In Wall Street Sequel, Stone Gives Voice To Outrage (NYT)
“You know, half the people in this place could be prosecuted.” Oliver Stone, the film director, was sitting across from me over a late lunch in the Grill Room of the Four Seasons restaurant in Midtown Manhattan last week. In one corner was Stephen Schwarzman; Felix Rohatyn, a special adviser to the chairman of Lazard, was leaving as I was coming in, as was Barry Diller. And Sanford Weil— “the mother of all evil,” Mr. Stone said with a wry smile — had just dashed out. Mr. Stone added, “It’s silly to be simplifying and say Wall Street is evil,” pausing for a moment before stopping to correct himself. “Goldman Sachs is evil, maybe….Look, Wall Street’s gone crazy. It’s banking on steroids,” Mr. Stone said, getting a bit irritated. “Banks don’t mean what they did. When I was a kid, you had a savings account; you made 3 to 4 percent. Now you make zero, and Goldman Sachs is a bank holding company.”

Geithner Calendar: Met Blankfein More Often Than Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, Boehner (HP)
Lloyd Blankfein has shown up on Geithner’s calendar at least 38 times through March since the Treasury Secretary took office in January 2009, three more entries than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 13 more than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a copy of Geithner’s daily log recently published online by the Treasury Department.

AIG In Talks To End Aid From US (WSJ)
Under the plan, which could commence as early as the first half of 2011, the Treasury Department is likely to convert $49 billion in AIG preferred shares it holds into common shares, a move that could bring the government’s ownership stake in AIG to above 90%, from 79.8% currently, the people familiar said. The common shares would then be gradually sold off to private investors, a move that would reduce U.S. ownership and potentially earn the government a profit if the shares rise in value.

BofA Chief Shares His Growth Vision (WSJ)
The plan, Mr. Moynihan’s strongest attempt to present a new vision for the bank, revolves around more cross-selling to customers, companies and institutional investors who interact with the retail, corporate and wealth-management parts of the bank. Mr. Moynihan admits the concept isn’t exactly exciting at first blush. “It’s just hard work,” he said in an interview

SEC Questions Trading Crusade as Market Makers Disappear (Bloomberg)
Mary Schapiro called on the agency last week to examine whether the loss of “old specialist obligations” has hurt investors after measures such as trading stocks in penny increments cut the number of those firms on the New York Stock Exchange to 5 from 25 in 2000. With market making now dominated by hundreds of automated traders with few rules for when they must buy and sell, the SEC will consider ways to keep the biggest from abandoning the market at the first sign of trouble.

Michael Lewis: Hedge-Fund Man Finds Inner Lion in Outer Space (Bloomberg)
To: The Loyal Investors of The Fund

From: The Manager

Like a lot of hedge-fund guys, I’ve recently endured what might be misconstrued as a nervous breakdown. Before CNBC or the New York Times or some other rag grabs the story and distorts it, I want to tell you about it myself — and explain not only my disappointing returns but also my prolonged absence. Just so you get it straight.

My crisis struck one morning early this year, as I stared at my Bloomberg screens. Nothing had happened and that was the scary thing. For no reason in particular I was overcome by this eerie conviction that markets would never again be free. They’d become traps, run by politicians and bureaucrats, designed to ensnare the superior man. What had happened, in a word, was socialism. The law of the jungle, suspended since the fall of 2008, had been permanently revoked. Park rangers would forever more feed and protect all the animals, even the fat slow ones that deserved to die. In this new environment the apex predator –the lion with the gift for spotting the wounded antelope — was doomed. My sixth sense for the kill was now irrelevant.

Bank Rules Win Muted Praise (WSJ)
Douglas Elliot, a former banker now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, described the standards as “lower than I’d like to see, but much higher than [today's] effective requirement.” Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate at Columbia University, called them “a move in the right direction.” Many bankers were less enthusiastic. “Every dollar of capital is one less dollar working in the economy,” the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group of large U.S. financial firms, said in a statement.

Ryanair Crews’ Cost-Cutting Idea: Drop The CEO (FT)
Catfight: Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary has for years endured complaints from passengers about his famously no-frills Irish airline. Now a senior Ryanair pilot has taken the rare step of publicly challenging his boss after the outspoken chief executive said he was trying to convince authorities to let his aircraft fly with only one pilot. A flight attendant could do the job of a co-pilot if needed, Mr O’Leary said last week, because “the computer does most of the flying now”. Captain Morgan Fischer, who trains other pilots at Ryanair’s Marseilles base, says he knows the airline is dedicated to keeping its costs as low as possible, so why not go one better – and replace Mr O’Leary with a junior flight attendant? “I would propose that Ryanair replace the CEO with a probationary cabin crew member currently earning approximately 13,200 euros ($16,950) net per annum,” Capt Fischer has written in a letter to the Financial Times, which reported Mr O’Leary’s comments last week.

The Jim O’Neill’s Farewell Letter (ZH)
Anyhow, as my beloved football just showed a couple of hours ago, anything can happen in life ( 3-1 up at the end of normal time, and it ended 3-3……a few hairdryers in the dressing room I suspect after that…!). Best of luck.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Barclays Taps Diamond As CEO (WSJ)
In an unexpected shake-up, the giant London-based bank announced Tuesday morning that Mr. Diamond, Barclays’s president and investment-banking chief, will replace current CEO John Varley. After serving as CEO since September 2004, Mr. Varley will step down on March 31. Mr. Diamond will assume the title of deputy group CEO on Oct. 1. The announcement comes as a surprise, since Mr. Varley hasn’t previously indicated he has plans to retire. The 59-year-old Mr. Diamond, an avid golfer and die-hard Boston Red Sox fan, is four years older than Mr. Varley, who is 55. He lost out to Mr. Varley for the CEO job in 2003.

Obama Plans Business Tax Relief, Spending to Spur Growth (Bloomberg)
Obama will announce an expanded tax incentive to encourage business investment, an administration official said on condition of anonymity. Obama also will urge Congress to extend permanently and expand a research-and-development tax credit for businesses, costing about $100 billion over a decade. He began the rollout of initiatives yesterday in Milwaukee, calling for $50 billion in the first of a six-year program to fix roads, railways and runways and modernize the air-traffic control system. “All of this will not only create jobs now, but will make our economy run better over the long haul,” Obama said, announcing his public-works program. “It’s a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support.”

No Defense Against Double-Dip-Recession, Roubini Says (Telegraph)
“The US has run out of bullets,” said Nouriel Roubini at the annual Ambrosetti conference on Lake Como. “More quantitative easing (bond purchases) by the Federal Reserve is not going to make any difference. Treasury yields are already down to 2.5pc yet credit spreads are widening again. Monetary policy can boost liquidity but it can’t deal with solvency problems,” he told Europe’s policy elite. “There is a 40pc chance of double-dip recession in the US, and worse in Japan. Even if it is not technically a recession it will feel like it,” he added.

Burry of `The Big Short’ Bets on Farmland, Gold After Profits on Subprime (Bloomberg)
Michael Burry, the former hedge-fund manager who predicted the housing market’s plunge, said he is investing in farmable land, small technology companies and gold as he hunts original ideas and braces for a weaker dollar. “I believe that agriculture land — productive agricultural land with water on site — will be very valuable in the future,” Burry, 39, said in a Bloomberg Television interview scheduled for broadcast this morning in New York. “I’ve put a good amount of money into that.” Burry, who now manages his own money after shuttering the fund in 2008, said finding original investments is difficult because many trades are crowded and asset classes often move together. “I’m interested in finding investments that aren’t just simply going to float up and down with the market,” he said. “The incredible correlation that we’re experiencing — we’ve been experiencing for a number of years — is problematic.”

Cameron lines up HSBC’s Green as trade minister (FT)
Stephen Green is expected to announce on Tuesday he is standing down as chairman of HSBC to become trade minister, ending David Cameron’s long search to find a high-profile business figure to fill the role.

Bounties Spur Surge In Fraud Tips (WSJ)
The Dodd-Frank financial law passed in July provides for the larger bounties, with the hope of fingering wrongdoers such as Bernard Madoff before they swindle thousands of people. People who supply “original information” about large frauds could net as much as 30% of the penalties and recovered funds collected by the SEC, which could add up to a multimillion-dollar payout. Lawyers who represent whistle-blowers have been spreading the word about the new incentives. “We’ve gotten some very high-quality tips,” said SEC official Stephen Cohen.

Why You Can’t Beat Wall Street (NYM)
The current economic malaise would cause trouble for whichever party is in power. But having helped open the valves of anti-Establishment fervor, the Democrats may have not only failed to harness the energy they unleashed, but lost what capitalist allies they had as well. If there is still such a thing as an Establishment, the Obama administration increasingly faces the prospect of alienating it while still getting pilloried for being it. That’s a political perfecta no one was looking to pull off.

Flight Attendant, Jet Blue Part Ways After Dramatic Exit (CNN)
JetBlue spokeswoman Jenny Dervin told CNN on Saturday that Steven Slater no longer works for the airline. She said that the separation occurred last week, but declined to elaborate how Slater and the company parted ways.

