The Washington Post’s Michael Rosenwald this morning pens an interesting piece about how the federal government, under CIO Vivek Kundra, is letting more and more government workers choose their own gadgets of choice, rather than impose on them use of government-specified devices.

Although a number of anecdotes come up in the piece about Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPad, and Google’s (GOOG) Gmail, the article is titled, somewhat more pointedly, “Federal government loosens its grip on the BlackBerry,” meaning, of course, the traditional use of Research in Motion (RIMM) messaging devices.

In part, it’s simply the “consumerization of IT,” as many have identified, and as Kundra maintains, but it’s also RIM’s failure to win third-party developers with a “flexible” software platform, Rosenwald writes.

Rosenwald cites several instances of switchover:

At [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms], there are about 50 iPads or iPhones in use, and the number could increase to 100 soon. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the 1,000 BlackBerrys used last year have dropped to about 700 as workers picked other smartphones. The State Department is testing iPads. Congress now allows iPads and iPhones on the House floor. And the Department of Veterans Affairs is getting ready to allow its clinicians to choose an iPad or iPhone instead of a BlackBerry.

Update: In a note to clients today, Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets, who maintains a Sector Perform rating on RIMM and a $53.45 price target, argues that RIMM will hold onto some clients who prize security above all. Reflecting on the Wash Po article, he writes,

While these developments offer headline risk to valuation and may continue to pressure RIM’s share in the US, BlackBerries are unlikely to lose favor with higher-risk users, as security remains a high priority following recent high profile security breaches and privacy concerns (Lockheed Martin’s secure VPN network was recently hacked, which could slow Android/Apple deployment in regulated industries like banks and the government. The U.S. Senate recently focused on mobile privacy concerns; House oversight committee chair Darrell Issa raised concerns White House employees could circumvent federal record-keeping laws by using iPhone and iPads.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

If you’ve been closely following the government’s Insider Trading Fest(ivus) 2010/2011 you know that one thing that’s emerged is a detailed guide to how one should go about destroyed evidence of securities violations that a jury would not look upon kindly. Garrett Bauer spoke to us at length about the benefits of washing versus burning dirty money while Donald Longueuil, the foremost expert on the matter, provided a step-by-step guide to getting rid of incriminating USB drives (you’ll need: two pairs of pliers, four plastic baggies, one North Face fleece). Yesterday, an (alleged) accomplice of (accused) insider trader/former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer added a chapter on getting rid of a cell phone that could cause trouble.

Santarlas, testifying under a cooperation agreement with the government, said he and another former Ropes & Gray attorney, Arthur Cutillo, told Brooklyn, New York, lawyer Jason Goldfarb in 2007 about acquisitions involving 3Com Corp. and Axcan Pharma Inc. He said Goldfarb gave him $25,000 for the 3Com information and $7,500 for Axcan.

“When I received the cash, Jason had told me to dispose of the phone — break it in half, submerge it in water and put it in a garbage can,” Santarlas testified.

[Bloomberg]

Earlier: If You’ve Ever Wondered What Donald Longueuil Might’ve Sounded Like On The Cold December Night He Told A Colleague How To Destroy Evidence Of Insider Trading, Wonder No Longer (MP3)

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

I.M.F. Chief Quits in Wake of Charges of Sexual Attack (NYT)
“It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the Executive Board my resignation from my post of managing director of the I.M.F.,” he said in a statement dated Wednesday and released early Thursday by the I.M.F. “I think at this time first of my wife — whom I love more than anything — of my children, of my family, of my friends.”

Most French People ‘Think DSK Was Set Up’ (Sky News)
The survey, taken before the 62-year-old’s first court appearance on Monday, showed that 57% of respondents believe the Socialist presidential hopeful has been set up.

Lagarde May Stake Claim as First Female IMF Chief (Bloomberg)
A lawyer who became the first female chairman of Chicago- based firm Baker & McKenzie LLP, Lagarde was appointed as finance minister by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, just before the onset of the financial crisis. Lagarde’s negotiating abilities helped clinch agreement on the euro area’s sovereign bailout fund announced in the early hours of May 10 last year, according to a person who was there…A fluent speaker of English, Lagarde attended a year of high school as an exchange student at Holton Arms, a private girls’ school in Bethesda, Maryland. An avid swimmer, young Christine was selected for the French national synchronized swim team when she was 15 and competed internationally for two years.

