$$$ UBS Currency Man Drops Bonus to Run Luxury Ski-Maker [Bloomberg]
$$$ Matt Goldstein: AIG filing casts doubt on “limited exposure” claim [Reuters]
$$$ Brian Moynihan Is Super Humanly Immune To Cold [BI]
$$$ Wall Street 3: Money Never Sleeps [TRB]
$$$ The Gorilla Juicehead Economy [NYM]
Archive for January 2010
Earlier this week, thespian-cum-market moving BSD Shia LaBeouf offered a little piece of wisdom re: getting yourself hired at Goldman Sachs. Sayeth ShiLa: “I talked to a lot of Goldman Sachs people, and one of the requirements of getting a job takes place in the first five minutes of an interview. They take you out to eat. The minute the menu hits the table, if you can’t order within 30 seconds, you don’t have the job.” Obviously, this is incredibly helpful information, as there were probably a decent number of you out there who thought you could just take your sweet-ass time making a decision. To that end, we’ve decided to introduce a new feature wherein, whenever it falls into our laps, we’ll offer you a piece of firsthand advice on how to not just get your toe in the door of Lloyd’s Kingdom, but how to get your ass in a permanent seat there, too. As many of you are probably aware, most Goldman applicants are interviewed at least 20 times before they are made an offer and some more than 30. Today we’ve got a bit more color on what you can expect in meeting number 15, via a camera we stashed in a potted plant of a conference room at 85 Broad. In this clip, the candidate is auditioning (that’s what they calls it at GS) for the role of GSAM co-head. Let’s take a look.
It’s getting ugly in Davos. As we wrote previously, everybody is mad at everybody and the booze is missing, which is not helping people’s mood. (Except for Vikram, who, as a commenter noted, looks in the CNBC interview “like he’s sitting in the Zen garden of his dreams.”)
“Both the banks and the regulators think they hold all the cards,” said Harvard Economics Professor Kenneth Rogoff. “The bankers think that when the storm passes nothing will have changed and they can go back to business as usual. Regulators think banks have completely lost the political capital and are ignoring public opinion.”
SheBair is oddly pulling a Geithner, flip flopping around the prop trading ban proposal. Just like her nemesis, she’s adopting a “yeah, it’s a great idea but I don’t know” attitude toward Obama’s proposal.
At Wednesday’s AIG hearing, Congressman McHenry asked Timmy G. how he could back the Volcker Rule while having said that he was opposing a Glass-Steagall return, screaming at him: “How do you reconcile those two beliefs? They are direct opposites”
What’s this joyous news you hear? I’ll tell you what– Lenny Dykstra’s house is back on the market! It’s the same one– Wayne Gretzky’s old place– that Nails tried to sell back in June 2008 for $24,950,000, hoping for a 33% return (LD bought the Thousand Oaks manse for $18.5 million on in August 2007), only this time, it comes with so much more. Like dog feces. Piss on the walls. Empty beer bottles. Trash. Other “unmentionables.”
And back at the let’s break-the-banks-or-not Davos game–today: Stiglitz gives his two cents. The Nobel Prize laureate, on team Roub-WB, is calling for more regulation.
“When they win they walk off with the profits, when they lose the taxpayer pays,” he pointed out. “We really need to go more directly at these issues like incentives.”
In chronicling the ‘unholy alliance among Big Business, Big Banking, and Big Government,’ which has brought this country to its knees, a sober voice is required to uncover and distill the backdoor deals, the smoke and mirrors, and the ultimate tragedy found within. That voice belongs to Charlie Gasparino. Which is why it is with great pleasure that we inform you that, due to the runaway success of When Mooks Fail, the Oracle of Rego Park has scored his latest book deal (with an advance that is said to be ‘significant,’ i.e. it’ll cover i.e. it will more than cover several week’s worth of martinis at Tropix, the author’s favorite little neighborhood joint, where they have a lax policy on underage drinking). Gasparino’s upcoming contribution to literature and understanding was sold under the name Bought And Paid For, but we have it on good authority that’s just a working title. That’s where you come in. Chaz has requested we help come up with something better, that truly captures the sentiment of the tome. Early proposals:
“The tone against them is so difficult that they may lack the confidence to just start doing their normal function.”
Nouriel Roubini is not happy with his Dr. Doom nickname anymore. It’s getting old, it’s not funny anymore and it just plain sucks. He doesn’t want to go down in history with such a horrible moniker, and what with his glam life and vagina walls- it just doesn’t match.
Whenever I need advice on something, I like to go to an expert in the field. Protein shakes: Charlie Gasparino, ritual sacrifice: Lloyd Blankfein, foreign objects in ass: Ping Jiang, you get the idea. To that end, the last time I needed some real talk on love, I opened up my Rolodex and flipped through to ‘H’ for Hooker Fucker, Noted. I called up Eliot Spitzer and he gave it to me straight. I knew what his answer was going to be but I just need to hear him say it: “Love is steamrolling your opponents when they least expect it, which is to say, love is anal sex without a condom.” So I sort of surprised that, when the question was posed at him again by The Big Think, his answer was an insanely awkward and rambling “It’s one of these feelings that you sense when you meet somebody and there is a response that is different and is unique and is palpable. And it then changes over time…it becomes almost a dependence. And a sense of knowing somebody so well that you have merged as personalities, and know each other’s thoughts and there’s a comfort that is there, which is part of it, and equally important.” But, whatever! Maybe his first answer was what he told me, and then was pressed to elaborate.
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker -
You know what they say: You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your financial planner. Or something like that. One of the great things of being in charge of your money is choosing who (if anyone) will help you manage it. The choice isn’t always an easy one. How will you know that your planner is reputable and trustworthy?
These five red flags may be good indications of whether the financial planner sitting across from you is someone you should trust with your money. LearnVest Planning also provides an innovative 7-step program for your money where you work one-on-one with a financial planner. To see if this program is right for you, start with a free financial consultation.
1. She Isn’t Certified
“There are a lot of good planners out there who aren’t Certified Financial Panners™,” says Samantha Vient, CFP®, of LearnVest Planning Services. “However, CFPs® are required to adhere to the CFP® Board’s standards of professional conduct.We believe it’s always a good idea to work with someone who has the CFP® designation, which is issued after completing a CFP® Board-approved personal financial planning curriculum, passing a rigorous exam issued by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, meeting experience requirements and passing an ethics and background check.
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Sponsored Content
SoFi Answers the Call to Refinance Student Loans and Provides Unique Community Benefits
This is a guest post written by SoFi’s CEO, Mike Cagney.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk amongst leaders in Washington about how to improve the painful process of repaying student loans. At SoFi, we feel your pain and work hard to offer more flexible, more affordable options for our borrowers. One idea that’s getting a lot of attention is increasing the options for refinancing debt after graduation. The only lender currently focused on refinancing private and federal student loans is SoFi.
We recognized early on that borrowers who have made timely payments on their loans, graduated from school, and have a job should be able to refinance their student loans at a lower interest rate. This may be why, after resuming lending by invitation, the media became increasingly interested in what we are doing.
In a recent article posted on MainStreet.com SoFi General Counsel Rob Lavet had this to say about SoFi’s ReFi products: Read more »
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