There’s been much talk about some bankers booking all of Wall Street surrounding area’s hotel rooms today, but if you want to be really charitable, just move your drunken asses from Stone Street’s bar stools and head to Vegas. The Ritz-Carlton, owned by a DB arm, is closing down, due to the “AIG-effect.” Maybe if enough people get out there we can save this place.
Archive for February 2010
Just Putting It Out There: There Are Goldman Sachs Employees Sleeping At The Hotel Located Near Goldman Sachs Tonight
By Bess Levin
So if you’ve been dying to sleep with a Master or Mistress of the Universe, and feel like you need a high concentration of them in one place in order to up your odds of scoring, knock on a bunch of doors at the Embassy Suites on Wall Street tonight. Eventually someone’s bound to let you in. Tell ‘em John Carney sent you.
If it feels like the world is ending today it’s not because of a light dusting but rather that one DC resident is saying he has no problem whatsoever with Dimon and Blankfein’s bonuses, there was an earthquake in Chicago this morning and someone thinks Larry Kudlow could get elected to the Senate.
Good day for the Goldmanites and Dimonites of the world. Following Obama’s acknowledgement that the whole banker-hatin’ was just a joke, Dick Bove has issued a report noting that the thing Obama said about bankers and ball players and pay? He’s said it for years.
I have constantly pointed out that one can make more money playing third base for the New York Yankees or being a shooting guard with the Los Angeles Lakers than one can get paid for running a financial company with hundreds of thousands of employees.
Goldman CFO David Viniar said today that he has no “magic formula” for pay this year, and that it would depend on a number of factors, including the firm’s performance, competition and mostly “the world around us.”
Traders Who Commute Psyched For Opportunity To Spend The Night In The City, Momentary Respite From The Old Ball And Chain
By Bess LevinBloomberg reports that not everyone is freaking out over the prospect of a little more snow and are in fact keeping fingers crossed they’ll be forced to tell the wife/husband they’re stranded for the night. ‘Cause that’s when the real party* gets started.
Weather advisories calling for as much as 20 inches of snow prompted firms such as New York-based Jefferies & Co. to reserve hotel rooms in Manhattan as a precaution if employees can’t make their usual commutes. That’s good news to traders who welcome an evening at the pubs.
“Bars and restaurants are the beneficiaries of the blizzards,” said Doreen Mogavero, president and chief executive officer of Mogavero Lee & Co., a brokerage located on Broad Street in Manhattan. She plans to stay in the city tonight. “We always manage to make the best of it and have a good time — good friends, some dinner and a glass of wine in a gorgeous blizzard.”
*One night each year they get off from the nagging wife/fat husband and screaming children.
That’s right ladies– the former friends share a date of birth, albeit different years. Cramer is turning 55 and Dykstra 47. I’m not sure what JC has to celebrate this year so let’s focus on Nails who’s turned it around just in time for the big day.
Great news for those of you who love delicious wings served in tank-tops: Hooters is on the block. The restaurant needs cash, ASAP, and analysts are guesstimating it could probably be yours for about $250 million. There may be a few issues for you to deal with upon acquiring the place, namely getting rid of this guy (though hopefully not food eating contests on a voluntary basis in general, as there’s no need to punish everyone):
If an upcoming episode of the CBS reality show “Undercover Boss” is any indication, there may be management issues, too. In an episode slated to run Sunday, CEO Coby Brooks discovers a restaurant supervisor staging an eating contest for female employees, forcing them to bury their faces in platefuls of food without using their hands.
The Journal reports today that John Paulson’s gold fund, which launched Jan. 1, is failing to attract investors. We’re told it’ ain’t so. While the fund did lose “about 10%” since it launched, JP is confident and “believes in this play.”
Obama Doesn’t `Begrudge’ Millions in Bonuses for `Savvy’ Blankfein, Dimon (Bloomberg)
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”
For Office Romance, The Secret’s Out (WSJ)
Screw your co-workers!
UBS Claws Back $282 Million of Bonuses From Bankers After 2009 Loss Report (Bloomberg)
“The critical condition, a net profit for 2009 according to International Financial Reporting Standards, was not met,” Chief Executive Officer Oswald Gruebel said in a memo to employees dated yesterday.
Investors Questioned Morgan Stanley’s Pay (Reuters)
Good news though: “There are no signs of a shareholder rebellion that could lead to en masse dumping of Morgan Stanley shares or embarrassment at this spring’s annual meeting.”
JPMorgan just sent out a memo to employees notifying them that in the event the snowpocalypse is really bad, they can reserve cots to stay over. And if they run out, Jamie Dimon will be happy to take people into his home, located not far from headquarters. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE OFFER.
