The Masters of the Universe are a bit too busy to respond so we were asked to pass on the following: “Consider the source.” Continue reading »
Archive for May 2011
Will Lucas van Praag’s Rebuttal To The Preposterous Claim Goldman Sachs Is To Blame For The Food Crisis Get The Carnival Barkers Out Of His Hair?
By Bess LevinOr will he be forced to get fellow vegan Natalie Portman to vouch for him? (That photo of LVP up to his elbows in ribs at Dinosaur BBQ was a fake!)
Don’t Blame Goldman Sachs for the Food Crisis: Blame the meat-loving middle class.
By Lucas Van Praag
Frederick Kaufman’s article “How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis,” ignores a number of important facts about the underlying economic, social, and political factors that have driven the rise in food prices.
Goldman Reps So ‘Freaked’ Over Volcker Rule They’re Forgetting Invisibility Cloaks At Home
By Bess Levin“They’re totally freaked out about Volcker,” said a Goldman lobbyist who declined to speak on the record for fear of losing the contract. “People are working on that a lot, with agency staff, with lawmakers, you name it.”…”Before the crisis, Goldman was basically non-existent in Washington,” said a former Congressional staffer who now works as a policy analyst at a Wall Street bank. “Post-crisis, Goldman is everywhere.” [Reuters]
The Swiss have hired J. C. del Real to add “senior level relationships to the firm.” Continue reading »
Say what you will about the Germans, they took this stuff in stride. Continue reading »
FYI, Your Window Of Opportunity To Set Up Shop In The South In Order To Commit Fraud Without Getting Caught Is Closed
By Bess LevinTo avoid hotel costs, some S.E.C. investigators have shuttled between New York and Washington on Amtrak trains that leave around dawn and return the same day. The agency only recently started to again examine investment firms and public companies in some Southern states, after postponing reviews to avoid paying for plane fares. [Dealbook]
Analysts: Mets Will Win The 2011 World Series If Steve Cohen Is Approved For A Minority Stake
By Bess Levin
As you may have heard, the New York Mets are going through a bit of a rough patch, on account of being screwed financially on their investment with Madoff Securities. They need money and they plan to get it by selling a minority stake in the team. Last month, Steve Cohen put in a bid and while other financiers might buy pro sports teams to fulfill some sort of childhood dream, SC is doing so because he believes the ball club is on the brink of greatness. Continue reading »
We’re not saying there’s any foul play afoot at the Raj Rajaratnam trial, we’re just saying it’s interesting that the jury couldn’t come to a decision re: the Galleon founder’s guilt or innocence after 7 days of deliberating and now, they have to start all over due to the dismissal of one guy for “medical reasons,” the very same week Rajaratnam gets a doctor’s note saying he can’t report to court due to emergency surgery he had on his foot over the weekend to treat a “bacterial infection.” Continue reading »
From the mailbag:
“I think I have a solution for the housing problem. All we need to do is hire the people who appraised Bin Laden’s hideout at $1 million. Seriously, it’s an odd shaped lot, with uneven fences, no phone lines or internet connection, crumbling walls, cheap plastic garden furniture, in a country with a per capita GDP of $2,700. Unless the place comes with a cone of silence or room of invisibility, I don’t see how that could be worth $1 million.
U.S. May Pursue More Lenders After Suing Deutsche Bank on Loans (Bloomberg)
“We go where the evidence takes us, and if it takes us to the larger players on Wall Street, so be it,” Kanovsky said. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said it wouldn’t be a “fantastical stretch” for prosecutors to scrutinize other lenders.
Steep Drop Tarnishes Big Bets On Silver (WSJ)
George Soros’s big hedge fund, a firm operated by high-profile investor John Burbank and some other leading firms have been selling gold and silver, according to people close to the matter, after furiously accumulating precious metals for much of the past two years…Some others with stellar records—including Mr. Burbank, of Passport Capital, and Alan Fournier, of Pennant Capital—also have been passionate about precious metals, giving encouragement to individual investors to follow. Now they are selling, in each case for distinct reasons…[John] Paulson told investors Tuesday morning that gold prices could go as high as $4,000 an ounce over the next three to five years, as the U.S. and U.K. flood the money supply…Andrew Hall, a former star trader at Citigroup who runs hedge fund Astenbeck Capital Management LLC and trades for Phibro, a unit of Occidental Petroleum Corp., told his clients last month that gold and silver will continue to “march higher” unless evidence emerges of “an imminent rise” in interest rates.
Official: Portugal bailout to be $115 billion (BusinessWeek)
“The government got a good deal, one that safeguards Portugal,” Prime Minister Jose Socrates said in a televised address to the nation. He did not take questions.
Portugal aid terms likely to spark 2-year recession (Reuters)
An official source told Reuters the austerity measures to be included in the deal, such as higher taxes, point to a “contraction of 2 percent in gross domestic product in 2011 and in 2012″. That will make it yet more challenging for the heavily indebted country, which has had some of the lowest growth rates in Europe for a decade, to ride out its crisis and return to financial health. The source told Reuters taxes will rise on cars and property and there will be cuts in deductions on health, education and housing.
US Becomes Net Exporter of Fuel (FT)
The US has become a net exporter of fuel for the first time for nearly 20 years as drivers struggle with high petrol prices.
4 Billionaires at Glencore (BBC)
When Glencore publishes its full flotation prospectus later this morning, it will show that there are four billionaires working for the world’s leading commodities, minerals and energy trader. These are led by the chief executive Ivan Glasenberg, who will be shown to be worth around $10bn. But it is the quartet of billionaires, plus many others worth more than $100m each, and hundreds who are millionaires, that makes Glencore quite extraordinary. Continue reading »
$$$ Senate Report on Meltdown Under Justice Department Review [BusinessWeek]
$$$ US Says Deutsche Bank Lied [WSJ]
$$$ Ex-Goldman Programmer Aleynikov Denied Bail [CNBC] Continue reading »
