Opening Bell: 11.24.09
AIG's Rescue Bedevils U.S. (WSJ)
Some fed officials want the Pay Czar to ease up on comp restrictions. "AIG is the best example of why the government should never get itself in the position of even having to make these tradeoffs," said Anil Kashyap, an economics professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "It's why you don't want the government involved in the private sector in the first place."
Fed Said to Ask Stress-Tested Banks to Submit Plans on TARP (Bloomberg)
"It would send a terrific message to the market if there was a plan and a timetable for at least the top banks in TARP to pay the money back," said Joel Conn, president of Lakeshore Capital Inc. in Birmingham, Alabama, which owns stock in PNC Financial Services Group Inc. "It would signify they are good enough to stand on their own."
The Gold Man Of Goldman (Business Today)
If Lloyd Blankfein could change one thing about his company it would be for his employees to take more time off, or so he told a bunch of Princeton students.
Start Date Is Critical in Ponzi Plan (NYT)
Does anyone know when Madoff made the switch from 'legit' biz to not so much? Andy? Mark?
Bank Bailed Out RBS and HBOS (FT)
Breaking: The British banks might have gone under. The Bank of England extended secret emergency financing to Royal Bank of Scotland and to what was then HBOS during the banking panic last October, "indicating the two banks were even closer to collapse than had been thought."
Mad Rush As Gold Bugs Get The Boot (WSJ)
HSBC has told retail clients to remove their small holdings from its fortress beneath its tower on New York City's Fifth Avenue. The bank has decided retail customers aren't profitable enough and is demanding those clients remove their gold to make room for more lucrative institutional customers.