Or was it the other way around? Gawker reports that Baldwin told his agent to set up a meeting with MCC, after admiring her on TV. Apparently a phone conversation resulted, during which Michelle’s right-wing politics were made obvious to Baldy (which John Carney points out would have only come as a shock to AB if he were watching CNBC on mute, as Michelle is quite vocal about her politics). The noted liberal was apparently turned off, and nothing happened after that.
Archive for January 2010
Did Alec Baldwin Turn Down Michelle C-C After Showing Interest In The Caruso-Cabreras?
By Bess Levin
As you may have noticed over the last year or so, Charlie Gasparino is no fan of anonymous bloggers. Usually he’s content to let them live in their holes, like bums, but they step into his den, they step too far. Take this fellow Dear John Thain, for instance. He recently wrote a piece for the Huffington Post about Goldman Sachs. In it, he takes issue with Chaz’s assertion that “Goldman benefits from a subsidy from the government because of its status now as a bank.” I’m not going to get into DJT’s other points, or Gaspo’s lengthy rebuttal. Neither much matter because in doing so, according to Gaspo, we make ourselves pawns in their sick games. That’s right my friends: Charlie Gasparino is positing that Dear John Thain and, really, anything positive written under a pseudonym, re: the Vampire Squid, is coming from the inside, as part of Goldman’s new offensive. He judiciously offers that perhaps DJT is just some random pissant but that’s just for show. This guy, and everyone else so much as hinting that GS does not in fact traffic human fetuses created with the sole intent of one day putting grass on that field is, in actuality, a Goldman employee. Sayeth CG:
This may be something you don’t want to hear but needs to be said: god bless Eliot Spitzer. Yes, the disgraced former governor has no power of any kind anymore, or the ability to persecute Wall Streets wrongdoers (the thing he used to get off most on, even more so than illicit tail). That much is obvious. He’s got every reason to hide under the covers or, on good days, make it to the couch and tuck in for a full day of trashy programming and yelling at whoever’s appearing on Maury. And nobody would begrudge him for feeling bad for himself, because wouldn’t you, if you’d fallen so far? And yet. He will not give you the satisfaction of seeing his tears, or how much this is killing him. That’s right– the noted hooker fucker is not only putting on his black socks, but his brave face too. Because who needs the governorship, or a bid for the presidency, when you’ve got not only a gig with Slate, but sassy quips as well?
THE making of New Year’s resolutions is, at once, the most optimistic and cynical of acts. The vow to change posits a continuing faith in human improvement (“I’ll lose 30 pounds this year”), but the format, a checkable mental list, is so tyrannical and skeptical of success that it often leads to failure (“Yeah, well, maybe 20.”) [...] So we asked some prominent New Yorkers to muse aloud not on their own ambitions for the year ahead but on our collective objectives. What might knit New York together in 2010? What should be its goals, its boundaries, its promises to improve, and change, and grow?
CNBC can have its Aggressive Amounts of Cleave. Bloomberg is a classy organization, and as such, they’ll win this war using less obvious strategy. Outlines of nipples.
The Extremely Responsible Government Of Dubai Would Like To Remind You That The Empire State Building Opened During The Great Depression
By John Shazar
Not compensating for anythingHow’s this for bad timing?
The world’s tallest building is set to be opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai.
More than 800m (2,625ft) high and clad in 26,000 glass panels, Burj Dubai has 160 floors and more than 500,000 sq m of space for offices and apartments.
Some 90% of this ridiculously tall building’s units have been sold, or so they say. They also thought that Dubai ought to be–and could be–a financial center on par with New York and London. So take it with a few hundred trillion grains of sand.
I’m totally kidding? Just busting your hump? Who am I to know? But getting serious for two, Patricia Cohen has indeed fired her lawyer, Paul Batista, a prominent RICO attorney, and hired Gaytri Kachroo, who is not a litigator. Apparently Pat didn’t think her case was getting “the attention it required,” presumably as it related to man hours on her counsel’s part, and not spotlight in the media. SAC spokesman Jonathan Gasthalter is not fooled by the diversion, saying in a statement:
How lucky that the recovery from the U.S.’s worst economic crisis in 70 years happens to coincide with the country’s oldest economic stimulus policy: The decennial, Constitutionally-mandated Census, which begins today.
But said Census will not only tell us how many more annoying neighbors we have today as compared to 10 years ago. It will also do more than give us an idea of just how empty some of those lovely homes built over the last 20 years in certain Florida towns have become. It also means (bad) jobs for hundreds of thousands, almost 50,000 in Wisconsin alone. And 8,000 in Minnesota. 1,000 in southern Ohio. And 1,200 in Covington, Ky.
I’ll admit it. I never, ever thought it would happen. Neither did Dive Bové. But the Ken Lewis Era at America’s biggest, if not best, bank is now truly over. You won’t have KL to kick around anymore.
To celebrate the hand-off of power from Tim Geithner to some Irish guy, said Irish guy is everywhere in North Carolina today, in an apparent effort to reassure Tar Heelers that he still loves them. As you’ve seen, the newly-minted Ohio-born CEO spoke to the North Carolina Banker’s Association this morning. The New Englander-by-choice got an op-ed piece in Charlotte’s very own Observer, offering a variety of platitudes about how he’ll make the bank better but without any promises for the Queen City itself.
Lax Oversight Caused Crisis, Bernanke Says (NYT)
The Beard has some thoughts on what went wrong: “Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders’ risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates,” Mr. Bernanke said in remarks to the American Economic Association.
Goldman Sachs teams could quit the City over taxes and regulations (Telegraph)
Goldman has asked an internal team to “examine various strategies [to deal with the 50% tax], including whole divisions being uprooted and taken offshore. The review, which is in its very early stages, could also recommend making no changes to the status quo. The review is a blow to government efforts to sustain the Square Mile as a global financial centre.”
U.S. considering lesser term for UBS whistleblower (Reuters)
Provided Bradley Birkenfeld has more former colleagues to turn over which he probably does, given that you can’t even get your foot in the door without having a high level of expertise in the art of tax dodging.
Small Fund, Big $ (NYP)
Some hedge fund in Hoboken was up 132 percent in 2009. And its founder thinks incentives are “very messed up.” Noted.
Whitman to Relinquish Third Avenue Post (WSJ)
Martin J. Whitman will step down as co-chief investment officer (and stay on as co-manager of the flagship fund).
Elin Is Talking $300 Million (NYP)
“When she boasted of the $300 million Christmas gift and then laughed, it was clear to everyone around her that she’s more focused than ever about moving on with her life by divorcing him and getting half his fortune, one friend said, as rumors swirled yesterday that her two-timing hubby was holed up at the Trump International on Central Park West.”
More Brokers Flee Big Firms, Taking Investors With Them (WSJ)
And setting up their own shops. Sometimes on the DL: “They secretly planned their move for nine months before they left. Mr. Thurber recalls a tense debate in the dining room of one of his partners about whether they could afford to abandon their salaries and bonuses.”
BofA’s New CEO Makes First Official Address (CNBC)
Brian Moynihan and the bank’s mission “is to just plain execute.”
