"Have you ever noticed," the chairman of Citigroup, Richard D. Parsons, asked The Observer this Monday evening, "that in the NFL, or in the NBA, or in Major League Baseball, this guy was a failure at Cleveland, and then he becomes the coach in Houston? These guys just move around from one team to another. Read More
One of the most important people in finance was overlooking Central Park from his Fifth Avenue apartment, enjoying the Bach that his twin teenage daughters were playing on violin and speaking to the young Fulbright scholars from Iraq and China he'd invited for a reception. "In everything I do, I always ask myself, 'Am I Read More
The New Yorker's John Cassidy has an exceedingly good take on Ben Bernanke's performance today in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
Part of his testimony was nothing new. "The only way we could have saved Lehman would have been by breaking the law," he said, using the old reference to the Federal Reserve Read More
As one might expect from the company that suffered the biggest U.S. bankruptcy ever, Lehman Brothers conducted less-than optimal oversight of its businesses. Our suspicions to that effect were confirmed today at a U.S. Bankruptcy Court proceeding in Manhattan. Barclays futures director Elizabeth James, who was involved when Barclays bought Lehman out of bankruptcy in September 2008, said, "Lehman's Read More
As the housing market started to collapse in the middle of 2006, investors became more and more nervous about the smelliest sections of CDOs--collateralized debt obligations that pooled different mortgage bonds together. So what did banks like Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and UBS do? According to ProPublica and NPR's big follow-up to the Read More
When former Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis denied N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's fraud charges in court documents this week, he did not strike a particularly humble tone. "Some have looked to assign blame for every aspect of the financial crisis, even where there is no evidence of misconduct," he and his lawyers wrote Read More
So the Bloomberg administration did what it so often does Read More
The Journal's Matthew Karnitschnig and Susanne Craig have the low-down on last week's annual gathering at the St. Regis of Wall Street's very own secret fraternity, Kappa Beta Phi, which contains some of the true titans of city-based finance. The frat's current mood, understandably, is a bit sullen, like a bad hangover you simply Read More
Author Michael Lewis and hedge fund manager David Einhorn in The New York Times over the weekend on the genesis of the current crisis: "Our financial catastrophe, like Bernard Madoff’s pyramid scheme, required all sorts of important, plugged-in people to sacrifice our collective long-term interests for short-term gain. The pressure to do this in Read More
September 23
Ask anyone around Wall Street these days: Are bankers still buying ties? Inevitably, someone will respond, “What, to hang themselves?”
“Isn’t this a cool tie?” gushed an eager saleswoman at the chic Read More
From that Wall Street Journal story this morning on New York housing's specious buoyancy: "'Right now, people are still living on last year's bonus,'" says Barclays Capital economist Ethan Harris, who is based in New York. "'You can sort of feel the local economy on the edge of a cliff.'"
From Crain's: "Even in bankruptcy, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has not lost its hunger for space. The failed investment bank is currently looking to lease somewhere between 150,000 to 250,000 square feet of space, real estate sources said. ... Sources said Lehman needs the new space for the employees who will continue to work Read More
Roughly four million New Yorkers—one in two—have trouble paying for groceries, the survey found. That's a 26 percent spike since the last survey was Read More
First time. And no muss and little fuss. What an era and a borough for it all to go swimmingly in: Read More
When New York’s real estate market was at its peak, condo buyers and investors were not in the position to quibble if the ceiling of their new apartment was a few inches shorter than the one in the sponsor’s offering plan or if common charges were a couple hundred dollars more than expected. Now that Read More
WALL STREET'S LOBBYEST LOBBYISTS