J.P. Morgan, Fund Investors Rebut Meredith Whitney (MarketBeat)
J.P. Morgan Asset Management chucked a note over the transom in response to Meredith Whitney’s latest hate letter to the muni market.Their take is that Ms. Whitney makes some points they sort of agree with, but that she seriously overstates the default risk.

Levin sees ‘real hope’ of fresh Goldman probe (FT)
The senator said Goldman’s payment of $550m to settle fraud allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the marketing of one structured debt product did not preclude other allegations. He said Goldman executives misled his committee but suggested they might have stopped short of lies with “wiggle words”. “They obviously spent a lot of time parsing words,” he said, adding he was “not going to judge whether they committed perjury”. He said even large settlements were not satisfactory without admissions of guilt.

Goldman Sachs Back at No. 1 (Deal Journal)
According to figures from Dealogic, Goldman popped to the No. 1 spot for the first time this year in the league tables, the closely watched listing of M&A advisers ranked by the value of deals on which they advise. J.P. Morgan had held the crown for global deal advisers since Jan. 18.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s two sons born days apart (CNN)
A son fathered by Arnold Schwarzenegger with his housekeeper was born less than a week after Maria Shriver gave birth to another Schwarzenegger son, according to birth records obtained Wednesday by CNN.

SEC probes electronic platform failures (FT)
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating computer system failures at electronic marketplaces including Nasdaq to determine whether internal controls are sufficient, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation is being handled by the enforcement division’s market abuse unit and is part of a broader regulatory review of stock exchanges following last year’s “flash crash”, recent hacking attempts and trading glitches

Perella Weinberg to Fork Over $11.5 Million in Dreier Fraud (Deal Journal)
Under the deal, [Chapter 11 trustee Sheila M.] Gowan will drop a lawsuit in which she sought the return of $24.1 million in payments she says Perella Weinberg and an affiliated fund received on the approximately $60 million they spent on the promissory notes that Dreier was hawking to investors such as themselves.

Smith Barney Deal Still On (WSJ)
In its first-quarter report, Morgan Stanley posted a $655 million pretax loss related to the Mitsubishi joint venture. After reports surfaced about the loss, Mitsubishi agreed to convert $7.8 billion in preferred stock for 385 million shares of the company. That conversion boosted Morgan Stanley’s Tier 1 ratio and presumably will give it added capital for the planned buyout of Citigroup’s stake in the Smith Barney venture. Morgan Stanley can begin buying that stake next year under its agreement with Citi. Mr. Gorman said reports of Morgan Stanley asking Citi to alter the terms of that deal weren’t true.

Nominations Submitted for the SEC (WSJ)
The White House on Wednesday submitted to the Senate a pair of nominees for the Securities and Exchange Commission, requesting a second term for Democrat Luis Aguilar and naming former SEC staffer Dan Gallagher Jr. for a Republican seat that is due to become vacant in June…The SEC is an independent federal agency with five commissioners.

LinkedIn prices IPO at $45 a share (MarketWatch)
LinkedIn had raised its IPO pricing range earlier this week to between $42 and $45 a share, from $32 to $35 a share — thanks to strong demand. The public offering is expected to raise roughly $217 million for the company.

Yen falls as Japan enters recession (FT)
Gross domestic product fell by an annualised 3.7 per cent in the first three months, after a revised fall of 3 per cent in last quarter of 2010. Analysts had expected the economy to contract by just 1.9 per cent. A further contraction is expected in the second quarter before the economy rebounds as reconstruction spending kicks in, although the Japanese economy has suffered more than a decade of low growth and weak consumer spending.

Obama imposes sanctions on Syrian leader, 6 aides (WaPo)
The Obama administration ramped up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday with economic sanctions that targeted his personal finances and linked him explicitly to human rights abuses in his government’s brutal, two-month-old crackdown on demonstrators. The sanctions, which named six other top Syrian officials, represented a significant escalation in the administration’s public criticism of the Assad regime, marking the first time the ruler was penalized for the ongoing clashes that have left more than 900 people dead and thousands in prison.

