As you’ve probably noticed, Tim Geithner’s had a pretty tough go of it lately. People are pissed at him about the bailouts, no one will get off him about AIG, many feel he “coddles” Wall Street and rarely a day goes by that the Treasury Secretary’s ousting is not called for, and not just by pissants on the internet. His job doesn’t actually seem to be in any actual danger at the moment– according to Rahm Emanuel, “The president’s view is that Tim is one of the stars,” but clearly something needs to be done about how the public sees TG. To show them he cares. That he “gets” it. That he’s just one of them. But how? An article this morning concerning T. Geith’s “charm offensive” included the following photo of Mr. Geithner, touring a supermarket in Philadelphia with Michelle Obama:
Our initial thought: what the hell? How is Tim Geithner mixing it up at the grocery store and smiling maniacally at a bunch of produce going to endear him to the public? Then, a few lines later, this:
Mr. Geithner says even his wife has urged him to show more emotion in confronting the banks.
So, okay. Grocery stores…not being afraid to show his feelings….he’s not working the…vagina angle is he? No, come on. You’re making huge leaps in logic here, we said to ourselves. We actually almost started to feel guilty for coming to such gender stereo-typing conclusions, and would’ve continued to do so, if the next thing we saw hadn’t been this:
No Bonus For RBS Chief (WSJ)
Stephen Hester was going to take a bonus of around £1.6 million ($2.5 million) but instead decided to take none so no one could get angry with him. Goldman’s Rehab (NYP)
Goldman has hired PR firm Public Strategies, headed by Dan Bartlett, “a confidant of George W. Bush and Karl Rove.” AIG `Death Spiral’ Ends With Bailout Support Bringing Stability to Revenue (Bloomberg)
Great news: “There are clear signs that AIG has pulled out of what could have been a death spiral,” said David Havens, managing director in credit trading at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York. AIG’s insurance results have been improving “after dropping off a cliff following the bailout,” he said. Bailout Anger Undermines Geithner (WSJ)
As does his habit of clenching the forehead during congressional hearings. Must work on that one. Strikes Expand in Greece; Hedge Funds Bet on Debt Default (Reuters)
Short positions “have risen to 9.82 percent from 9.58 percent at the end of January, and 8.24 percent at the end of December.” Merrill Lynch Veterans Rejoin Herd (WSJ)
Sam Chapin and Todd Kaplan are back as executive vice chairmen of global banking, reporting directly to global banking and markets president Tom Montag.
In speaking with many of the BSDs of Wall Street, I typically find one common desire– the need to own a pink Lamborghini, replete with “a custom-made rhinestone-bedazzled logo a subtle three inches wider than the original, a pink Alcantara interior, and custom-painted Asanti wheels.” Too bad you missed your chance.
The lawsuit that Goldman Sachs filed earlier this week against seven of its former employees that defected to Credit Suisse? Boom. Evaporated. Dismantled probably by LB’s pair of “giant, nuclear-powered testicles.”
Among other things. Because it’s very likely that whoever you were sharing tips with back then, you’re still giving tips to today, in the form of material non-public information, according to Daniel Hawke, who is heading up a new team out of Philly “charged with cracking down on a variety of market abuses.” Team Hawke will be conducting “trader-based investigations rather than going security by security,” and if your boy from Wharton or the Jack Welch MBA institute gave you a hot tip he wasn’t supposed to, Hawke’s gonna find out, just like he’ll know about the profit you made from the info Bambi from Beamers stuck in your ear last night.
Much of the initial detective work that Hawke’s group is doing relies heavily on computers. The team cross-checks trading data on dozens of stocks with personal information about individual traders, such as where they went to business school or where they used to work.
Hank Paulson had a little chat last night at the 92Y with GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. This must’ve been a tad on the uncomfortable side, since just last week, the two had a spat about the passage in Hank’s book mentioning the September 2008 convo regarding GE’s commercial paper woes they may or may not have had. (Paulson chalked it up to having a bad memory, stress, bird-deprivation, etc).
Anyway, no matter, because the ice was broken by starting with a less controversial topic Hank’s unaccomplished desire to be a forest ranger. “I never wanted to be a forest ranger more than during the crisis,” the former Treasury Secretary said wistfully.
