1) TARP After Three Years: It Made Things Worse, Not Better (Forbes) - Bank bailouts have been in the news a lot lately thanks to the #OccupyWallStreet crowd. But it's not only lefty hipsters who think TARP was a sham. Here are the reasons why we're worse off in the long term for having bailed out the banks.
2) Goldman May Drop Bank Status, Hilder Says (The Daily Caller) - Speaking of marriages of convenience, now that the Vampire Squid has sucked any and all possible utility out of their status as a bank holding company, they're considering going back to plain old investment bank status to avoid the expenses real banks have to shoulder under the new Volcker Rule. To be fair, Morgan Stanley is considering the same move.
3) Gorman's Brokerage Headache (American Chronicle) - Since you brought up Morgan Stanley, we might as well talk about the 17,500 retail brokerage elephants in the room. Turns out Smith Barney wasn't quite the crown jewel James Gorman hoped it was. Note to James: Dude, there's this new thing called the Internet where people can trade stocks wicked cheap. Just sayin'.
4) Top Firm CEO Said To Have Told Staff To Expect Low / No Bonuses (Here Is The City) - It's the most wonderful time of the year! With the holidays right around the corner, it's time for investment bank BSDs to start managing their underlings' bonus expectations lower. Both Goldman's and Morgan Stanley's opening salvos have included hints about the dreaded "donut". I swear to God, if I had to get by on just my $500,000 annual salary with no bonus, I don't think I could get out of bed in the morning.
5) BlackBerry co-CEOs seek to control the damage (KDVR) - For the love of all that is good and Holy, will RIM ever get their shit together? Some people were without service for almost 5 days. I'm thinking it might be the biggest impact Canada has ever had on US GDP.
6) Occupy Wall Street Moves To Paulson's House (FIN Alternatives) - The last thing you want to wake up to when your flagship hedge fund is down about a million percent is a bunch of dirty hippies loitering in your front yard. So of course #OccupyWallStreet had to pay Chez Paulson a visit on their walking tour of Wall Street kajillionaire's homes. They could have at least mowed the lawn.
7) Demand Media's Army Of Freelancers Is Furious After Getting Its Workload Cut Down (Business Insider) - DMD was my favorite short sale of 2011. I use the past tense because I went short at $19.95 a share and covered at $7.50, so I'm out. The company has more or less shut down content generation - THE STATED PURPOSE FOR THE $151 MILLION THEY RAISED IN JANUARY. Now the stock is under $7. Might have covered too soon. Anybody know what the record for IPO to zero bid is?
8) Nonsense: Greece Wants to Buy Nouriel Roubini’s Firm, Offers Crete in Exchange (Market Squeeze) - So the word's on the Street that Dr. Doom is selling the box of rainbows and sunshine that is Roubini Global Economics. What if Greece really wanted to buy it? It certainly wouldn't be the DUMBEST thing they've done. In any case, I'm betting Nouriel won't part with his wall vaginas.
9) Sharp rise in foreclosures as banks move in (MSNBC) - It's probably a positive sign that banks are no longer hiding their heads in the sand when it comes to foreclosing on defaulted mortgages. The sooner we tear the Band-Aid off and let the inventory flush through the system, the sooner we can get back on solid footing.
10) Phoenix Jones unmasks in court after no charges filed (KOMO News) - I wanted to finish strong this week, so here's a story I honestly don't know whether to file under "Awesome" or just plain "WTF?". Evidently there is a band of "super heroes" running around Seattle fighting crime at night, and the one calling himself Phoenix Jones is none other than MMA fighter Benjamin "Fear the Flattop" Fodor. Yeah, get your head around that one. He got his ass hauled for pepper spraying a crowd of people outside a nightclub, but no charges were filed. So what does this kind of thing do for property values in Seattle?
Now on to the Video of the Week. This one caught me completely off guard, and after watching it a couple times I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this movie has the potential to be the
for a new generation. You definitely want to go FULL SCREEN on this baby:Let me know what you think about this week's bananas, and have a great weekend!
Ever since they converted in the first place, I had always wondered how long it would take them to want to convert back. If they're allowed to convert back without any restriction this sets yet another TBTF-ish precedent that they could just do whatever they want during the good times, convert to a BHC when times get rough and convert back again with things get better.
I don't think they should have been allowed to convert in the first place, not that it really mattered anyway since between the two of them, they still got $176 Billion in secret loans from the Fed.
Excellent post. To add to it, it should be noted that GS and MS were allowed to convert to bank holding companies overnight, when the process normally takes a week. An exemption was made for them. Such complete horse shit.
double post
Bonus bananas = best part of Friday before 5PM
2 - I'm guessing that this is probably the best way to render the Volker rule toothless. I'm kind of glad they did this and the government allowed it, because it would really suck if prop trading were completely neutered. This is America dammit, it's not supposed to be risk free. Is this a back door version of Glass Steigal, even if just in practice and not the letter of the law? Also, I understand a lot of restrictions were waived for a lot of good reasons, but I'm also curious how changing the designation of the business is going to open doors for other companies seeking assistance down the road.
This ties directly into the next point:
1 - man, this debate is going to rage for generations, it puts the Keynesian v Austrian argument to shame in scope, immediate effects, and overall influence. I think that it's a fundamentally new way of doing business, or rather, supporting business in the US. The government and big business have always had a tacit understanding that they need each other (they DO) and there are plenty of back door deals throughout history, but this is the largest and most openly declared shotgun marriage and divorce of state and corporate power EVER. Key phrase in my mind: PRECEDENT LAW
9 - this is REALLY going to set off the OWS crowd, I'm taking a different way home from work today. Three years after the crash and shit is still looking bad for the middle class? Obama's going to have some 'splaining to dooooo come November 2012.
But what's to say the Volker wont get changed to something like "systemically important banks" bla bla bla rather than bank holding companies.
And the trailer at 0:50 was sick!
Wow...that trailer is fucking awesome.
Trailer at 1:58...so cool.
That trailer, +1. All I can say.
Agreed. Excited for that film now.
Who the hell monkey shat me for that?
I thought Goldman commented saying they weren't changing their status? Well, it was more of a "we have no plans to change our status.”
You're right. I believe Congress would amend the legislation to include that exact definition. There's also an article on DealBook discussing the effects the Volcker rule would have on foreign banks. Interesting read.http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/how-the-volcker-rule-may-affect-…
& movie looks sick. I will definitely check it out.
Can't wait for this movie.
Ed. Good shit with the Trailer. Everything else is just noise.
would you refuse Goldman request to drop it's bhc status
it seems to me gs being a bhc is the woerst of all worlds they are still wholesal funded but and now they will; be regulated to death.
it seems to me gs being a bhc is the worst of all worlds they are still wholesale funded but and now they will be regulated to death.
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