What role did the government play in setting the price for JP Morgan Chase’s acquisition of Bear Stearns? The big story in today’s Wall Street Journal indicates that regulators may have misled lawmakers on this question.
Hank Paulson
-
Posted in:
Hank Paulson
My Issues, In No Particular Order, With Today’s ‘Post’ Story On Hank Paulson
By Bess Levin
1. Too much with the birds. Everyone knows HP is an environment/animal lover, that fact has been shoved down our throats time a-plenty (“Even though his handshake could break all of your fingers, Hank Paulson is a gentle giant who can often be found talking to wood nymphs and catching butterflies” “When you think Hank Paulson, think furry animals, but not in the way you’d think of Lenny and that mouse who met that unfortunate fate” “Hank Paulson loves animals so much that when he engages in bestiality, he doesn’t call it “fucking,” he calls it “making love.”) We get it– Hank + Animals, Birds Especially = A Match Made In Heaven, If Only Because They Often Mistake Him For A Tree And He Just Doesn’t Say Anything. Are birds an integral part of the story? Yes. Paulson has been offered a job as anchor on a new syndicated news services called Bird News Network (BNN), with Laura Bush as a possible co-host. Does that make it okay? No.
2. It contains a painful reminder of that time Paulson SCREWED Jon Corzine. (“Paulson is such an avid birder that he sometimes puts it first on his agenda. For example, he went on a bird-watching expedition in Brazil instead of attending the crucial New York Stock Exchange board meeting during which former head Dick Grasso’s controversial pay package was quietly slipped through. Upon Paulson’s return from the expedition, he loudly led the charge to oust Grasso.” Wonder if Paulson took a similarly-themed journey just before he changed the username and password on JSC’s office computer back in ’98.)
3. I don’t know, that graphic? And the fact that it’s HAUNTING? How ’bout that? Yeah, I just have two issues.
A Perch For Hank [NYP]
-
Posted in:
Corporate Governance
If at first you don’t disclose, just restate and restate again
By Keith Hahn
There were 116 financial restatements in corporate public filings in 1997. Almost ten years later (2006), that number has grown over 15 fold to 1,876. Hank Paulson wants to know why. Paulson has ordered a Treasury study of restatements, their predominant causes, and effect on investors that will be headed by former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt and former SEC chief accountant Donald Nicolaisen.
The main reason restatements are thought to have increased so dramatically in number is because of tougher accounting oversight, and the fact that accounting firms have become increasingly aggressive in the face of so much exposure to litigation. Projected recommendations of the study include reducing the liability of public accountants and diluting the auditing industry so that it isn’t as dominated by the same few firms.
A restatement explosion seems an odd justification for a major deregulatory push. This would assume that companies are not using dodgy accounting tricks to mask true performance and that financial restatements are somehow onerous to companies that misstate financials in the first place. One would think that tougher accounting rigor in audits followed by a spike in restatements is a sign that a lot of violations were going unnoticed, not that accouting firms are creating unnecessary restatements through nit-picking.
Treasury Targets Financial Fixes [Wall Street Journal]
The signs of the approaching summer are everywhere. DealBreaker is hiring summer interns. The recruiting departments at all the Wall Street banks are in a frenzy preparing for their own summer interns. We’re gearing up for our coverage of the follies of those same summer interns. Colleges and business schools are lining up commencement speakers.
The first big entry in this last category is Hank Paulson, who has been grabbed by Dartmouth. Paulson was an English major who graduated from Dartmouth with the class of 1968. Hank will be receiving an honorary degree at the ceremony. The college says it invited Hank because of his financial success and record of public service. We’re sure the fund-raising office had nothing to do with his selection.
Tuck’s ceremony will be graced by the presence of Harold W. “Terry” McGraw III, Chairman, President and CEO of the McGraw-Hill Companies. Do those kids up in Hanover know how to party of what. Terry is an animal, we hear.*
* Yeah. No. Not really. Not at all.
Treasury secretary to be Dartmouth commencement speaker [Boston Globe]
Reuters reports that Hank Paulson “inadvertently failed to disclose” a mutual fund with less than $15,000 in value last year, prior to taking over as Secretary of the Treasury. Brookly McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the treasury claims that the error was “an oversight.” Let this be a lesson to you all: if you want to distract reporters from various corrupt misdeeds, hire a spokeswoman named “Brookly McLaughlin.” (Why do you think Carney’s got a spokesperson named Manhatta on retainer?)
Treasury’s Paulson omitted small fund holding [Reuters]
Duncan,
I’m starting to get what you’re saying about these damn jabronis. Viva la hybrids!
Best,
H
Dear Hank (or as the boys from the neighborhood call you, The Medicine Man),
How ya doin’?
Over the last 9 or so months, give or take a few sleeping fishes*, you did good. Maybe a little too good, if you catch my drift.
I’ll just get right to it—the boys: Sil, Cue ball Corzine, The Liquidator, me—don’t trust ya. And there’s talk that we’re gonna have to do something about it, this lack of trust. Are you picking up what I’m throwing down?
You, Hank, and your friends over on Broad Street—you’re all suspect. There are just too many ways for you and the Goldsteinowitzes to cheat the financial market. You’re in cahoots and that’s starting to create problems for me and my own. You don’t want to create problems for me and my own, do ya, Hank?
I put some of my boys on the job a few months back—I said “Get some answers so I don’t have to take out no made men.” They asked for some documents shredderfuckshitshredder—sorry, Tourette’s—from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets—around these parts we’ve got a name for it—the Plunge Protection Team (I won’t get into how that name came about but I can tell you it had nothing to do with the WaPo; and also, that she was a most unsavory woman).
-
Posted in:
Hank Paulson
You Spin Me Right Round, Right Round, Like That Hank Paulson Twenty, Baby
By John Carney
Thanks to a reader with photoshop, here’s a non-reversed image of the Hank Paulson signed twenty dollar bill. (Our own graphics guy stopped answering our emails when we asked some questions about his girlfriend this morning.)
Here’s your first look at the Hank Paulson signed twenty dollar bill.
We just took a look through our own wallets but found nothing but business cards of people we will never call, an IOU from a friend who mysteriously needed to borrow sixty bucks at 2:30 in the morning on Saturday night and the address of a book party for Leveraged Sell Out that we forgot to go to.
Congrats to reader Kevin who has won the contest, and a drink with Bess Levin.
Next contest: another drink with Bess for the person who can send us a photograph of the best illicit use of the Paulson Twenty. We’re thinking things that involve, say, ladies dancing, palms being greased or anything that requires rolling the bill into a tight tube. Email photos to tips@dealbreaker.com.
Speaking of Hank Paulson, has anybody seen the new Paulson twenties yet? Last month we noted that the first bills bearing the new Treasury Secretary’s signatures were rolling off the presses and into circulation. And we announced a contest: the first person sending in a photo of themselves holding up a Paulson twenty wins a drink with DealBreaker’s Bess Levin. (Sadly, it will not be unsupervised. John Carney will tag along as a chaperone.) So get those pictures in asap. Email to tips(at)dealbreaker(dot)com (subject line “Paulson Twenties.”)
