someone we’ve actually heard of kinda sorta suggested he might take the Worst Job on Wall Street (BofA is, after all, a public company).
Now, the very ratings agency that kneecapped UBS earlier today said it is not quite as pessimistic about BofA.
Moody’s Investors Service said that Bank of America doesn’t suck quite as much as some people may have suggested, upgrading the outlook on its financial strength regulation. Sure, it upgraded it from the ominous-sounding D to the not-exactly-confidence-inspiring C-minus, but that’s better than D, right?
Charlie Gasparino called Lloyd Blankfein a “twerp with half a nut” the other night and if you thought that was just CG being affectionate, you thought wrong. Chaz is sick of “this guy.” He’s sick of his charitable contributions, he’s sick of him running his mouth, he’s sick of the look on his face. It used to be the when Wall Street execs got under his skin Charlie would simply stick them in the trunk of a Buick, case closed, no questions asked. But because he has a book to promote, CG no longer has time for that kind of thing and so he’s come up with an alternative.
I put his mea culpa and this charity thing in the same category…For all these reasons I am recommending two things: Mr. Oracle should use his considerable clout to release taxpayers from their Goldman Sachs subsidy and make the firm a hedge fund or something different than a government protected “bank.” Second, I think it’s about time for Lloyd Blankfein to step down and resign as CEO of Goldman, and really start doing God’s work by sparing the rest of us the stupidity of listening to his excuses.
John Mack, you and your cannoli are still good in Chaz’s book.
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.So Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Backwoods, Pa.) has unveiled his homage to the Morgenthau Plan. His proposed amendment to the financial regulation reform package offers a simple solution to the “too big to fail” phenomenon: Stamp it out.
If Kanjorski gets his way, the government would be empowered to split up firms that are “too big to fail” even if they are in no danger of failing, as well as the power to keep firms that aspire to be “too big to fail” in their place, blocking mergers and keeping them from all of those highly-profitable enterprises that present a systemic risk.
Kanjorski, who last week announced his crusade against financial services firms with designs on “taking over the world,” offered a fun new metaphor to justify his genocidal intentions.
“Financial firms that want to play in a casino need to have their own resources to cover their bets and not assume that tax dollars are available in reserve if their bets fail,” he said.
Top finance officials from the G7 countries will meet in the remote Arctic town of Iqaluit, Canada’s northernmost territorial capital, on Feb 5-6 but may not issue a communique, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Wednesday.
“The February meeting will return to the G7′s roots with a more frank and focused dialogue,” Flaherty said in a statement. “In an ever-changing global economy, the G7 will continue to evolve, with a focus not on paper but on people — not on communiques and accords, but on constructive dialogue on actions to strengthen the global economy.”
Jamie Dimon would probably make a great cop because he’s a badass who doesn’t take shit or prisoners from anyone. Ken Lewis obviously how to administer a sobriety test on a possibly drunk driver. Despite protests the contrary, Jimmy Cayne knows his way around a nightstick. Dick Fuld has spent the last year showing up to industry parties attempting to make citizen’s arrests. And I can see Vikram Pandit patrolling the streets on horseback. But riddle me this– in the event a stranger came up to you on the street and tried to slit your throat with a razor blade, would you take comfort in knowing the colleague to your left or right, the one flirting with the Bloomberg help desk guy or sucking ass at Hearts was the police officer on duty? I certainly hope so ’cause guess what kids? The ex-Wall Streeters who aren’t getting into the transportation service business or doing the street meat thing are becoming cops.
A year and a half ago, Henry Chung was an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch, monitoring billions of dollars the firm traded on a daily basis. Last week, he found himself, in his capacity as a patrol officer in Jackson Heights, Queens, chasing after a man who had slashed another man’s neck with a razor blade. He grabbed the man from behind, pushed him up against a wall and handcuffed him.
“It’s a little different than looking at a computer monitor trying to figure out why there’s a million bucks missing in the firm’s accounts,” Officer Chung, 34, said in a telephone interview.
[via BusinessInsider]
No? Then don’t skip to 9:30 of this clip, where he slips it in that in “1978 or ’79″ he and his wife took a trip down under and “came back with another child we hadn’t hadn’t expected to have made in New Zealand.”
