Citi Profit Falls 32 Percent (Reuters, Citi)
Citigroup’s first-quarter profit fell 32 percent as the bank lost less money on bad loans but struggled to grow its business. The bank said this morning it earned $3.0 billion, or 10 cents per share. That compared with $4.4 billion, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier.

Geithner Says GOP Prepared To Lift Debt Limit (WSJ)
In interviews aired on the Sunday talk shows, Mr. Geithner said House Speaker John Boehner and other senior Republicans told President Barack Obama in discussions last week that they were aware of the risk of a credit default and were open to lifting the limit even in the absence of a comprehensive deal to slash the country’s debt load.

Greenspan Says US Should Let Bush-Era Tax Cuts Expire (Bloomberg)
We should “allow the Bush tax cuts to expire,” Greenspan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, calling the economic crisis “imminent and dire.” We should “put the rates back to where they were during the Clinton administration,” he said.

Hedge Funds Bounce Back (WSJ)
Total hedge-fund assets are approaching $2 trillion and are soon expected to surpass their peak in early 2008, according to industry analysts. Even start-ups and smaller funds, which were shunned by many investors in the wake of the crisis, are benefiting.

Emerging Nations Reject Capital Plan (WSJ)
The IMF’s plan would have encouraged nations to treat capital controls as a last resort, after they had first tried use other tools, such as policies on interest rates, currency values and government budgets. But ministers of developing economies resisted vehemently, viewing the proposal as an effort by advanced economies to hamstring their policies. Brazil, Turkey, South Korea and several other developing countries have adopted capital controls over the past year to limit surging inflows. “We oppose any guidelines, frameworks or ‘codes of conduct’ that attempt to constrain, directly or indirectly, policy responses of countries facing surges in volatile capital inflows,” Brazil’s finance minister, Guido Mantega, told the IMF’s steering-committee meeting.

Robot Does Hazardous Duty At Nuclear Plant (WSJ)
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said Sunday that the PackBot, a small robot that scoots around on tank-like treads, would monitor radiation and oxygen levels to find out whether conditions were safe enough to allow human workers to go in to try to bring the nuclear crisis at the plant under control.

FDIC Eyes Tougher Rules For Big Banks (FT)
Sheila Bair warned that regulators now had the authority to demand that US banks break themselves into smaller parts — and it “could and should be used.”

Is Sitting Lethal? (NYT)
Over a lifetime, the unhealthful effects of sitting add up. Alpa Patel, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, tracked the health of 123,000 Americans between 1992 and 2006. The men in the study who spent six hours or more per day of their leisure time sitting had an overall death rate that was about 20 percent higher than the men who sat for three hours or less. The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher. Patel estimates that on average, people who sit too much shave a few years off of their lives…Sitting, it would seem, is an independent pathology. Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin. “Excessive sitting,” Dr. Levine says, “is a lethal activity.”

Ferrari Should Be Valued at $7.3 Billion in IPO, Marchionne Says (Bloomberg)
Fiat SpA Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said he’s told bankers pushing him to pursue an initial public offering of Ferrari that the division may be worth more than 5 billion euros ($7.3 billion).

Greece Denies Restructuring Plan As Traders Raise Bet Default (Bloomberg)
“Restructuring is not an issue we’re discussing,” Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said in an April 16 interview in Washington. “The pain and the cost” of doing so would be greater than repaying lenders, he told reporters the same day.

Greek Default Would Mean Pain All-Around (WSJ)
Economists at the Brussels think tank Bruegel calculate that roughly 20% of Greece’s debt at the end of 2010 was held by domestic banks. They are in difficult straits, and forcing losses on them may simply require the country’s rescuers to come up with more money to help.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Blames iPad For American Unemployment (HP)
On Friday, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. addressed the United States’s current unemployment crisis and claimed the iPad was “probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs.” Jackson, himself an iPad owner, expanded on his statement by pointing to the recent bankruptcy of Borders Books. “Why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes and Noble? Just buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine,” the Congressman said.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Hewlett-Packard is reshaping its policies on giving away money to nonprofit causes. Now the company will not just give away money. It will also donate the expertise of its employees to build solutions for nonprofits.