Zombie Apocalypse? The CDC Describes How To Be Prepared (HuffPo)
The U.S. government wants to make sure that in the event of a zombie invasion, you know what to do. That’s right. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shocked us all with their post on how to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. The CDC post, “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse,” came out Monday and has been gaining media traction since — the link has been down for much of the day, presumingly due to over-traffic.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Empirical Creative was paid about $300,000, the people familiar with the situation say, for services that included a mock trial, during which his lawyers employed two main defense themes: that the information prosecutors said involved illegal inside tips was already public, and that the government’s witnesses weren’t credible. During the mock trial, the consultants discovered, the jurors most receptive to those themes were those without advanced-education degrees or financial sophistication and with relatively low- to middle-income jobs. Mock jurors who were members of ethnic minority groups also were more sympathetic to Mr. Rajaratnam, who was born in Sri Lanka, their research found, according to the people familiar with the situation. The real jury reflected those findings in many respects. [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Commodity hedge funds upbeat after mauling (FT)
Last week saw the largest daily trading volume in Brent crude’s history as investors – a large proportion of them hedge funds – began to liquidate positions in a stampede to reduce risk. It was a rush to the exits that was seemingly without cause, however. Many fund managers are at a loss to explain what triggered the panic, dismissing the explanations that have been proffered – weak US economic data, a hike in commodities trading costs or even hedging upcoming equity exposure to the giant Glencore listing…But crucially such losses – unattractive though they are – have done little, if anything, to dent managers’ confidence in the long commodities play.

AIG Offering Near Low End of Range (WSJ)
American International Group Inc. and the Treasury decided to move ahead with a stock offering this month for about $9 billion, far less than what officials had once hoped to fetch, people familiar with the decision said…[AIG's board] decided to proceed with plans for an offering near the low end of a range envisioned by people familiar with the plan of $7 billion to $25 billion, depending on investor demand and market conditions.

Banks Float $5 Billion Deal to End Foreclosure Probe (WSJ)
Such an offer is considerably less than the amounts sought by state and federal officials, some of whom are asking for more than $20 billion in penalties. The banks’ figure comes as mortgage companies and state and federal officials continue their efforts to strike a settlement of investigations sparked by allegations of “robo-signing” and other questionable foreclosure practices that came to light last fall.

Preemptive strike against high prices may be needed, Fed official says (WaPo)
The Federal Reserve needs to be prepared to take preemptive action against even the possibility of a surge of higher prices, a senior official of the central bank said Tuesday. Jeffrey M. Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, added in an interview that he doesn’t think the recent rises in the price of fuel and other commodities will spiral into a broader inflation, but he cautioned that the central bank needs to remain vigilant.

Dodd-Frank Dissenters Sound Off (Dealbook)
And Ken Griffin, founder of the $15 billion hedge fund Citadel Investment Group, went the furthest by proclaiming that not only would the legislation not work as proposed, but it is “going to deeply entrench crony capitalism into the very fabric of our financial system, which I am terrified about.”

Ex-Galleon Trader Kimelman Wants Jury Told He Rejected Plea Deal With U.S. (Bloomberg)
Former Galleon Group LLC trader Michael Kimelman said he wants jurors at his upcoming insider- trading trial to be told that he could have avoided jail by admitting guilt and rejected a plea deal because he’s innocent. Kimelman is scheduled for trial on May 16… The government’s offer would have had Kimelman plead guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and “was still available last week,” according to the filing.

FDIC warns on moral hazard for money market funds (Reuters)
[Sheila] Bair, outgoing chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, said regulators needed to be mindful of so-called moral hazard in creating a backstop for the $2.7 trillion industry. During the financial crisis, the federal government was forced to backstop the market after the collapse of Lehman Brothers pushed the value of the Reserve Fund money market fund below $1 a share, wreaking havoc on the industry.

China Inflation Signals More Tightening to Come (Bloomberg)
China’s inflation held above 5 percent in April and lending exceeded analysts’ estimates, signaling that further monetary tightening may be needed to cool the fastest-growing major economy…Today’s data showed that inflation has exceeded Premier Wen Jiabao’s 4 percent target each month this year.

German Inflation Accelerated More Than Estimated (Bloomberg)
The inflation rate, calculated using a harmonized European Union method, jumped to 2.7 percent from 2.3 percent in March, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. That’s an upward revision from the first estimate of 2.6 percent on April 27. From March, consumer prices rose 0.3 percent, more than the 0.2 percent initially reported.

Bank of England cuts growth forecasts (FT)
The Bank’s central forecast now predicts growth of about 2.7 per cent in the four quarters to the end of this year, down from its February forecast of growth of 2.9 per cent, assuming no change in monetary policy. Growth in the year to the end of 2012 is expected to be about 2.8 per cent rather than 3.2 per cent. Inflation is forecast to peak this year at about 5 per cent in the fourth quarter, rather than at about 4.5 per cent. By the end of next year, inflation is expected to reach 2.4 per cent, compared with an earlier forecast of 1.7 per cent.

