Opening Bell: 10.08.10
Greenspan Says US Creating 'Scary' Deficit By Borrowing (Bloomberg)
“We’re involved in a dangerous game,” Greenspan said yesterday at a foreign-exchange conference. “We’re increasing the debt held by the public at a pace that is closing” the gap between our debt and “any measure of borrowing capacity,” Greenspan said. “That cushion is growing very narrow.”
Larry Wilcox, "CHiPs" Actor, Charged with Securities Fraud (CBS)
The scheme involving Wilcox was one of several kickback operations run by more than a dozen small-company stock promoters, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday. The SEC charged Wilcox and the others in lawsuits filed in Miami federal court. The SEC says the promoters were caught in an FBI undercover sting operation offering to pay kickbacks to pension-fund managers or stockbrokers for using their clients' funds to buy penny stocks.
Cleveland Browns Owner Claims Hedge Fund Is Hiding His Money (Forbes)
Randy Lerner, the owner of the Cleveland Browns and the Aston Villa Football Club, is embroiled in a lawsuit over his October attempt to redeem $40 million from a hedge fund run by two sisters and a recent Republican Congressional candidate. In legal papers, Lerner claims the funds have been “hidden.”
Money Manager Who Crashed Plane Gets 10 Years (AP)
Hamilton Superior Court Judge Steven Nation sentenced Marcus Schrenker, who conned friends into investing in a fund that didn't exist and tried to fake his death by parachuting out of a plane and crashing it when the scheme started to unravel, to 10 years in prison, ignoring Schrenker's claims that a lighter sentence would give him enough time to make things right. Schrenker, 39, told Nation he wanted to repay investors and rebuild his relationship with the three children he's seen only once since his arrest. He said he has bipolar disorder and had got caught in a downward spiral of stress after becoming addicted to painkillers.
Soros Says Banking System Remains "Too Connected" (Reuters)
"We didn't grasp the real problems" in the financial regulation bill, Soros said at a Financial Times conference. Soros argued that the banking system is too compartmentalized and added he doesn't see what has been done to solve that issue. "One thing you have to recognize is that markets are inherently unstable, and maintaining stability has to be the objective of financial authorities," Soros said. "I think things have really gotten out of control and they have not been brought under control by what we've done so far."
Finance Leaders To Try And End Currency Wars (Reuters)
"What we all want is a rebalancing of the global economy and this rebalancing cannot happen without ... a change in the related value of currencies," IMF Managing Director Dominque Strauss-Kahn said.
Obama May Try to Woo Business as P&G, Blackstone Vent (Bloomberg)
“I have every expectation as we go through the next several months that we are going to see a greater involvement with business than we have seen in some time,” said Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader and an Obama ally.
More Taxes In Finance, European Commission Says (NYT)
According to the commission, the financial sector is not taxed enough, and should be expected to take some responsibility for the crisis, and its institutions benefited greatly from subsequent government interventions.
Economy Sheds 95,000 Jobs; Rate at 9.6% as Easing Looms (Reuters)
Nonfarm payrolls dropped 95,000, the Labor Department said on this morning. Private employment increased 64,000 after rising 93,000 in August. A total of 77,000 temporary jobs for the decennial census were terminated last month.
Stimulus Checks Sent To Dead, Incarcerated (WSJ)
The Social Security Administration sent about 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each to dead and incarcerated people—but almost half of them were returned, a new inspector-general's report found. The agency was charged with distributing the one-time payments, worth about $13 billion in total, as part of the economic-stimulus package passed in February 2009.
Carlyle Betting Patience Will Pay For India Investment (Reuters)
"We hope to deploy a sizeable amount of capital in the market. We have a $2.5 billion fund which still has a lot of dry powder," said Devinjit Singh.
HSBC Told To Improve Oversight (WSJ)
The orders give the board of HSBC North America Holdings Inc., based in New York, 30 days to submit a plan to strengthen the unit's oversight of business risk management. The HSBC operation was ordered to "employ a permanent full-time" regional compliance officer for risk management. HSBC also must retain an outside consultant approved by the Fed to review the unit's compliance program.