The change in policy makes sense, as the value of HP’s technology expertise could be far more useful, in conjunction with a donation, than just writing checks to charities, said Paul Ellingstad, a director in the office of global social innovation at HP, in an interview. Throwing brain power at a problem could do more good than just throwing money at it.

Announced at the Digital Life Design conference today in Munich, the HP program will help nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as mothers2mothers, a South African group that helps prevent the transmission of the AIDS virus from HIV-positive pregnant mothers to their children.

“We shifted our thinking about 14 months ago,” said Ellingstad. “We have focused on education and health and want to make sure our philanthropic efforts are more effective.”

HP will consider giving cash, materials, expertise, and employee time.

HP will use new database, cloud and mobile services technology to convert mothers2mothers’ paper-based patient records into digital form so that information can be shared across more than 700 sites in sub-Saharan Africa. That will enable counselors provide more effective education and support services to pregnant mothers. The system will provide updated information on patient treatment plans and advanced reporting tools.

The m2m employees will be able to collect and share data via basic mobile phones. Over time, that will help the organization serve more patients. The m2m group counsels more than 1.5 million women in nine countries. Mother-to-child HIV transmission rates are high due to the challenge of getting mothers to stick to their medical treatments. Roughly 40 percent of HIV-infected women give birth to HIV-positive babies. A single dose of medication to a mother before birth and again right afterward can stop transmission in 50 percent of the cases.

HP also recently announced a similar expertise-based initiative with mPedigree (whose CEO Bright Simons is pictured at top), which is fighting the use of counterfeit anti-malaria drugs through a combination of mobile phone and cloud services. And HP works with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to improve the speed of HIV diagnosis for infants in Kenya.

Disclosure: The Digital Life Design conference paid my way to Munich so I could moderate a panel. VentureBeat’s coverage of the conference remains objective and independent.

Tags: philanthropy

Companies: Hewlett Packard, HP

People: Bright Simons, Paul Ellingstad

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

A Goldman Unit Is Said To Have Rejected Facebook (Dealbook)
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners — a group that manages and invests for pensions, sovereign wealth funds and other prominent clients — was given the initial opportunity to invest $450 million in Facebook. But the unit’s chief, Richard A. Friedman, a longtime Goldman partner, decided the Facebook deal was not suitable for his clients, in part owing to the high valuation and to a mismatch with his investment criteria.

FrontPoint Partners Launches Biggest Fund Amid Probe (WSJ)
FrontPoint Partners LLC, the hedge-fund firm that was hit late last year by the government’s insider-trading investigation, completed its biggest launch ever on Thursday. The Greenwich, Conn., firm, run by Dan Waters and Mike Kelly, announced the final close for FrontPoint-SJC Direct Lending Fund LP with total commitments of more than $1 billion. The launch suggests the insider-trading probe hasn’t scared off all FrontPoint’s investors.

Paul Volcker To Step Down From White House Panel (Reuters)
The decision to leave the board was Volcker’s. A source close to him said he was ready to continue to advise Obama on an informal basis as often as the president would like.

LinkedIn Plans To Pursue An IPO (WSJ)
Unless Goldman wants to throw them $450 million.

Angry Witches Cast Spell To Protest Romanian Taxes (NPR)
Angry Romanian witches are using cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government who are forcing them to pay taxes. Also in the eye of the taxman are fortune tellers, who should have seen it coming. And President Traian Basescu isn’t laughing it off. In a country where superstition is mainstream, the president and his aides wear purple on Thursdays, allegedly to ward off evil spirits. A dozen witches will head to the Danube to put a hex on the government and hurl mandrake into the river “so evil will befall them,” said a witch named Alisia. She identified herself with one name, as is customary among witches.

