“Leon throws some good parties, because Leon’s worth like twenty gazillion, like twenty billion or something crazy, and for him, you know, a billion dollars is like ten dollars to us,” Mr. Stern said on his Monday show on SiriusXM Radio, following Black’s 60th birthday party in Southampton. Mr. Black sits on the company’s board…Mr. Black had his backyard transformed into a faux nightclub setting, constructing a wooden deck over his swimming pool and building a tent for Mr. John’s concert. After a buffet of crab cakes and steak, partygoers sat on couches with big puffy pillows. They watched Mr. Black’s four grown children deliver touching toasts to their father, including a poem by the youngest son. “Oh, I wish I was Leon Black’s child,” Mr. Stern said on Monday. [Dealbook]
Archive for August 2011
Howard Stern Has A Dream That Involves Leon Black Asking Him Why, If He Hasn’t Been Drinking, Does His Breath Smell Like Beer?
By Bess Levin
The Bank of America tower getting hit by lighting last night. [NYCisMyMuse via AdrienneCarter]
Remember, back in April, when Bank of America decided it was tired of posting negative profits? And so that people would know they were dead serious about the goal of, rather than losing money, making it, gave their mission a special codename called Project New BAC? And then announced internally that PNBAC, led by 44 executives, would “fan out around the company to ask employees low-and high-level for ideas on how they can do their jobs better and how BofA can tweak its financial-product offerings to make the more appealing,” in addition to “reducing expenses”? Well, they did, and here’s what Team PNBAC came up with: everyone’s getting fired. Continue reading »
$$$ Fed Eyes European Banks (WSJ)
$$$ Request by Some for Collateral Is New Hurdle for Greek Bailout (NYT)
$$$ As Oil Spiked, Many Traded (WSJ)
$$$ Buffett a Hypocrite for Seeking Tax on Ultra-Rich: Laffer (CNBC)
$$$ Ex-Goldman and SEC Guy Changed His Name Before Going to Work for the Government Again (NYM)
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If You Know Any Job Openings In The Field Of Prosecuting Financial Villains, Keep Eliot Spitzer In Mind
By Matt Levine
Because he really misses it and thinks he could bring a lot to the table. To help make his case, he sat down today for a little chit-chat with the Observer about what he would be doing to the ratings agencies right now had that whole…you know what it is, we don’t need to say it…not happened:
All you need is a common law fraud concept that people—and you go back to the emails, just as we did in the analyst case—and again, I’m not saying “let’s relive the past” This is a more theoretical matter. Go through the emails, and you would’ve seen—“this isn’t a triple-A, but they’re a good client, and we’re gonna…”—that tension between what ratings were put on a product, and one’s belief or recognition that they may not deserve it. There are many theories about what would be there, but you have to get the evidence, to state the obvious. I don’t want to say “gee, they should’ve been prosecuted.” But there should’ve been greater scrutiny over the years, and the structure has always been problematic. It was next on our hit parade, if I had been there for that.
But he wasn’t just going to prosecute the bad apples – he would have cleaned up the whole system. Again, if there’d only been time: Continue reading »
Modest or manic, Mr. Gray is said to keep a low profile because he does not see the benefit of raising his, and would simply prefer to be another cog in the Peterson-Schwarzman machine. Which is not to say he is a hermit—friends describe him as animated and gregarious, but above all else, humble—he simply likes to keep things to himself…Try as he might, Mr. Gray may not be able to stay hidden much longer. Mr. James has big plans for his big man, according to multiple sources. “Tony James is going around telling people, ‘My job in life is to convince Jon Gray to take my job,’” as one of them put it. Mr. James did not recall making that statement, but during the interview, he allowed that “I think he’d be great at it.” So is Mr. Gray the future of the firm? “He is certainly one of the talented individuals of his generation who could do a fantastic job running the firm. Better than me.” [NYO]
“The risk of a recession is somewhat higher than it was six months ago. That said, I think the risk of a recession is still quite low,” William Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said today. Dudley said that “only some of the restraints on growth, such as high oil prices and Japan’s earthquake in the first half of the year, can be considered temporary. The risks have risen a little bit, but I think we very much still expect the economy to recover. We expect … growth to be significantly firmer than it was during the first half of the year. But obviously there is some concern.” [Reuters]
As we mentioned two seconds ago, today is Tim Geithner’s birthday, and a big one at that. The Treasury Secretary turns 50, and on a day when he’s away from his family, being held against his will, watching the market drive off a cliff, a drop for which he’ll probably be blamed, this is what his staff got him: Continue reading »
It’s by now a familiar story of the financial crisis: German and Icelandic bankers keep finding themselves the owners of mortgages on grandmothers’ houses in Kansas, and it’s hard to decide which side is more befuddled by it. The Federal Reserve yesterday went one step further up the value chain, publishing an interesting discussion paper called “ABS Inflows to the United States and the Global Financial Crisis” and adding some data and nuance to the story of how we got to a world where a banker flapping his arms in Saxony causes a foreclosure in Topeka.
The Fed researchers started out from a popular explanation of the financial crisis, that a “global savings glut” in certain countries (above all China but also other emerging markets, the OPEC countries etc.) inflated an asset bubble in the US as foreign savers searched for safe but yieldy investments. The puzzle with that theory, though, is that the Chinese didn’t really buy subprime ABS. They bought – and still buy – Treasuries, which worked out well for them. Europeans bought the shit:
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That’s right, ladies, today we celebrate the moment Timothy Franz Geithner entered this world. And it’s not just any old birthday but the big 5-0, meaning we need to do something to make it special. Continue reading »
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Election 2012
Ron Paul Would Like To Make Sure Everyone Can Tell The Difference Between Him And The Guy Who Suggested We Draw And Quarter Bernanke
By Bess Levin
“Now we have a Southern governor, I can’t remember his name. He makes me look like a moderate. I have never once suggested Bernanke committed treason.” [Daily Intel, earlier]