Greek unions hold new general strike, plan demonstrations, to protest harsh austerity (WaPo)
A 24-hour general strike in Greece Wednesday brought most public services to a halt, while thousands marched through Athens to protest the government’s introduction of harsh austerity measures intended to keep the debt-ridden country solvent. This month, the Socialist government is planning to pass further cutbacks aimed at saving an estimated €23 billion ($33 billion) through 2015.

Google Sets Aside $500 Million for Probe (Bloomberg)
Google set aside $500 million related to the possible resolution of a U.S. Justice Department investigation of its advertising business, resulting in lower first-quarter profit. The expense trimmed net income to $1.8 billion, or $5.51 a share, in the period, Google said yesterday in a regulatory filing.

Stanford Trial Set for September (WSJ)
Jailed money manager R. Allen Stanford will go to trial on wire-fraud and other charges in September, a federal judge in Houston has ruled. Jury selection will begin Sept. 12 in the trial of Mr. Stanford, who has been accused of running a $7 billion fraud, according to an order issued by U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston on Tuesday.

‘Mack’ the life (NYP)
Mark Madoff’s widow, Stephanie, filed two name change petitions to distance herself and her children from her husband’s notorious last name. After the couple received numerous threats, Mark gave Stephanie his blessing to change her last name to “Morgan” in February 2010, and since then she’s been called Stephanie Morgan. When the name change request was reported, sources say Morgan filed a second petition to change her family name to “Mack.”

Female peacock escapes from Bronx Zoo, still on the loose on NYC streets (NYDN)
The Bronx Zoo cobra may be back in captivity, but a female peacock is on the loose. Three zoo workers wielding nets made a failed attempt to recapture the green peahen about noon on Tuesday…Zoo workers crawling stealthily through the grass got within a few feet of the feisty fowl before she flew off again. She hasn’t been seen since…”We’ll get her eventually,” vowed Nancy Clum, the zoo’s curator of ornithology.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Paulson Plays the Lehman Bust (WSJ)
Mr. Paulson’s fund has been snatching up Lehman debt at steep discounts since the day the investment bank collapsed, betting prices would rise while panicked investors fled. Now, as Lehman’s estate prepares to wind down, Mr. Paulson’s fund could reap profits between $350 million and $726 million on the Lehman trades…Over two and a half years, Mr. Paulson’s fund, Paulson & Co., purchased more than $7 billion worth of Lehman bonds in about 1,800 transactions. The average cost of those trades was just 13 cents on the dollar, according to the Journal’s analysis.

PIMCO raises bet against U.S. government debt (Reuters)
PIMCO’s Bill Gross, the manager of the world’s largest bond fund, raised his bet against U.S. government-related debt in April to 4 percent from 3 percent, according to the company’s website on Monday.

Morgan Stanley Trading Gains Topped $100 Million on 10 Days (Bloomberg)
The firm’s trading division lost money on 3 days during the period, compared with 13 days in the fourth quarter, New York- based Morgan Stanley said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

BofA to cut $850bn bad loan book in half (FT)
Bank of America plans to shrink its $850bn portfolio of troubled home loans by about half over the next three years as it seeks to quicken the pace with which it resolves problems related to the housing crisis and its disastrous purchase of Countrywide Financial. Terry Laughlin, who is spearheading BofA’s mortgage modification and foreclosure programmes, told the Financial Times he had been given leeway to act quickly to tackle the growing number of bad loans that threaten to overwhelm the bank’s overall performance and tarnish the reputation of Brian Moynihan, its chief executive.

Microsoft Said to Discuss Buying Internet-Call Provider Skype (Bloomberg)
A deal would value Skype at about $8.5 billion and may be announced as early as today, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

Alan Simpson Attacks AARP, Says Social Security Is ‘Not A Retirement Program’ (HuffPo)
At an event hosted by the Investment Company Institute, Simpson delighted the finance industry audience members by aiming a rude gesture at the leading lobby for senior citizens.

CME raises crude futures margins 4th time since Feb (Reuters)
Margins will climb by 25 percent as of the close of business on May 10, boosting the cost of holding positions for hedgers and speculators, a factor some traders said helped bring oil prices down by as much as 2 percent on Tuesday following a $5 a barrel spike a day earlier…The cumulative increase in margins on U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate CLc1 positions since February is 67 percent, from $3,750 to $6,250 per contract.

China Has Bigger-Than-Forecast Surplus on Record Exports (Bloomberg)
China reported a trade surplus that was more than three times larger than forecast in April as exports surged to a record, bolstering the U.S. case for faster yuan gains as officials from both nations meet for annual talks in Washington. The surplus widened to $11.4 billion and exceeded the forecasts of all 27 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Exports climbed 30 percent to $156 billion while import growth slowed to 22 percent, the customs bureau said today.

Euro wobbles, haunted by commodities and debt worries (Reuters)
The common currency, which hit a six-week low against the Japanese yen and a one-month low against the British pound, was also hobbled by fears of a commodities rout after oil prices fell in the wake of the CME Group’s hike in trading margins for U.S. crude futures.

BNP Paribas chairman to retire (FT)
Michel Pébereau, France’s most influential banker, is retiring as chairman of BNP Paribas, the domestic bank he helped transform over two decades.

Reports of Mortgage Fraud Reach Record Level (WSJ)
Reports of mortgage fraud, which have been increasing since the housing boom, rose to their highest level on record in 2010, Treasury Department figures showed. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a Treasury agency, reported 70,472 “suspicious activity reports” related to suspected mortgage fraud, up from 67,507 in 2009, or a 5% increase. That’s the highest number recorded by the government since tracking began in 1996.

A Venture-Capital Newbie Shakes Up Silicon Valley (WSJ)
As a newly minted venture capitalist, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, aimed for nothing less than big… Like other investors here, he’d been eying Web companies with explosive growth and global star power. But acquiring shares in tech titans like Facebook is tricky…So Mr. Andreessen set out to make his own rules—maneuvering his way into hot private deals at huge cost.

U.S. Braced for Fights With Pakistanis in Bin Laden Raid (NYT)
President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday. In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver announce separation (LA Times)
Shriver has been residing apart from the actor-turned-politician for the last few weeks. The former first couple confirmed the separation in a joint statement released Monday after questions from The Times…Over the years, the marriage between the international celebrity and the daughter of the Kennedy dynasty has come under close scrutiny, especially during the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis, when The Times reported on Schwarzenegger’s lengthy history of groping women. At the time, Shriver defended her husband, helping lift him to victory in the free-for-all contest.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Solar energy technology stocks are largely on the mend today after several days of slack performance, following word that Italy signed the long-awaited decree for its revision of subsidies for solar projects, which should provide some closure for vendors and their customers in the country.

Reuters’s Svetlana Kovalyova and Stephen Jewkes today report that the decree, which must be published in Italy’s “Official Gazette,” prescribes gradual subsidy reductions until 2013, and subsidies from that time on that will be based on targets for meeting a level of installed capacity.

Kovalyova and Jewkes write that the subsidies will be “capped” at €6 billion to €7 billion a year from now through 2016, when an installed capacity of 23 gigawatts is expected, with an expectation of “grid parity” for solar in 2017.

More on the decree is here, at Italy Global Nation, and here’s the Google Translation.

Aaron Chew with Hapoalim Securities today notes that the decree excludes any change to rooftop solar projects that are below one megawatt, extends a deadline for ground projects to be registered with the government from May 31st to August 31st, and closes a loophole that would have saved ground installations.

“While the revision is incrementally positive relative to the April 19th draft, it nevertheless suggests Italy will be more of a drag than a boost to global solar demand going forward,” writes Chew. Chew thinks there may be “further downside through May earnings season” given that there is 2.5 gigawatts of solar inventory, by his estimation, and a “vacuum of demand in the second half of the year, and further declines in 2012.”

As far as the stocks are concerned, SunPower (SPWRA) shares are up 1% today, Trina Solar (TSL) is up 1%, First Solar (FSLR) is up 1.3%, Jinko Solar (JKS) is up 1.4%, Yingli Green Energy (YGE) is up 1.4%, JA Solar is up a fraction of a percent, LDK (LDK) is down 1%, and Suntech Power (STP) is down a fraction of a percent.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Goldman Chief To Stay In Job At Least Two More Years (NYP)
Lloyd Blankfein, approaching his fifth anniversary running Goldman amid some Wall Street speculation that recent regulatory tussles have left him burned out and looking to step down, is likely to stay put at the helm of Goldman Sachs for at least two years, sources tell The Post.

Morgan Aligned With Commodities Bulls As Goldman Says Sell (Bloomberg)
The surge in everything from oil to corn to gold has yet to crimp demand, inventories are still tight, and getting out now would be “premature,” Hussein Allidina, the head of commodity research at Morgan Stanley in New York, said on April 29. Prices may no longer reflect supply and demand, and they are likely to drop in the next three to six months before rebounding, Goldman said in reports April 11 and April 15.

U.S. Business Has High Tax Rates but Pays Less (NYT)
Topping out at 35 percent, America’s official corporate income tax rate trails that of only Japan, at 39.5 percent, which has said it plans to lower its rate. It is nearly triple Ireland’s and 10 percentage points higher than in Denmark, Austria or China. To help companies here stay competitive, many executives say, Congress should lower it. But by taking advantage of myriad breaks and loopholes that other countries generally do not offer, United States corporations pay only slightly more on average than their counterparts in other industrial countries. And some American corporations use aggressive strategies to pay less — often far less — than their competitors abroad and at home. A Government Accountability Office study released in 2008 found that 55 percent of United States companies paid no federal income taxes during at least one year in a seven-year period it studied.

Buffett Lets The Facts Bury Sokol (Dealbook)
Sorkin: A close friend of Mr. Buffett’s explained his thinking this way. “Warren knew that the second that press release hit the wires, Sokol’s professional career was over. Done. Forever. Sokol was finished. He didn’t need to brag about being ‘ruthless.’ ”

Frank Bill Would Cut Regional Fed Presidents From Rate Votes (Bloomberg)
U.S. Representative Barney Frank, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, is pushing to remove the power regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents have to weigh in on interest-rate decisions.

India Raises Interest Rates to Battle Inflation (NYT)
In a bid to rein in persistently high inflation, India’s central bank raised interest rates Tuesday more than analysts had expected and signaled that it would be willing to raise borrowing costs even further. The action, which caused the country’s stock market to close 2.4 percent lower, will make it harder for India to achieve the 9 percent growth target set by the government for the current financial year, which ends in March 2012.

Man Group launches $1.5bn Japan fund (Telegraph)
The computer-driven Nomura Global Trend fund was the first onshore Japanese fund to be launched by Man’s AHL unit and will invest in a mixture of assets via three currency baskets, one of which includes the Chinese Yuan.

Greece To Name And Shame Tax Evaders (CNBC)
For those not paying their taxes in full the warning is stark; the Greek government plans to make an example of someone by the “identification and exemplary punishment of large-scale tax evasion.”

Banks Said to Be Quizzed by European Union Over Libor Rates (Bloomberg)
European antitrust regulators, who last week opened probes into 16 banks over credit derivatives, are also examining whether lenders manipulated the daily London interbank offered rate, according to two people familiar with the investigation…“This case will be difficult to prove — and the construction of Libor is such that it is difficult to manipulate as extreme pricing is smoothed out of the calculation,” said Simon Maughan, co-head of European equities at MF Global Ltd. in London.

Nasdaq, NYSE Arca Cancel Trades in Over 50 Stocks (CNBC)
More than 50 companies including pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Merck & Co. were hit with a flurry of bad trades on Monday that later had to be canceled. Most of the trades that were canceled involved companies in the healthcare industry. Many trades occurred at prices far from their closing price. NYSE Arca and Nasdaq decided to cancel all trades 30 percent away from the prior consolidated price, the exchanges said. The trades were made in a purchase of an entire portfolio of shares that were sold together, like in a basket, according to a source familiar with the matter.

North Korea behind cyber attack on S.Korea bank-prosecutors (Reuters)
North Korean computer hackers were responsible for bringing down the network of a South Korean bank last month, prosecutors in Seoul said on Tuesday, in the latest of a string of cyber attacks thought to have originated from the secretive state.

Chase Scuttles Test Of $5 ATM Fees (Tribune)
JPMorgan Chase says it has finished testing $4 and $5 ATM fees for noncustomers in two states, and it is going back to the $3 fees it previously charged.

Bin Laden kill may reopen CIA interrogation debate (Reuters)
One of the key sources for initial information about an al Qaeda “courier” who led U.S. authorities to bin Laden’s Pakistani hide-out was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda operative said to have masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks, a former U.S. national security official said. KSM, as he was known to U.S. officials, was subjected to “waterboarding” 183 times, the U.S. government has acknowledged.

