Opening Bell: 04.22.10
Obama To Castigate Wall Street (WSJ)
"A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," Mr. Obama will say, according to speech excerpts released Wednesday night. "That is what happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis. Some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, pay for an education, open a business, or save for retirement. What happens here has real consequences across our country."
Obama to Target `Risky Decisions' by Wall Street That Led to Credit Crisis (Bloomberg)
The U.S. was almost dragged into a second Great Depression by “a failure of responsibility -- from Wall Street to Washington,” Obama will say later this morning in his speech at Cooper Union.
Goldman Exec Gary Cohn To Attend Obama Speech (Reuters)
Blankfein has other plans.
Blankfein Fights Back On SEC Case (FT)
In conversations with private equity executives and others, Mr Blankfein left clients with the impression that he was eager to fight the charges in court. “He was very aggressive,” said one person called by Mr Blankfein on Wednesday. “He feels that the government is out to kill them, that they are under attack and the whole thing is totally political.” One person who received a call from the Goldman chief said he was told the regulator’s case against the bank was politically motivated and would ultimately “hurt America”.
Marc Faber: Governments Will 'Bankrupt Us' (CNBC)
"They will all bankrupt us and expropriate us, but it may not happen tomorrow. They'll give us something to play with, until the whole system breaks down...they'll just print money and print more money," Faber said this morning. Faber warned that the "ultimate armageddon" would be much worse the next time around.
Moore Capital Warns Of Euro-Zone 'Breakdown' (MarketWatch)
"Perhaps the most interesting area for the foreseeable future is in the potential breakdown of the European Monetary Union," Louis Bacon wrote in a letter to investors. "Instead of punishing the Greeks for their free-rider and fraudulent gaming of the Maastricht rules -- either by ejecting Greece from the Union to propel them to reform and come back at a competitive exchange rate or by forcing them to restructure their debt within the confines of monetary union, either of which would have eventually strengthened and solidified the euro -- the European leaders have decided to reward the prodigal Greeks with a bailout, socializing their ills and taxing once again the prodigious Northern European workers," he said.
Blackstone Posts First Quarter Profit (BusinessWire)
Net income of $360 million-- shellfish for all.
Rifts Imperil Overhaul Of Global Banking Rules (WSJ)
The globally coordinated response to the financial crisis has given way to nationalistic bickering, imperiling hopes that governments around the world can come up with a fix for outdated international-banking rules.
After Goldman Sachs (NYT)
Editorial: "Congress should ban both gaming and abusive derivatives. That would help clarify the difference between pure speculation and true hedging. It would start to restore what has been lost in the crisis: public confidence in the integrity of financial markets."