Buffett, Gates to Take Philanthropy Trip to China (CNBC)
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates will reportedly travel to China later this month to “learn how to do philanthropy” in that nation. China’s Economic Observer newspaper says Gates and Buffett have invited a “select group” of 50 to 60 members of the nation’s “business elite” to a “private party” in Beijing. Some of those invited, however, have declined to attend, apparently over concerns they’d be asked, or even pressured, to make a donation pledge at the event.

Europe’s Bank Stress-Tests Minimize Debt Risk (WSJ)
An examination of the banks’ disclosures indicates that some banks didn’t provide as comprehensive a picture of their government-debt holdings as regulators claimed. Some banks excluded certain bonds, and many reduced the sums to account for “short” positions they held—facts that neither regulators nor most banks disclosed when the test results were published in late July.

Bankers Gather To Assure Industry Is On The Right Track (NYT)
Top executives from some of the world’s leading banks are due to gather for a conference in Frankfurt later this week as lenders seek to avoid what they see as overly harsh regulation following the global financial crisis. Two years after Lehman Brothers’ collapse heralded the global financial system’s breakdown, chief executives at Morgan Stanley, Unicredit and Commerzbank are expected to try and convince the audience at the “Banken im Umbruch” conference that they have done their work to stabilize their banks and should not be thrown back by new banking rules.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

As you’re extremely aware, the alternative asset management biz is known for attracting both the brightest minds and also those with the quirkiest of personalities. The most successful individuals have both these traits. Generally, we hear about these people’s formidable market savvy first and it’s not until after they’ve made their firm billions that the demonstrations of quirk come out. But why not do it in reverse order? What I’m saying is, based on his performance today, it seems obvious that Steven Slater probably has some serious investing prowess up his sleeve, and now that he’s looking for a new industry with which to get involved, someone ought snap him up fast.

A crazed JetBlue flight attendant who lost his cool after a flight from Pittsburgh landed at JFK Airport today hurled obscenities at passengers over the airliner’s public address system and then deployed the emergency chute to make a dramatic escape.

Steven Slater, the attendant-turned-wingnut, dashed from the tarmac to his silver Jeep Wrangler parked in an employee lot and raced home to Belle Harbor, where he was arrested by Port Authority cops.

The meltdown was preceded by an argument with a passenger, who sources said told Slater “to f— off” after being told by Slater not to remove baggage from the overhead compartment. The passenger insisted on opening the overhead compartment, hitting Slater in the head with the door as it dropped down. After the plane landed and pulled up to Gate 3 at the JetBlue terminal, and as passengers began moving to the door, sources said Slater got on the public address system and launched into a tirade.

“To the f—-ing ass—- that told me to f— off, it’s been a good 28 years!” Slater bellowed, according to law enforcement sources.

But that wasn’t the end of it. In a move fitting for an action flick, Slater grabs a can of beer from the airline galley then pops the lever for the airliner’s inflatable chute and slides down to the tarmac outside the terminal door.

Friends of Slater’s in his beachfront Belle Harbor neighborhood were shocked to hear about the incident. “I can’t believe Steve’s on the run,” said Bruce Babasso, 65. “He’s like OJ Simpson. He must have snapped. He must have had the JetBlue blues,” quipped Babasso.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

US Probes Morgan Stanley (WSJ)
Among the deals that have been scrutinized are two named after U.S. Presidents James Buchanan and Andrew Jackson, a person familiar with the matter said. Morgan Stanley helped design the deals and bet against them but didn’t market them to clients. Traders called them the “Dead Presidents” deals.

Roubini Says Greece May Lead Euro Exodus, China Faces Slowdown (Bloomberg)
A “real depreciation” in the euro is needed to restore competitiveness in nations including Spain, Portugal and Italy, he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. The euro will remain the currency for a smaller number of countries that have “stronger fiscal and economic fundamentals,” Roubini said.

`Perfect Quarter’ for Four Banks Shows Fed-Linked Revival on Wall Street (Bloomberg)
“The trading profits of the Street is just another way of measuring the subsidy the Fed is giving to the banks,” said Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California- based Institutional Risk Analytics. “It’s a transfer from savers to banks.”

Market Inquiry Focuses On One Trader (NYT)
Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday that during that crucial time period, the futures trader, whom he would not identify, accounted for about 9 percent of trading volume in the most actively traded stock-index derivative contract, known as the 500 e-mini futures contract.

Fragments from Goldman Sachs! The Musical (New Yorker)
John Paulson! Singing and dancing!

Miracle Boy (NYP)
A Libyan plane crashed Wednesday on approach to Tripoli’s airport, killing at least 96 people and leaving a field scattered with smoldering debris that included a large chunk of the tail painted with the airline’s brightly colored logo. A 10-year-old Dutch boy was the only known survivor.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker