Submitted by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. In the 1987 movie classic Wall Street, the sinister protagonist Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas gives this famous quote: In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I […]
Read more...An interesting contract in reporting today. Reader (Tom C) sent me the Wall Street Journal version of this story, by Michael R. Crittenden and Liam Pleven, titled “AIG Execs Returned Only $19M Of $45M In Pledged Repayments.” I decided to look at Bloomberg as well, as found one on the same subject, “AIG Should Trim […]
Read more...The Financial Times reports that the so-called pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who is in charge of overseeing compensation at TARP recipients, is going to crack down on some of the bonuses paid at AIG: The Obama administration’s pay tsar has indicated he will take a tough stance on executive pay at AIG, the state-controlled insurance […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal has a headline that would warm the cockles of any populist’s heart: “Bankers Face Sweeping Curbs on Pay.” And even more impressive, who is going to rein in banker compensation? The Fed. That alone should tell you there is less here than meets they eye. Let’s look at the outline of […]
Read more...Perhaps I place too much emphasis on turn of phrase. However, the fact that the EU officialdom is starting to use feral imagery in describing the posture they intend to take relative to the financial services industry says they have a keen appreciation of what they are up against. The battle lines are being drawn […]
Read more...Conspiracy theorists will have to wait until the article described in Inside Science is published to determine whether it delivers on its claims. It purports to analyze stock holding across 48 countries and alleges they are held in very few hands. But the work was done by physicists, which means they may not have understood […]
Read more...A new and welcome front may be opening in the efforts to rein in an overly powerful and now explicitly state-backed financial services industry: challenging its claims that its activities are good for society. While the provision of credit is important to any economy beyond the barter stage, finance should be the handmaiden of commerce, […]
Read more...Tim Duy pointed out this priceless remark from AIG’s new CEO, Robert Benmosch: Benmosche told employees that he “had the luxury to say to the government, I’m not going to rush to do this. I’m appalled at how much pressure has been put on all of you to just sell it no matter what, because […]
Read more...Readers may know that William Black, who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, has been a vociferous critic of US policy on the financial crisis. In this lecture, he not only revisits one of his favorite topics, fraud, but also examines a wealth transfer from the middle classes to the […]
Read more...Ooh, this is getting interesting. Sports fans may recall that as of last week, Citigroup was refusing to back down on the issue of the contract for Andrew Hall, the head of commodities trading unit PhiBro, which could be worth as much as $100 million this year. A side comment: Hall seems to be trying […]
Read more...The most interesting aspect of the latest stage of the tempest-in-a-teapot over now famous Phibro trader Andrew Hall’s contract. which could reap him as much as $100 million in 2009, is that Citi appears to be girding itself for a fight with the government over it. This stance suggests several possibilities, which by the way […]
Read more...I am cynical enough to believe that this signal, of having a CEO start his new job by going on holiday, is quite deliberate. We the great unwashed public are being given the message that we should not run Goldman operatives fine upstanding men like Edward Liddy out, because look what sort of commitment to […]
Read more...Rolfe Winkler of Reuters and Louise Story of the New York Times sat in on the hearings on the SEC-Bank of America settlement today. Those who have followed this little drama may recall: Merrill paid its employees bonuses of $3.6 billion prior to the close of the deal with Bank of America. It was very […]
Read more...One of my (many) pet peeves is the lousy incentives that investment bank top brass and staff have had for some time. In particular, the advent of the “other people’s money” model has meant that everyone has reason to be cavalier. The industry has a proud tradition of people failing upwards, or at least sideways, […]
Read more...I am sorry to make Roger Ehrenberg an object lesson as far as this post is concerned, because I am a fan of his work. He is articulate and insightful. I have often featured his posts in Links as opposed to in posts and felt a bit bad about it, in that I wanted to […]
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