I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for Matthew Schirmer, one of the many people who bought a portrait of McG back when he was a hot-ticket item anyone who’s anyone would proudly display around the house. Now? That people have realized he kinda helped us get into the financial shit-storm du jour with his patented 3-Step Guide For Being Fed Chair (1. Talk like you know your shit, even when you don’t. 2. Cut rates like a Thai hooker with the clap 3. When in doubt, print it out)? No one wants anything to do with him and if you’re unlucky enough to have his picture stinking up your home, like Schirmer, you just want the guy to bite the big one already.
Mr. Schirmer says he had high hopes for the painting when he bought it in 2006 with his brother, Nathan. The money they spent went to a worthy cause, autism research. But Mr. Schirmer says he was hoping to raise even more money for a favorite charity, Autism Speaks.
“We thought, let us ride this wave,” he recalls. Mr. Schirmer paid to have 100 high-quality prints made of the painting. He flew Ms. Crowe to Florida to sign them. Her painting was placed on an easel in the lobby of a Tampa-area bank Mr. Schirmer helped found. Mr. Schirmer anticipated holding charity fund-raisers with the Greenspan painting as a draw.
“There was no interest,” he says. To this day, he hasn’t sold any prints, he says, “not a single one.” The original painting could still recover some value, he says. “I hate to tell you, but we are kind of waiting for him to pass on.
It’s not that Schirmer et al wish Big Al any harm, per se, it’s just that he’s not the sort of thing you want lying around the house, where guests or innocent children might see him.
Brian McAnaney, a lawyer in Stamford, Conn., bought an early Greenspan painting by Ms. Crowe at a charity auction way back for $300. A friend of the artist’s family, he hung the painting in his office, where it remained until he retired. Now he has it hidden away in a closet in his summer house.
“It is a little hard to find a place for Mr. Greenspan in my homes,” Mr. McAnaney says. “He is still there, but in a closet, because it is difficult to find a place for him in a family setting.”
Until our sweet prince finally does take his final bow, though, he’s actually not entirely useless.
I’m not saying extortion is the easiest thing to pull off but you’d think, what with the industry’s skittishness about insider trading these days, that if you went to any given fund and threatened to expose them for trading on material non-public info unless they did exactly as they were told, i.e. shoved a bunch of unmarked hundos in a few trash bags and sent them your way, you could probably make out pretty well, no muss no fuss. Bonus points if you could say you were like a priest or rabbi or some other type of “spiritual adviser.” That’s what Rabbi Milton Balkany thought anyway, and it would’ve turned out great had his target, an unnamed Connecticut hedge fund not felt the need to get the authorities involved, according to a complaint filed yesterday, effectively ruining everything.
In a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said that Mr. Balkany, 63, had recently been serving as a “spiritual adviser” to a federal inmate who told him that a Connecticut hedge fund had used inside information to profit from a number of stock trades.
The hedge fund was not named in the complaint, but prosecutors said that Mr. Balkany went to lawyers for the fund and told them that unless they handed over $4 million — $2 million of which would go to Bais Yaakov — he would instruct the inmate to tell the authorities about the insider trades.
CNBC has the six-boxer and BREAKING NEWS banner out so fine, let’s get into this. What do we think the li’l fella’s gonna talk about today?
11:01 Many people in the room know him. (Some biblically?)
11:02 His real apology to Elin will not come in the form of words (’cause money talks bull shit walks, bitches).
11:03 Is he going to cry?
11:05 “ELIN NEVER HIT ME THAT NIGHT [on Thanksgiving] OR ANY OTHER NIGHT”
11:06 “Elin deserves praise, not blame” (who’s blaming her?)
11:07 “I thought I worked hard all my life and deserved to take part in the temptations that surrounded me.” [Eliot Spitzer nods gravely at home]
11:08 Why is this happening?
11:08 Character and decency, yada yada yada
11:09 Parents used to point to me as role models for their kids, now they just look at me as a big whore.
11:10 They sent me to rehab; I have a long way to go; just this morning, on the way here, I stopped at an IHOP and you have no idea how hard it was for me lay that ass across the griddle and give it the Tiger.
11:10 BTW- I never used steroids
11:12 Little known fact– I was raised a Buddhist. But I’ve strayed from those teaching in recent years.
11:13 I’m going to get even more therapy.
11:14 He’s going to go back to golf some day, one day, but probably not today.
11:15 Okay it’s time for this:
11:16 Extended hug for everyone in the audience. First Reactions
FYI: Larry Kudlow thought it was a phenomenal apology, and he, as someone “familiar with the 12-Step Program,” loved the emphasis on step 9, the making of amends.