Goldman Sachs May Sell, Hedge Facebook Stake Without Warning to Investors (Bloomberg)
In the last sentence of a one-page investment profile sent to private wealth clients, the firm explains: “GS Group may at any time further reduce its exposure to its investment in Facebook (through hedging arrangements, sales or otherwise), without notice to the fund or investors in the fund.”

Greece: No Problem Paying Debts (WSJ)
Papandreou also denied that Greece was engaged in talks to restructure its debt, despite lingering market concerns that the harsh austerity plan forced on Greece by its lenders will stifle growth and force it to restructure its debt. “There are no such talks. If we look at the fiscal consolidation, our reforms and the strong backing (of the European Financial Stability Facility) mechanism, we believe we will have no problem in paying back the debt to our private debtors,” he said on the sidelines of a conference of the future of capitalism in Paris.

Soros Mistrusts EU Aid as Irish Default Risk Soars (Bloomberg)
Assessing the aid plan, billionaire George Soros wrote in the Financial Times last month that the country will have to renegotiate the accord. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said a default would “destroy” the country.

Obama Turns To Experienced Hands For New Staff (NYT)
William M. Daley, who was commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, visited the West Wing to meet with the president and other advisers for a final series of discussions about serving as chief of staff. He has told associates he would accept the job if an offer was extended, and officials said Mr. Obama was favoring him.

Dogfight Erupts In Plane Ticket Sales (WSJ)
In a retaliatory move against American Airlines, Sabre Holdings Corp., a middleman for many carriers’ seats, said it is raising the fees it charges American to distribute its fare information and sell its seats through thousands of travel agents. Sabre also said it will display American’s flights less prominently than rival airlines in its vast booking system.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Facing WikiLeaks Threat, Bank Of America Plays Defense (NYT)
In addition to the internal team drawn from departments like finance, technology, legal and communications, the bank has brought in Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm, to help manage the review. It has also sought advice from several top law firms about legal problems that could arise from a disclosure, including the bank’s potential liability if private information was disclosed about clients.

Bank Of America Settles Mortgage Dispute (MarketWatch)
Bank of America said Monday it’s reached a settlement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of outstanding repurchase claims arising from certain home loans sold to them by Countrywide Financial Corp…As a result of the settlement, Bank of America said its home loans and insurance business is expected to record a $2 billion, non-cash goodwill impairment that the company can’t deduct for tax purposes.

White House: US Debt Limit Fight Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ (Reuters)
“This is not a game. You know, the debt ceiling … is not something to toy with,” Austan Goolsbee told the ABC News program “This Week.” “If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s … essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history.” “The impact on the economy would be catastrophic. I mean, that would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008,” he said.

Goldman Invests In Facebook At $50 Billion Valuation (NYT)
Under the terms of the deal, Goldman has invested $450 million, and Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm that has already sunk about half a billion dollars into Facebook, invested $50 million, people involved in the talks said.

Investments Boost For Paulson And Co (FT)
Paulson’s flagship $9bn Advantage Plus Fund, which in September was down 11 per cent for the year, has staged the most dramatic recovery. According to an investor, the fund was up 10.2 per cent for the month as of December 10. It is now up 14.3 per cent for the year. The fund is understood to have continued its strong performance this week. The Advantage Plus Fund trades around corporate events, such as mergers and acquisitions or bankruptcies. The firm’s Credit Opportunities Fund is up 4 per cent so far this month, bringing its performance to 16.5 per cent for the year so far. Mr Paulson’s Recovery Fund, which is focused on the US economy and its prospects, also returned 10.2 per cent over the first 10 days of December. The Recovery Fund is now up 19.4 per cent so far this year.

More Than 1,000 Dead Birds Drop From The Sky (AP)
Environmental service workers finished picking up the carcasses on Sunday of about 2,000 red-winged blackbirds that fell dead from the sky in a central Arkansas town Sunday.

Bet Again On AIG? Count Me In (Politico)
Op-ed: “I lost $2.5 million on American International Group stock in 2008. But I still want to be among the first to purchase new company shares in the next few weeks. That’s when the Treasury is aiming to sell at least $15 billion of its AIG holdings at the beginning of a series of stock offerings. Am I crazy? I don’t think so.”

Obama Studies Regan Years For Guidance On Pushing Agenda (Bloomberg)
Before leaving for a year-end vacation, Obama sought advice from Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein and David Gergen, an image adviser to both Reagan and Clinton, said an Obama aide. On his Hawaii trip, Obama brought along journalist Lou Cannon’s Reagan biography, “The Role of a Lifetime,” a selection his press secretary announced over Twitter.

Woman Sues Chase, Claims She Was Fired For Blogging (NYP)
Business analyst Marilyn Tagocon, 50, was canned after telling her bosses about her spare-time blogging and self-publishing of historical fiction, a lawsuit alleges. When a coworker told her the company’s code of conduct restricted employees from posting personal political speech, Tagocon went to the Human Resources Department to make sure she wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Man, 110, Ready To Wed Wife Number 6 (Herald)
“It doesn’t matter who she is, as long as she can cook for me,” Sanah Ahmad said.

Hero Group Executive Held In Citi Fraud Case (WSJ)
A senior Hero Group executive has been arrested for allegedly receiving a part of more than 3 billion rupees ($67 million) believed to have been misappropriated at a Citigroup Inc. bank branch on the outskirts of New Delhi, a police officer said Monday. The executive, Sanjay Gupta, allegedly got about 200 million rupees, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Dalbir Singh.

Singapore Avoids Recession (Reuters)
The economy grew 14.7 percent in 2010 to become one of Asia’s fastest growing economy, rebounding from a contraction in the previous year. It grew at a pace of 12.5 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. The government expects 2011 economic growth to be in the region of 4-6 percent, a projection first made in November.

Investors’ Forecast: Sunny With A Chance Of Overheating (WSJ)
“The big risk we run is that the economy recovers and the Fed is slow to raise rates,” said Ed Peters, co-director of global macro strategies at First Quadrant LP, an investment-management firm.

iPhone Alarm Glitch Leaves Some Asleep (WSJ)
“Dreaded iPhone alarm problem,” wrote someone who identified himself as a pastor. “I guess [I] didn’t need to be on time for church?”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Optimizely, a website-testing startup, has raised $1.2 million in an all-angel funding round, the company told VentureBeat today, as marketers continue to search for new ways to track, measure and hold onto the “best” traffic their websites are getting.

A/B testing, Optimizely’s specialty, involves testing several different versions of a Web page with live users and then measuring the effect each version has on users’ actions.

Optimizely does this by measuring the number of visitors who saw each version, clicked through and then decided to purchase or take other actions. That gives marketers a more numbers-driven idea of which version will work best at attracting new customers, donations or whoever they are trying to draw into the site.

“On average, only 2 percent of website visitors actually turn into customers, and most companies aren’t doing anything to improve this because testing has always been too hard,” said cofounder Dan Siroker (pictured). “By focusing on usability, we’ve created a product anyone can use, not just techies.”

It offers monthly subscriptions starting at $19 a month and says it often is capable of boosting revenue and customer conversions by 10 percent or more. Optimizely currently tracks about 250 million “events” each month but has not yet released its numbers on unique visitors.

San Francisco-based Optimizely was launched in July and immediately caught the eye of some big name clients, including the Democratic National Committee, which is not surprising considering Siroker was formerly director of analytics for the Obama presidential campaign. The DNC then quickly put it to work on its “Commit to Vote” Facebook application during this fall’s mid-term elections.

Other marquee-name clients include Causes, Cloudera, Shopify, the Clinton Foundation, CafePress and TRUSTe. Optimizely also attracted attention early on from celebrity startup backer Ashton Kutcher, an actor and producer who is also a well-known angel for trendy tech startups, and who has been with the A/B testing company from the beginning. (He also contributed to this funding round.)

The real-world implications of fast, efficient A/B testing are clear, Marie Ewald, former director of online fundraising for the Clinton Foundation, said in a statement.

“With a disaster like the Haiti earthquake, every second counts when it comes to attracting donations — and it goes without saying that every dollar counts,” said Ewald. “In less than 48 hours, we tested eight versions of the donation page and, through this experiment, we were able to generate an additional $1,022,571 in online revenue.”

Other angels involved in this round included Joshua Schachter, Sam Altman, Steve Huffman, Mitch Kapor, Ron Conway, Ariel Poler, Aydin Senkut, Brian Sugar, Chris Sacca, Steve Chen, Paul Buchheit, Chris Dixon, Naval Ravikant, Ram Shriram, Deep Nishar, Nils Johnson, Jonathan Heiliger, Keval Desai, Elad Gil and Avichal Garg.

Tags: A/B testing, Analytics, web analytics, Web testing

Companies: Cafepress, Causes, cloudera, democratic national committee, Facebook, optimizely, Shopify, the Clinton Foundation, Truste

People: Ariel Poler, Ashton Kutcher, Avichal Garg, Aydin Senkut, Brian Sugar, Chris Dixon, Chris Sacca, Dan Siroker, Deep Nishar, Elad Gil, Jonathan Heiliger, Joshua Schachter, Keval Desai, marie ewald, Mitch Kapor, Naval Ravikant, Nils Johnson, Paul Buchheit, Ram Shriram, Ron Conway, Sam Altman, Steve Chen, Steve Huffman

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

General Motors Raises IPO Price to $32-$33 a Share (CNBC)
Previously, the company had estimated the price range for the offering of 365 million shares of common stock within the range of $26.00 to $29.00 per share. The company also increased the size of its Series B mandatory convertible junior preferred stock offering to $4 billion from $3 billion…A source familiar with the matter told CNBC Monday that after ten days of investor presentations and a growing sense of optimism about the offering, the underwriters opted to raise the price range high above its original level.

Fed officials defend $600bn stimulus (FT)
The Federal Reserve has deployed two of its most senior officials to defend its new $600bn round of quantitative easing in rare on-the-record interviews that reveal the bank’s concern over domestic and international criticism of the policy. Janet Yellen, Fed vice-chair, and William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, dismissed concerns that quantitative easing was aimed at weakening the dollar or that it could ignite inflation. Mr Dudley dismissed concerns that the Fed’s policy could lead to inflation, saying that the central bank has the tools to withdraw the additional stimulus if it needs to. “We are very, very confident that those tools will be completely effective at keeping inflation in check,” Mr Dudley told the New York Times. “We are completely willing to use those tools, when the time comes, to prevent an inflation problem. Higher inflation is not a way out. It is not a solution.” Ms Yellen also said the Fed was not trying to generate above-target inflation. “I am not happy to see us caught up in a political debate. But Congress has assigned us tasks which we need to carry out as best we can. To fail to take action that is in our power that we, in our best judgment, believe to be helpful to the economy – that would be political,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

China’s ‘State Capitalism’ Sparks Global Backlash (WSJ)
Charlene Barshefsky, who as U.S. trade representative under President Bill Clinton helped negotiate China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, says the rise of powerful state-led economies like China and Russia is undermining the established post-World War II trading system. When these economies decide that “entire new industries should be created by the government,” says Ms. Barshefsky, it tilts the playing field against the private sector.

Paulson Trims Bank Of America, Entire Goldman Stake (Bloomberg)
Paulson sold 30 million Bank of America shares in the quarter, or about 18 percent of his stake, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The billionaire’s position in the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank was valued at $1.8 billion as of Sept. 30. Bank of America shares fell 8.8 percent in the quarter…Paulson’s fund also cut its Citigroup stake by 16 percent, yesterday’s filing showed. The firm still owned $1.7 billion in shares of the New York-based bank. Paulson trimmed his Wells Fargo stake by 11 percent, holding 15.5 million shares in the San Francisco-based bank valued at $389 million as of Sept. 30. He cut his position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 29 percent, keeping a $190 million stake in the New York company, and sold his entire holding in New York-based Goldman Sachs, valued at about $144.4 million at midyear.

Morgan Stanley’s Net `Queen’ Meeker Predicts Mobile-Web Boom (Bloomberg)
Mary Meeker will predict a $50 billion online advertising boom in an address at the annual Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today. The Morgan Stanley analyst will say as well that mobile commerce may gain market share faster than traditional online retailing.

UBS May Lose $41 Billion Deposits Over Tax Deals (AP)
UBS says customers from Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Britain made net withdrawals worth 20 billion francs over the past years. The bank said Tuesday that “15-40 billion francs are still at risk as a result of changes in the tax regulations.”

Prince William To Marry Girlfriend Kate Middelton (Reuters)
William, 28, the elder son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, and Middleton, 28, daughter of self-made entrepreneurs, became engaged while on holiday in Kenya last month. The wedding will take place in the spring or summer of 2011, in London…William, who is currently serving as a helicopter search-and-rescue pilot in the Royal Air Force, met Middleton when they shared a house at university in Scotland in 2001. They split up in 2007 because, newspapers said, Middleton, who has been dubbed “waity Katie” by the British tabloid press, was getting fed up of waiting for William to propose, but they soon got back together.

Bailout Panel Warns of Bank Mortgage Losses, Urges Stress Tests (Bloomberg)
“If document irregularities prove to be pervasive and, more importantly, throw into question ownership of not only foreclosed properties but also pooled mortgages, the result could be significant harm to the financial stability,” the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said in a report today. “Bank regulators should also conduct new stress tests on Wall Street banks to measure their ability to deal with a potential crisis,” the report continued.

Securitization Industry Set To Defend Practices (WSJ)
The American Securitization Forum, a trade group for the securitization industry, is set to release on Tuesday a 28-page defense of widely used practices for bundling mortgages into securities. The securitization process and foreclosure-documentation practices are likely to face criticism from lawmakers at a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday.

Bond Market Defies Fed (WSJ)
“The recent run-up in bond yields is worrying to many,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, a New York trading firm, but “you need to keep it in context of what happened before the Fed moved.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

UBS Recovery Fizzles as Gruebel Sees Less Profit on Lower Risk (Bloomberg)
The firm made more from trading stocks and bonds than the average of its competitors in 2005, before more than $57 billion of writedowns and losses from the credit crisis forced it to shrink the investment bank’s risk-weighted assets 44 percent. A lack of client business, combined with the lowest value-at-risk, meant UBS barely made enough in the third quarter to pay the 17,000 bankers in the unit. “They have to start taking risk again or to pay less,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Kian Abouhossein, whose recommendations on UBS produced the second-highest total returns over the past year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The question is do you really need the best people in the market if you’re just running a very flow-oriented business? That’s the dilemma that they need to decide.”

Goldman’s Plan To Repay Berkshire Is Delayed (WSJ)
Buffett to be paid $15/second for a bit longer.

Ireland Talks With EU as Germany Pushes It to Take Bailout (Bloomberg)
“Ongoing contacts continue at official level with international colleagues in light of current market conditions,” a Finance Ministry spokesman said in an email late yesterday. “Ireland has made no application for external support” and the government is “fully funded till well into 2011,” the spokesman said.

Harbinger Being Probed By Authorities (Reuters)
The Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan are investigating whether Harbinger misled investors by not disclosing soon enough a $113 million personal loan for founder Philip Falcone from the firm’s funds.

Fed’s Bond Plan Faces Fresh Attack (WSJ)
A group of prominent Republican-leaning economists, coordinating with Republican lawmakers and political strategists, is launching a campaign this week calling on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to drop his plan to buy $600 billion in additional U.S. Treasury bonds. “The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment,” they say in an open letter to be published as ads this week in The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Options Showing Quantitative Easing Working Before It Begins (Bloomberg)
As the central bank starts a second round of purchases of Treasuries through its so-called quantitative-easing policy, investors are paying eight times more than in April for options on interest-rate swaps that protect against rising yields relative to those that bet on them falling, according to Barclays Plc data. Bonds that compensate for higher consumer prices also show heightened inflation expectations.

Benmosche: ‘This Isn’t Pie In The Sky’ (WSJ)
If you’re a customer, you want to know whether this company is going to make it or not. Many people were saying we’re a ward of the state, that there’s no way we could pay back the taxpayers. But if you do an analysis, this is at least a $70 billion company and we will have about 1.8 billion shares. Our recent quarterly earnings [for core insurance operations] show we can earn $8 billion to $9 billion pretax income annually if other charges and write-downs stop occurring. All the numbers come together and say the government will be able to sell its shares at some price in the future. It’s math; it really isn’t about pie in the sky.

Greenspan: High Deficits Could Spark Bond Crisis (ABC)
“We’ve got to resolve this issue before it gets forced upon us,” Greenspan said of the ballooning U.S. debt levels.

Royal Bank of Scotland Sells Project Book for $6 Billion (Reuters)
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said it will acquire project finance loans and assets from RBS for 3.8 billion pounds ($6.1 billion), expanding its overseas reach as loan demand remains tepid in Japan.

Troubled California begins $14bn bond sale (FT)
Orders begin on Monday for a $10bn, two-part sale of revenue anticipation notes (Rans), an annual event that allows California to bridge the gap to its tax season in the spring. The notes, due in May and June, are targeted mostly at individual investors who benefit from tax breaks on munis.

The Year’s 10 Highest Paid CEO’s (WSJ)
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei is number one at $87.1 million.

Bill Clinton Joins The Cast Of Hangover 2 (People)
Clinton, who’ll play himself in the comedy, shot his brief appearance on Saturday in Bangkok, where part of the production takes place.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

As you’re aware, back in the day, President Obama and Wall Street got along just fine. Better than fine, in some cases, with Jamie Dimon being one of his boys and hedge fund managers like Dan Loeb, Steven Cohen and so and so forth donating considerable month to his campaign. But, things happened. People changed. Stuff was said that couldn’t be taken back. SC burned the two-man donkey costume he bought for election night ‘08 and made a couplea traders get into to celebrate the night and now reportedly holds weekly Tuesday night GOP strategizing sessions. Loeb gets his feelings out on paper. Jamie doesn’t even think to call BO to chill and in fact couldn’t even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, as that guy was deleted from his phone/life. And, just generally, the businessmen of America feel abused. Obama knows, he’s sorry, and he wants to make it up to you.

Just sit tight for a bit.

Austan Goolsbee, the President’s top economist, will try patching up relations in an Oct. 13 meeting in New York with business leaders. A rapprochement, however, will not occur until after the midterm elections, when the Administration will know the strength of the Republican opposition in Congress. That timing also will help Obama avoid looking like he’s giving Wall Street a pass just when he’s trying to turn the Democratic base out to vote. At an Oct. 4 meeting of Obama’s economic advisory board, Laura D. Tyson, a former Clinton Administration economist, suggested not renewing the Bush tax cuts for top earners and using the savings to pay for a temporary cut in Social Security taxes. At the same meeting, Obama said he’d be “very interested” in lowering the top corporate tax rate, now 35 percent, so U.S. companies aren’t at a disadvantage against overseas rivals.

Obama Wants A Detente With Business [BW]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

They haven’t had nice things to say about him over the past year and a half. Called him McSleeps a lot and, oh, the jokes about his Diet Coke consumption came fast and furiously. But now that he’s announced he’s taking off, suddenly the business community wants the lovable schlub back, according to Charlie Gasparino. Apparently no one wants ot live in a world without Big Lar.

