As you may have heard, there are protests going on downtown, organized by a group of individuals who’ve got beef with the financial industry. They’ve gone on longer than most would’ve expected (with at least one promise made that no one is leaving “until Wall Street crumbles“) and despite being peaceful so far (on the side of the protestors– the NYPD, not so much), have started making some people a little nervous. Specifically, those who run the banks OccupyWallStreet takes issue with. Luckily, nobody needs to live in fear, because of three simple words: Andrew Ross Sorkin. Little known fact about ARS is that in addition to overseeing Dealbook, writing books and anchoring Squawk Box, the hardest working man in America also runs a part time private security firm. Knowing about Sorkin’s side-gig, one CEO** got him on the horn last week to figure out what’s what.
I had gone down to Zuccotti Park to see the activist movement firsthand after getting a call from the chief executive of a major bank last week, before nearly 700 people were arrested over the weekend during a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge. “Is this Occupy Wall Street thing a big deal?” the C.E.O. asked me. I didn’t have an answer. “We’re trying to figure out how much we should be worried about all of this,” he continued, clearly concerned. “Is this going to turn into a personal safety problem?”
Andrew wasn’t sure but knew that a job this big required he check out the scene himself, rather than sending some doe-eyed intern from his team. Continue reading »
First thing you see on TV, that is, as ARS is replacing Carl Quintanilla on Squawk Box. Apparently the CNBC team searched high and low for the right person to recreate the raw chemistry between the long-running threesome of Joe, Becky and Carl and concluded Sorkin’s the man for the job. Continue reading »
Earlier this week, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote that after speaking with executives at Goldman Sachs and officials in Washington, and “poring through” the Levin Report, he’d come to the conclusion that “Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t lying” when he testified last year that Goldman “didn’t have a massive short against the housing market.” Matt Taibbi read the column and he did not like it. In fact, it made him so angry-stinkin mad, in fact- that he was forced to lift his ARS fast (“I’ve been trying not to say anything bad about Andrew Ross Sorkin,” he said last night). As Taibbi scholars, please guess at this time what the defense of Goldman made MT want to do:
a) Throw scalding hot coffee in Sorkin’s face
b) Bake some of the horse semen he’d been storing in his fridge into a pie and smash it into Sorkin’s face
c) Run through the Times newsroom smashing sno-globes and flipping desks over
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
f) other Continue reading »
If you’ve been keeping up with your HBO original programming schedule, you know that Too Big To Fail, the movie based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 book, airs next Monday evening. Last night was the premiere at the Museum of Modern Art and while the trailers looked promising, in order to make sure none of you wasted any of your precious time or DVR space in the event it wasn’t worth it, I attended to see how things turned out and report back. Warren Buffett did the same, though was initially met with some opposition at the door, in an encounter that went like this:
Door girls: Do you have your ticket?
Buffett: Uh…no…
Door girls: You need your tickets.
Buffett: Oh, uh…we were invited..
[One of Buffett's dates]: This is Warren Buffett.
[The group is seated]
Other people in attendance who did have their tickets, included but were not limited to: George Soros (with a entourage of lady friends), Meredith Whitney in a white pinstriped suit, Becky Quick, Rodgin Cohen, Regis Philbin, Michael Douglas and all the actors from the flick (William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup, James Woods, Bill Pullman, Evan Handler, Tony Shalhoub, Matthew Modine, Ed Asner), though not all the real life people they portray (Jamie Dimon was getting ready for today’s JPM shareholder meeting in Ohio, Fuld was probably busy plotting his comeback).
The movie condenses Sorkin’s 539 page book into about 90 minutes and traces the slightly tense moments that were 2008 just after Bear Stearns was bought to the day Paulson locked the top bank CEO’s in a room and and forced them to accept his capital injections. William Hurt does a pretty badass Hank– who gets the most screen time by far– having spent a few days fishing with him in preparation for the role (during which one would hope HP described what it was like threatening to send Ken Lewis home in a body bag if he backed out of the Merrill Lynch deal). I liked it, you probably will too.** Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Continue reading »
As previously mentioned, HBO has purchased the rights to Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail. Shooting starts this fall and the role of Hank Paulson has just gone to William Hurt. John Mack has graciously stated that the role of the Morgan Stanley CEO should go to Bobby DeNiro and for his buddy Blankfein? He sees Danny DeVito.** Continue reading »
Andrew Ross Sorkin is moving to the Upper West Side! Curbed reports ARS put his book royalties toward a co-op on West 79th Street, last sold in 2004 for $1.85 million, listed at $2.295 million this time around, and for which he and Lady Sorkin paid $2.315 million. At left, the room Lloyd will stay in when he spends the night.
Related: “Tell him to get fucked,” Mack said of Geithner. “I’m trying to save my firm.”
Krugman and Sorkin told me that they talked Thursday. Sorkin said the conversation was “very cordial.” Krugman called it “not much fun.” They agreed that they disagree on the definition of nationalization.
Earlier: “Andrew Ross Sorkin Owes Several People An Apology”
Dueling Columnists [NYT]
That’s a headline over at Sorkin’s employer this morning, written by colleague Paul Krugman. No response yet from Sorkin, who’s either a) sweating bullets b) having a good laugh about this with his new Hollywood friends or c) soaking a rag in chloroform and preparing to enter Krugs’s office and rub it on his face while grunting “SHUT UP OLD MAN.” In the meantime, who does PK think ARS should be apologizing to, and for what? Obviously Krugs has someone/something in mind but the possibilities seem potentially endless. Is it:
A. Lloyd Blankfein (“Gollum“? Really? Ya thought he wasn’t gonna catch wind of that one?) Continue reading »
Mack, as previously mentioned, wants Danny DeVito. Sorkin, who’s thought about this a lot, would be happy with any one of the following:
* Gollum
* Bruce Willis
* Tom Cruise (Tropic Thunder character)
* Robert Duvall Continue reading »
As previously mentioned two seconds ago, HBO has bought the rights to Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail. Last night at a talk hosted by Stern, John Mack mentioned the flick, and asked Paulson who he thought should play him. Paulson said “a young Paul Newman,” which, actually, would’ve be perfect if the movie took place forty years ago.
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In a move sure to chap Hank Paulson’s hide, HBO has acquired the rights to Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail (along with Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera’s book on the fall of Lehman). Not because the former Treasury Secretary doesn’t get a kick out of the Hollywood-ization of his life’s work, or because he isn’t excited at the prospect of scoring an invite to the premiere, but because this book is full of lies. Damned lies. He doesn’t vomit. He dry heaves. Christ on a crutch someone needs to get this right, for once. You think if anyone could it’d be wonderboy, but, apparently, you’d think wrong.
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