When we learned this morning that Citi CEO Vikram Pandit had announced at 5:03 this morning that the financial giant was adopting "Citi Never Sleeps" as its new company motto, we immediately began anticipating the new advertising campaign that Citi will doubtlessly unveil.
And then we decided we couldn't wait for Citi. Pandit's got a lot on his mind, and the bank is strapped for capital. Why not devise an advertisement for the bank? You know, just to help out. Of course, we may understand the concept of eternal insomnia slightly different from Citi, which imagines that ‘Citi Never Sleeps’ conveys the image of a bank with "boundless energy to serve customers.”
For those of you already bored with watching JP Morgan's Fed chief Ben Bernanke talk to Congressmen, we thought we'd present a little entertainment. Thanks to the boys at OptionMonster, we have a mash-up of Bohemian Rhapsody and recent crises on Wall Street. It's the Bohemian Financial Rhapsody. After the jump, we bring the glory.
It's no surprise that this song was written by an American living in Paris, since the deterioration of the dollar often shows up first and most obviously in foreign exchanges. Well, the Dollar Got the Blues again so we thought we'd put this up as our third video this morning.
It's the return of Merle Hazard. Last time we heard from this ersatz country music singer, he was lamenting the demise of his hedge fund. This time around he's meeting with Art Laffer, singing about the Federal Reserve and the plight of mortgage bond traders.
The lads and lasses at College Humor imagine what it would be like if people reacted behaved in business meeting like they do on website comment boards.
One of the gripes against Yahoo CEO Jerry Wang is that he's a socially inept nerd who seems completely unable to talk to investors, Wall Street or, we're guessing, the ladies. So, in advance of today's earnings news, we hereby nominate Gabe and Max to run Yahoo. We know it's a bold call but, well, it's got to start somewhere. Why not here? Why not now?
(Editor's note: We're a bit worried about this. If these guys will sell the secrets of the internet to anyone who calls them, pretty soon everyone will be on the internet. And then what will happen?)
Erin Burnett had a rough day on Friday. In addition to her regular duties hosting Squawk on the Street and Street Signs, the CNBC anchor took to the streets of Times Square in the midst of an on and off rain storm to do those always awkward man-on-the-street interviews with tourists and office workers. But her toughest interview wasn't with one of these innocent bystanders. It was with Hardball host Chris Matthews.
You can watch the video above to see the awkward moment that develops when Matthews decides he needs to get a bit closer to Burnett. (Thanks to NewsBusters for capturing the video.)
After the jump you can read the transcript (again via Newsbusters). You can get an idea of what happens from the NewsBusters commentary. "Chris, I know it was Friday night and Erin Burnett is indeed a knockout. However, perhaps you could be a little more subtle about your attraction for Erin. After all, among the few dozen of your Hardball viewers, Mrs. Matthews could have been watching your leering performance," they write.
Leering Chris Matthews Asks Female CNBC Anchor to Move in Closer to Camera [NewsBusters]
There’s an old story about the day Humphrey Bogart went to see a performance by a Bogart impersonator. After the show someone asks Bogart what he thought. The star replied, “One of us stinks.”
We were reminded of this story when we watched the clip above from the movie Boiler Room. One of the brilliant things about the movie was the way it dealt with the effect of movies about finance on the people who work in finance. Regardless of the motivations of writer and director Oliver Stone, Wall Street has long been embraced by young Wall Streeters who, even if they may not want to meet Bud Fox’s end, share the ambitions that drove him to Gordon Gekko’s lair. Boiler Room doesn’t quite have the cult status of Wall Street but it plausibly handles dealing with the recursiveness of a culture in which a film is modeled on financial culture and then comes to shape that very financial culture.
Anyway, it’s been a slow news day here at DealBreaker HQ so we’re bringing you the pinnacle of this recursive culture: the scene where boys of JT Marlin mouth the words of Gordon Gekko. Art imitates reality imitating art imitating reality.
Box NYC is one of those events we always get invited to but never actually get around to attending. It’s not that it doesn’t sound promising—boxing, dinner, poker, models. What’s not to like? What’s more, as long as our friends who still work in finance are ponying up for the table—which apparently costs around $8000—there’s really no excuse not for going at all. But we don’t go, and we can never figure out why.
Fortunately our buddies at LX.TV were there, and brought home the video above.
(Yes, we know that that Gawker called it a “titanic douche convention” and complained about racism. But they also seemed uncomfortable for boxing so we already know they aren’t our kind of people.)
Something of a scandal has erupted over remarks made by Mad Money host Jim Cramer in the above video from TheStreet.com explaining how traders attempt to play the market price of stocks they take short positions in. One way of doing this--which Cramer describes as widespread although perhaps illegal--is for a hedge fund trader to call reports and analysts to spread negative stories about the stock. Reactions to Cramer's remarks are divided about whether he is performing a public service in revealing widespread market manipulation and whether he is providing how-to guide to manipulating stocks.
The New York Post broke the story this morning:
In the video from TheStreet.com's "Wall Street Confidential" Webcast, Cramer boasts about manipulating the price of a high-flying stock down, and even acknowledges that doing so might have been illegal. The video is making the rounds on YouTube.
"A lot of times when I was short, I would create a level of activity beforehand that would drive the futures. . . . It's a fun game," Cramer said in the Webcast, which was moderated by TheStreet.com Executive Editor Aaron Task.
Cramer later said that "no one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don't care."
One added thing to watch for: Jim Cramer takes a swipe at easily manipulated financial reporters, who he calls "the Bob Pisani's of the world." We're sure his CNBC colleague appreciates it.
Cramer Reveals A Bit Too Much [New York Post]
When we learned this morning that Citi CEO Vikram Pandit had announced at 5:03 this morning that the financial giant was adopting "Citi Never Sleeps" as its new company motto, we immediately began anticipating the new advertising campaign that Citi will doubtlessly unveil. 
