Joel Stein is a reporter for Time magazine writing his first book. It’s about “learning, at 39, how to finally become a man.” In addition to “the typical red state stuff” (4 days of basic training in the army; fight Randy Couture from the UFC; hunt; do a shift as a fireman; fix a house; work in the pit crew at a car race), there is a chapter about Wall Street. That’s where you come in. Read more »
books
He had a plan to save the book industry one story at a time, but now that’s probably shot to hell. Read more »
And on an even more serious note, for which you should brace yourselves, Taleb has announced he will not be going to Davos this year. Why? Because he’s sick of the name dropping fame whores in attendance who don’t know anything about debt, like he does. Black Swan will be making better use of his time “at home with my fireplace and notebook and library,” where he will fix our economy while less serious people– NT hates to name names but “Rouriel Noubini” he mouths– will be in Switzerland banging economist groupies. Read more »
It’s cool– she’s here to read it to you. [VF]
Jimmy Cayne Pleased To Hear Word Of Ex-Bear Co-President Warren Spector’s Possible Love Of Obama/Dudes
By Bess Levin
As you may have heard, Charlie Gasparino’s latest book is out October 5. It’s called “Bought And Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street.” As you may have also heard, Jimmy Cayne is a major fan of describing every one of his opponents as a homosexual. The former Bear Stearns CEO told William Cohan Tim Geithner was a glorified gay office clerk and he described the lawyer of an an investor who sued Bear Stearns in 1996 for negligence and a breach of fiduciary duty as “a 300-pound fag from Long Island,” who Cayne confronted in the bathroom of the courthouse, while he was taking a piss, by saying “Today you’re going to get your ass kicked, big” (the attorney ran out of the room, confirming JC’s suspicions he was a fairy boy). Where does “the unholy alliance between Barack Obama and Wall Street” and conservative Jimmy Cayne’s interest in what other men do with their dicks converge? In Charlie Gasparino’s fourth contribution to literature and understanding, of course. Read more »
If you are part of the on-air talent team at CNBC, you must write a book. It’s in the contract. The network knows the people want it and why deny the people the musings of these celebrated raconteurs? It’d border on criminal. David Faber and the Jabroni Pony’s tomes came out last year, Maria Bartiromo has done two in the last three months, we’re told Mark Haines is putting the finishing touches on his memoir, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think Of These People and the latest contribution to literature and understanding comes from Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. You may not know it but this woman has seen a lot in her years in the markets. The nightmare of ’73-’74; the joys of being at the ground floor when JWM was gearing up the boys at Solly; the coke-fueled days riding the Nasdaq like a Thai hooker during the late ’90s, then riding it down. She was cutting her teeth trading EM bonds when most of you were crapping yellow, so maybe consider taking a listen. Read more »
“Tim was organized and low-key, although given to occasional bursts of profanity and odd fits of giggling,” claims Steve Rattner in his new autobiography, which he also writes that JPMorgan vice-Chairman Jimmy Lee is something of a “crybaby” and describes Sheila Bair as a “small, trim woman about my age with brown hair, brown eyes, and an unsmiling, sour demeanor.” [NYP via DI]
Descendent Of Mr. Goldman (Sachs) Not Too Happy About The Way A Certain Someone Is Running Her Grandfather’s Firm
By Bess Levin
As you’re likely aware, there are a whole bunch of people who’ve been giving Lloyd Blankfein shit for the past year or so. Pissant members of Congress, peasants, PETA. They’ve been a bit of a nuisances but their impotent rage has been fairly easy to brush and in many cases laugh off. None of them are writing books about GS and most of them cannot claim to know that the firm’s founder, Marcus Goldman, or his son, Henry, would be pissed about how the place has “changed.” And then you have June Breton Fishe, great granddaughter and granddaughter of Marcus and Hank, respectively. She is writing a book on how much better things were when her relatives were running the place and she has a couple grievances to air with Mr. B. Such as, respect, or a lackthereof as indicated by this shit:
“The entryway on Goldman Sachs’s executive floor is hung with paintings of all the senior partners since the firm’s inception,” says June Breton Fisher. “I took a close look and finally asked, ‘Where’s my grandfather?’”
He wasn’t there. No portrait, no photograph, not even a snapshot recalled Henry Goldman, the founder’s son whose financial innovations created the modern banking business.
Oh, and do you want her opinion on “the current situation” over at 200 West (which I think we’re supposed to infer as “the state of Goldman being a criminal enterprise”)? No? Well you’re gonna get it anyway. Read more »
The reason a run-of-the-mill financial bust became a catastrophe, Mr Kaletsky claims in his book, was due largely to the stunning failures of one man: Henry Paulson, George Bush’s treasury secretary. In a passionate ad hominem attack, called “The Economic Consequences of Mr Paulson” (after Keynes’s 1925 pamphlet “The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill”, a devastating critique of Sir Winston’s defence of the gold standard), Mr Kaletsky excoriates Mr Paulson, particularly his decision to allow the investment bank Lehman Brothers to fail. The hyperbole is spectacular. Mr Paulson, the book claims, came “closer to destroying capitalism than Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong combined.” [The Economist]
Sinner
As is I’m sure the case for many of you fine people, on a daily basis, a whole lot of garbage ends up in my inbox, most of it unsolicited. Sometimes though, on rare occasions, there is the potential for universe-altering gold. Such as the following: Read more »
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