Larry Summers may have been a nonentity for most of his tenure as President Obama’s chief economist, but his departure still has the business community terrified. At the very least, he was seen as a competent moderate in an administration that veered left — and may now veer further left, and possibly become less competent from an economic standpoint. Larry Summers’ massive ego and lack of on-the-ground business experience (he was Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary and spent a short time at a hedge fund) may have made him less than a perfect fit as the nation’s chief economist — but at least he was a moderate with a clue. What scares the business community is that he’ll be replaced by someone immoderate without any clue.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Bill Gates Tops Forbes Ranking Of 400 Wealthiest Americans (Bloomberg)
With estimated assets of $54 billion. Warren Buffett ranks second in the U.S. with $45 billion, according to the list published yesterday. The number of list members whose wealth declined this year is 85 compared with 314 in 2009, while wealth increased for 217 members. The total worth of the 400 rose by 8 percent to $1.37 trillion, still below the 2008 total of $1.57 trillion.

Warren Buffett: We’re Still In A Recession (CNBC)
Warren Buffett tells CNBC that by his own “common sense” definition, the United States is “still in a recession. In a taped interview with Becky Quick, Buffett says, “I think we’re in a recession until real per capita GDP gets back to where it was before.” While Buffett continues to believe the U.S. will eventually emerge from its economic downturn, “We’re not gonna be out of it for awhile.”

SEC Blasted On Goldman Probe (WSJ)
At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Wednesday, Mr. Kotz was questioned about the timing of the Goldman suit. He responded: “It would strain credulity to think it was coincidental.” He added: “I can’t give you a conclusion right now, but it was suspicious.”

Boehner’s Business Ties Cut Both Ways (WSJ)
Mr. Boehner, a sharp dresser with a two-pack-a-day habit, sometimes gets referred to around Capitol Hill as Don Draper. “I’m still who I am. I’m a businessman. I can’t be something I’m not. No apologies. Zero,” Mr. Boehner said in the recent interview, smoothing his hair before heading to a political event…Addressing a perennial source of jokes, Mr. Boehner says his dark complexion is natural, similar to that of his mother and four (of 12) siblings. “I have never been in a tanning bed or used a tanning product,” Mr. Boehner said. His staff showed a high-school group photo where he has the darkest face in Moeller High’s all-male class.

Jack Welch: Obama Administration Is “Anti-Business” (CNBC)
The government should make it easier for companies to invest and expand but instead they are hampering business, according to Welch. “I still maintain that the economy’s been terrible and they have not done things to move the economy forward,” he said. “He’s there a month and he vilifies Las Vegas… he kills the hotel business,” Welch said.

Elizabeth Warren: No More “Fooling” People For Credit Firms (CNBC)
The intent of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not to make life tougher for banks but rather better for their customers, the organization’s czar, Elizabeth Warren, told CNBC. “The truth is I don’t care about the title. I want to get to work trying to get this agency going because that’s what middle class families need. We’ve got a broken market,” she said. “It’s a political assessment that I just have to say I don’t know and I don’t think much about it. The part I care about is getting the agency started.”

Katy Perry Kicked Off The Street (NYP)
On Monday, a clip from the November 3 episode of “Sesame Street” featuring Katy Perry singing a very vanilla version of her song “Hot N’ Cold” went viral and people went berserk.It seems that Katy’s cans were way too prominent for some parents. And now, TMZ is reporting that because of the influx of complaints (such as “my kid wants milk now”) “Sesame Street” producers have decided not to air the segment.

Lehman Sees Bankruptcy Plan Confirmation In Q1 (Reuters)
They’re “optimistic.”

Banks Value Social Responsibility More After Crisis (Reuters)
“The change is good on the financial side. The change that’s more important is on the cultural side,” Bob Diamond told the Clinton Global Initiative.

Friended For $100 Million (WSJ)
Mark Zuckerberg plans to announce a donation of up to $100 million to the Newark schools this week.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker