Just To Be Different, CFO Jeff Edwards Said Later That He Wasn't Disappointed In The Results "At All"

Author:
Bess Levin
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
Oct 24, 2007

During this morning’s conference call to discuss Merrill Lynch’s $8.4 billion writedown and $2.24 billion loss, CEO Stan O’Neal, quite predictably, attempted to steal the spotlight and hog all the firm’s third-quarter glory by saying, "No one is more disappointed than I am," the greedy bastard. At the time, no one said anything like, “Now wait there one minute, bub,” not even Deutsche Bank’s Mike Mayo, but we’ve been thinking that actually, Stanley, you might not be the one who’s most disappointed in your utter and complete failure.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Rochdale analyst Dick Bové loves fairy tales as much as the next guy. He loves the romance, he loves the drama, he loves the idea of magical footwear. Does he start every morning asking the question, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest analyst of them all?"? Yes. Does he consider Mike Mayo and Meredith Whitney his evil step-sisters? Yes. Does he dream about being awoken from his slumber by a handsome prince? But even Dick knows that five minutes after the prince wakes you up you're going to be bitching to your girlfriends about being stuck with this asshole who lets the dishes pile up like you're the god damn maid service. Everyone knows that when the handsome prince kissed the beautiful Snow White she awakened and everyone lived happily ever after. “It’s in the book” said comic John Standley when discussing another one solution character Little Bo Peep. This “one solution fits all,” or what I like to call the Snow White Syndrome, is a core belief of most who look at the financial crisis. There are three examples of this in today’s press: Just about everyone is unhappy that the EU leaders could not solve all of the European debt problems with one single solution – i.e., creating Euro Bonds that absorbed all individual country debt. In today’s Financial Times Senator Sherrod Brown (OH, Dem.) and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher have a single solution to the nation’s banking problem – i.e., break up the big banks. The Wall Street Journal has a different single solution to the problems in banking – i.e., eliminate hedging in bank portfolios. Then there are the other big-time single solutions: The central banks in the North Atlantic Communities believe that by printing money economic woes will go away. Conservatives argue that by cutting taxes, this nation’s economic woes will disappear. The President and Congress believe that by passing laws the economic cycle will be eliminated (“kinda” like the dot-comers who had already eliminated the economic cycle in the 1990s). The Snow White Syndrome is everywhere. We only need to find that prince with the potent lips. The problem, of course, is that no single solution quickly arrived at is likely to achieve the results promised. Snow White Syndrome [Rochdale Research]

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