$$$ Goldman Sachs Says It Did `Nothing Inappropriate‘ on Greek Currency Swaps [Bloomberg]
$$$ Former Merrill Exec Fleming Seeks $20 Million from BofA [FBN]
$$$ The Woman Behind Greece’s Debt Deal [WSJ]
$$$ How Tax Evasion Is Complicating Greek Rescue Efforts [The Atlantic]
Archive for February 2010
Nevertheless: “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to rip their lungs out every day…that’s what this is all about…it’s my job to turn this into a barroom brawl with them…to scratch and kick and stomp them…and then they’re gonna do it to me and I’m gonna do it to them.”
The Volcker Rule -aka the euthanasia principle- got some fresh backers over the weekend, with five former Treasury secretaries sending a letter to the WSJ to voice their support. While this must be good news (late wedding gift?) for Paul, the former secretaries don’t add much to the initial argument. They’re just reiterating what Paul’s been saying from the start: This is just one component of a much broader picture, banks should not engage in speculative activity unrelated to essential bank services, prop trading is a bad, bad, thing. Right. Doesn’t do much to convince the haters.
In other news, today is National Margarita Day.
NYU B-School Professor: FYI, You Can’t Burst Into Show Tunes, Urinate On The Desk, Or Practice Hair-Removal In My Class
By Bess LevinObviously this does not come from NYU professor Nouriel Roubini, who’d never hold his students to such freaky ass rules. It, along with a bunch of other rules for “tomorrow’s business leaders,” is courtesy of Professor Scott Galloway, precipitated by a student who dared to walk into his class several minutes late. In case anyone was wondering if that, or pissing on the desk was okay, here’s your answer.
After months of back and forth, Judge Jed Rakoff finally half-assedly approved the $150 million BofA settlement today. But Jed, who seems to be having a hard time letting go of his newfangled celebrity, didn’t want to go down without panache and poetic prose.
“Given the somewhat tortured background of these cases and the difficulties the motion presents, the Court is tempted to quote the great American philosopher Yogi Berra: “I wish I had an answer to that because I’m getting tired of answering that question.”‘
High-class brothel Mayflower Hotel is celebrating its 85th birthday. And what better way to honor the occasion than by giving the girl what she wants– another sex scandal! Eliot Spitzer- if you’re listening, and have time on your hands:
Cody Willard needs no introduction, nor do his qualifications but I’m going to give them to you anyway: the man hosts a show about business in a bar. He once owned a hedge fund where he managed slightly more than $1,000 in assets under management. He kind of knows what short-selling is. For all those reason and more, and I don’t think anyone will disagree with me here, we believe Willard is uniquely qualified to offer you “revolutionary” advice on investing. So fuck Maria Bartiromo. Get your money back from Lenny Dykstra, if he hasn’t already spent it on Twizzlers and dip. Through his “unconventional” investment strategies, CDubs is gonna line your pocket with singles– maybe even 20s, if you play your cards right.
You probably think you know Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner and NYT columnist extraordinaire. But after reading the New Yorker‘s profile on the bearded columnist, you’ll realize you had no idea. He’s so much more than that. He’s just a simple guy, who relaxes by getting costumed, throwing voodoo parties and relaxing in St. Croix with his wife, mostly on the west end, “where the whites who’ve gone native live.” There, Paul can wear the same shirt for days, (a short-sleeved plaid cotton shirt) and bathing trunks. In the late afternoon he sips piña coladas on the beach and bitches about Jamie and LB, wondering how they can be “so comprehensively boneheaded.”
As previously mentioned, Tim Geithner recently embarked on a pussy-offensivepussy outreach program. Whether it’s that he’s trying to gain fans among those who’ve got ‘em, has one himself, or a little bit a of both matters not. He’s going grocery shopping, he’s showing his emotions, he’s appearing in Vogue. And from the last, we’ve learned a few things about Timbo we’d previously never known. Such as:
* He’s somehow convinced people he “has the kind of looks that can go either way: Half an inch one way he’s John F. Kennedy; half an inch the other he’s Lyle Lovett.”
* He’s self-aware, and self-deprecating: “the first thing he tells [writer Rebecca Johnson] when we sit down is how much ‘shit’ he’s going to get from his friends for doing an interview with Vogue.”
* His mother watches CNBC like she’s on a trading floor: “The intensity, the consequences, the lack of a road map, the fact that three minutes after an announcement you are seeing the reaction on CNBC– it’s almost unprecedented. The televised babble became so bad at times, Geithner’s own mother thought about watching TV with the volume turned down.”
* He and Jon Stewart are gonna have words: “…the angriest he’s ever been was probably the afternoon a camera crew for Jon Stewart’s Daily Show showed up unexpectedly at his house in Larchmont, New York…Geithner’s teenage children, who were home alone at the time, had not be in on the joke. When a camera crew pulled up, they called their father at his office, terrified. ‘Ive never seen him so mad,’ one aid remembers.”
* He most likely uses an herbal remedy to take the edge off things: “What little free time he has, he prefers to spend with his children, building a ramp in the driveway for skateboarding, surfing off the coast of Cape Cod, building a guitar by hand.”
* He fantasized about being “the guy who saved Citi” but spared us having to live in a world without Uncle Vik: “…he is said to have been sorely tempted by an offer to run Citibank.”
Elitzabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, believes that the problems couldn’t be more obvious and solutions for financial regulation are as obvious but for some reason, “we can’t seem to put the two together.”
“Six months ago, I thought we were on brink of financial reform, I really did,” Liz told Bill Maher. “The reason we’re not changing things right now is that banks have lobbies in Washington in numbers I’ve never seen. They’re coming not just once a month, once a week or even once a day. These guys are coming two, three times a day. And they just keep slamming in the same direction over and over and over. It’s a David and Goliath story.”
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