Hustler Club Charges $2 For Ice And $2 For No Ice (Eater)
“Thought you would enjoy this image of our receipt from Hustler Club. $2 for putting our drink on the rocks, and also $2 for taking it neat without rocks.”

Overheard (WSJ)
The death of Osama bin Laden just made President George W. Bush’s appearance as keynote at next week’s SALT hedge-fund gathering in Sin City a much hotter ticket.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Keeping watch over the 20 or so journalists reporting on Rajaratnam’s trial is Jim McCarthy, who handles the defendant’s media relations. McCarthy, the founder of New York-based CounterPoint Strategies LLC, isn’t shy about his views of the coverage. “Some of the coverage has been” — he paused for five seconds as he considered his words — “distorted and irresponsible,” McCarthy said in an interview yesterday. He’s particularly critical of some reporters and news organizations who he claims “have been slanting their coverage” in hopes of “gaining favor with the government,” he said. [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Catch Andrew Ross Sorkin’s column about Goldman Sachs this morning? Charlie Gasparino did and he didn’t like it. Noting Goldman Sachs’ desire not to make a big deal about the money it made correctly predicting the housing market crash, perhaps in an attempt not to attract anymore attention from Senator Carl “Goldman Sachs is a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing” Levin, Sorkin encouraged the Masters of the Universe to stop denying their success. Rather, ARS would like to see them “take a bow,” as their housing call is something they should be proud of and which shareholders and taxpayers alike should be happy about, since it meant the latter didn’t have to bail the firm out to the extent it did Citi and AIG.  And that pissed Gasparino off something fierce.

Normally he wouldn’t say anything (“‘I’m not and never have been in the Goldman is the root-of-all-evil-camp,” CG prefaces) but after last month’s antics wherein the firm dared to deny his report Lloyd Blankfein’s friends claim he’s thinking of retiring, Chaz can no longer bite his tongue. Not to get too off-topic, but it still baffles CG as to how GS spokesman Lucas vP “can deny someone’s impression from a private conversation.” Sorry, he just had to get that out there. But back to the suggestion that Goldman should be taking any bows– bull shit, Gasparino says. Bull, shit.

“The last thing Goldman should be doing right now is taking a bow and telling the world it’s a great firm, because when it comes down to it, Goldman isn’t really a great firm.

“What is it then,” CG asks fuming. Not being here to simply raise questions without providing answers, Gasparino goes on, attributing a well-known saying to a guy he gets drunk with.

“Well, in the words of a drinking buddy who is a frequent consumer of financial news, ‘Goldman is like the tallest midget in the room.’”

How did Goldman become the tallest among short people?

Standing the tallest among these little men is Goldman, the firm most adept at exploiting the corrupt system that puts the government in bed with the big banks. Just today, Goldman announced that it earned $1.64 billion in the first quarter of 2011 even after repaying Warren Buffett the $5 billion he lent them in 2008 when the firm was teetering with the rest of Wall Street. Seems like a pretty amazing feat until you consider how Goldman earned all that cash. Low interest rates from the Fed over the past two-plus years means Goldman can basically borrow at next to nothing to place its market bets.

Those bets, it turns out, really aren’t bets at all. Firms like Goldman began buying depressed mortgage bonds in 2009 because they knew prices would rise. How did they know something like that? The Fed instituted a program to buy these bonds in the open market as a way to support the housing market. Like most things tried by the Obama administration to jump-start the economy, the plan didn’t work for Main Street. But not long after the buy-back program commenced, Wall Street — and Goldman in particular — began announcing record profits and bonuses to its bankers and traders. All of which transpired as Blankfein and his team tried to convince the world that Goldman really didn’t need all that bailout money in late 2008 and that they accepted the $10 billion in cash from then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson because they were forced to do so by a government more worried about the health of entire financial system than the financial condition of Goldman Sachs. Sounds like a very modest gesture until you calculate how the taxpayer bailout of the giant insurer AIG was in actuality a back-door bailout of Goldman Sachs.

It didn’t have to come to this, Gasparino says, this being his exposing GS, and it wouldn’t have, if everyone had just listened to Uncle Charles way back when.

As all this came to light back in late 2009, I wrote a column here on HuffPost saying Blankfein should just resign and save the world the trouble of holding him accountable for explaining why Goldman is such a large midget.

Goldman Sachs: The Tallest Midget In The Room [HuffPo]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker