Are you among the happy 34 percent? What will you be doing to celebrate? Buying the Level II books? Not as lucky? Feeling like you just threw away the last four to six months of your life? Want to get angry? Want to make someone pay? Let it out, here.
Archive for January 2010
9:55 5 minutes to show time. While we wait:
(I have it on good authority that Geithner and Paulson have rehearsed the above moves and will be performing them in lieu of opening remarks. Or they’ll just sit there and recuse themselves while turning red. It’ll be one of these two things. Hoping against hope…)
10:10 Rep. Towns: “The AIG counterparties were given a piggy-bank full of taxpayer money and told ‘help yourselves’.”
E-Towns invites everyone to join him in fixing the system. Come on down.
10:18 Rep. Issa comes out with the big guns– the old man and his dog, who told Issa bankruptcy would’ve been a better option, and who is putting together a jigsaw puzzle that will reveal a picture of Geithner shoving hundos in Lloyd’s g-string.
10:20 T.Geith’s eyebrows are not happy.
10:24 Geithner did what he did for the American people. He loves you all so damn much.
10:28 AIG was “the only fire company operating at the time.” So TG whipped out his hose, and did what he had to do.
10:40 This decision didn’t come easy. It was like Sophie’s Choice out there.
10:42 Can we take a guess as to what the girl behind TG is cracking up about?
AIG Testimony: Paulson — ‘Confident’ Fed AIG Decisions ‘Appropriate‘ (Deal Journal)
Paulson said he wasn’t happy that the government needed to intervene in AIG, and the financial system more broadly, but that he believes that he, Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke “acted properly and in the best interests of our country.” He also said he was “confident” that the congressional review of the Fed’s rescue of AIG will show that “they sought to make appropriate decisions on those matter.” Meanwhile, Frodo Baggins has (again) denied telling his employees to shut it on the deal.
Diamond Lashes Out At Obama Bank Plans (FT)
“I am angry at banks that had poor management and poor regulation,” BD said. Although Mr Diamond recognised that regulatory demands for higher levels of capital and liquidity would be essential, describing that “more intrusive regulation” as “a good thing,” he stressed that the new rules had to be “connected [across] the major economies around the world”.
Emails Reveal Fed Staffers’ Angst During AIG Crisis (WSJ)
On Nov. 5, the New York Fed received a presentation, a 44-page analysis put together by a unit of BlackRock Inc., saying that the banks had significant bargaining power with AIG and had little incentive to cancel the contracts unless they received par, or 100 cents, on the dollar. The next two days, Fed officials negotiated with executives at AIG’s trading partners. “The concession negotiations did not go favorably…we’ve given up,” in-house counsel James Bergin wrote in an email to New York Fed colleagues at 7:11 p.m. on Nov 7.
Wall Street Beefs Up Clawback Rules (WSJ)
JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are all doing it but some people aren’t sure they’re buying it: “Firms have not been providing outsiders with the information that is necessary to assess whether the clawbacks are meaningful and effective or merely cosmetic,” says Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard University law professor who runs the college’s corporate-governance program.
Davos: sign of the times. Or maybe not. (Telegraph)
“All participants in the WEF as part of their conference kit have been issued with a bottle of sanitising gel. Presumably this is for use after shaking hands with a banker, though the organisers don’t explain.” Hint: that’s not ‘sanitising’ gel and it doesn’t go on your hands.
As you’re more than likely aware, the World Economic Forum at Davos kicked off this week. Though Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon will sadly not be able to attend, Gary Cohn, John Mack, Vikram Pandit, Bob Diamond, Brady Dougan Brian Moynihan will all be there, in addition to Nouriel Roubini, who’s been known to add a certain je ne sais quoi* to most soirees, as well as his wingman, George Soros, and Dan Loeb, who arrived today. Obviously they’re all going to be expected to have some “serious talks” about “real solutions” for how we can make this global financial system thing work, have some sit-downs with Maria, play in the snow and what have you. But if I may, I’d like to offer that perhaps you should take this week as an opportunity to do something more important than all that. Like Dance. Dance, puppets, dance! Dance like nobody’s watching. Dance like Andrew Ross Sorkin’s not taking careful notes regarding who busted out the lawnmower (Vikram) and who got low (Soros). Dance like you’re on ecstasy. At the very least dance like Bill Gates. Promise me that.
Cliff Asness Is Running Out Of Adjectives With Which To Describe His Feelings Towards Obama’s Policies
By Bess Levin
Last year it was ‘unafraid‘ (in Greenwich), today it’s ‘appalled’ (also coming to live from Greenwich). So, just an FYI, he’s gonna need some help before his next paper. So work on that, and in the meantime, the AQR founder has some thoughts about Obama’s latest proposals. First off, they suck. Biff isn’t arguing that the banks don’t need to be fixed, they do. He just doesn’t like the way Barack and his friends are going about it. And it reminds him of a something he once saw, way back in the day, before AQR, before Goldman, before all of it. Back when he was working as a carhop at a place called Arnold’s.
With regard to…prison rape? It appears to be a new term recently coined by Tracey Ullman, in the clip above, wherein the Bubba to Bernie Madoff’s bitch rolls over and tells the Ponz Master, “Give me a Bloomberg Minute before you brush my teeth.” Obviously this thing has the potential to be huge so before it gets inserted into the vernacular we need to nail down what exactly Ping Jiang (just as a for instance) will be instructing his new special lady friend to do when he orders one of these. We can’t have some people thinking it’s just a catch-all for ‘open and willing ass’ (as indicated in the video) and others assuming HJ. So, I ask you to stop what you’re doing and let tackling this issue take precedence. It’s important.
(Sidebar: The reason I stumbled upon this clip was not because Bernie is blamed for 9/11 and swine flu but because Ullman is supposed to do a Barney Frank impression at some point this season which could be phenomenal.)
In Haitian Donations, according to Bloomberg.
• Jefferies
• Deutsche Bank
• UBS
• Citigroup
• Bank of America
• JPMorgan
• Morgan Stanley
• Goldman Sachs
Earlier: Citi Seems To Care More About Haiti Than Other Banks, God’s Included
Literally.
…an attitude honed during eight years of fighting white-collar criminals and Colombian drug lords as an assistant United States attorney — he still has the knife from a foiled attempt on his life in a field outside Bogota — are propelling Mr. Barofsky over barriers that have slowed the others.
SIGTARP’s Neil Barofsky Is Way More Badass Than We Realized [Daily Intel]
When Jon Winkelried, former president and co-chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, left 85 Broad last year, all we knew was that he’d had some personal “liquidity issues” a few months prior, and was bailed out by the firm. It was unclear exactly as to why he was leaving the nest though many assumed Lloyd and Co were embarrassed by Winks’ inability to manage his own finances and pushed him out. That story’s been pretty much undisputed by Goldman Sachs, until now, in an effort to allow Blankfein to save face. Because the truth hurts LB as a CEO and as a man. The truth is that Winkel-toes had grown “disenchanted” and stopped looking at Lloyd the way he used to. And- and this is the part that stings- there was someone else. A stud. Actually, a bunch of studs, plus all their friends. And they let Winks do stuff to them that LB hadn’t done in years. Like ride them bareback.
AIG Payout To Partners Probed (WSJ)
Mr. Barofsky said he is reviewing the Federal Reserve’s cooperation with his office. Issues raised in recent weeks “call into question whether the government has been and is being as transparent as possible with the American people,” he said in prepared remarks for a Wednesday hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Spherix Partners Will Pay $2.1 Million to Settle SEC Lawsuit (Bloomberg)
Ali Far and Choo Beng Lee have pleaded guilty and agreed the settlement amount “represents the total trading profits and losses avoided as a result of the securities law violations” alleged in the SEC’s civil complaint.
AIG Wants Pledges on Retention Cuts by Tuesday (Reuters)
Employees must let Benmosche know today whether or not they’ll accept a smaller bonus in exchange for getting it sooner.
Bernanke Is Gaining Supporters (NYT)
Dianne Feinstein, Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman all what a piece of that.
Davos Too Big to Fail as Bankers Recoil in Political Backlash (Bloomberg)
“There will be a lot of bowing and scraping before the central bankers, treasury secretaries and regulators,” said Niall Ferguson. “They kept the show on the road, and we have to acknowledge the state matters much more these days.”
Still Needed: A Sheriff of Finance (NYT)
Sayeth Andrew Ross Sorkin and George Soros. Who wants to wear a badge and carry a gun?
A Modest Proposal for the Fed (WSJ)
Terms limits for chairmen.
