“I think I have all of the qualifications to run the institution. I have 30 years of public service. I have a PHD from the University of Chicago. I have worked all my life in matters relevant for the Fund. I was the Executive Director of the Fund, the Deputy Managing Director of the Fund, in charge of the relationship with 80 countries. I was Minister of Finance of Mexico and now I am the Governor of the central bank. I have wide experience, I have participated in the G20, part of the steering committee of the Financial Stability Board, I’m a board member of the Bank for International Settlements. I know the institution from all different angles. I know the Fund as a member of the staff and its management, I was an Executive Director and I know the Fund, having been in authority with a lot stake at the Fund. I think I make a good candidate.” And despite all that…

Nothing about how he would react in a scenario wherein he was surrounded by hotel maids and “no one would find out,” i.e. this resume is going directly to the trash.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

We’ll soon find out because a movie involving all that and more (depression, Mexico, murder) is actually being produced.

Al Ruddy, the 81-year-old Godfather and Million Dollar Baby filmmaker, will produce and Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) Ruddy bought the 1975 novel by the late N. Richard Nash who’d adapted it into the Cry Macho screenplay. In his heyday, Schwarzenegger was a $25M/25% first dollar gross mega-player — and one deal even threw in his own giant jet. But only the rarest of the rare get those paydays these days. This pic calls for some acting chops for Arnold as a horse breeder who won the Kentucky Derby but whose wife and child get killed. He sinks into an alcoholic depression and winds up working for a hedge fund jerk who offers him a choice of getting fired or bringing back the rich guy’s son living with the ex-wife in Mexico. Unexpected plot twists ensue, including an Arnold-and-kid road trip back home.

[Deadline]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

JPMorgan Profit Up 67% on Lower Credit Costs, Tops Estimate (Bloomberg)
First-quarter net income climbed to $5.56 billion, or $1.28 a share, from $3.33 billion, or 74 cents, in the same period a year earlier and from $4.83 billion, or $1.12, in the fourth quarter, the New York-based company said today in a statement. The results beat the average per-share estimate for adjusted earnings of $1.15 by 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Impatience Over Recovery At Morgan Stanley (Dealbook)
“You can only take so much pain,” said David P. Foley, an investment manager at Estabrook Capital Management, which as of Dec. 31 owned roughly 661,000 shares in Morgan Stanley, valued at almost $18 million. “We have to go to our clients and defend the stock, and invariably someone says, ‘Why do you still own this thing?’ Eventually, I am sure Morgan Stanley will turn around, but the firm has become harder and harder to defend because it still hasn’t turned the corner.”

Bernanke Urges Republicans To ‘Deal With Debt’ (Bloomberg)
“He said we have to deal with the debt,” Representative Steve Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, said in an interview after leaving the session with the central bank chief on Capitol Hill. “So far the market seems to be forgiving of the fact that we haven’t,” Pearce said, adding that Bernanke told lawmakers that “we need to deal with it.”

Obama to Lay Out Deficit Plan, Focus on Tax, Spending (Reuters)
Obama will explain his vision for tackling the long-term U.S. deficit and debt in a speech in Washington at 1:35 p.m. He will try to regain control of the spending debate by drawing a sharp contrast with a Republican proposal unveiled last week to lower the deficit by $4.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

IMF Warns US on Debts, Wants Austerity (FT)
The US lacks a “credible strategy” to stabilize its mounting public debt posing a small but significant risk of a new global economic crisis, says the International Monetary Fund.

The Battle Of The Office Candy Jar (WSJ)
“The proximity and visibility of a food can consistently increase an adult’s consumption,” says the study, led by Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing and human behavior at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and author of “Mindless Eating.” He adds, “Even for a person with the greatest resolve, every time they look at a candy dish they say, ‘Do I want that Hershey’s Kiss, or don’t I?’ At the 24th time, maybe I’m kind of hungry, and I just got this terrible email, and my boss is complaining—and gradually my resolve is worn down.”

Tyco Gets Takeover Offer Of $30 Billion (WSJ)
France’s Schneider Electric SA has made a preliminary bid for approximately $30 billion for Tyco International Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, hoping to draw the Swiss-based conglomerate to the negotiating table. “The board is studying the proposal,” said one person familiar with the matter. The tentative bid “was a surprise,” this person added. As a result, Tyco officials believe “it’s going to take awhile to sort it out,” this person said. It seems highly unlikely that Tyco will accept a $30 billion offer, and directors “would undoubtedly want it to go higher,” this person said.

China Banks Said to Need $131 Billion of Equity Over Six Years (Bloomberg)
“Capital erosion is a long-term issue facing Chinese banks because they don’t really have the motivation to reduce reliance on loan expansion,” said Wen Chunling, a Beijing-based analyst at Fitch. “The focus of China’s rules is to ensure that banks arm themselves with abundant capital to be well-prepared for a crisis, so that the cost of any government bailout would be minimized.”

GOP Spooked On Debt Limit? (PMM)
House Speaker John Boehner has been reaching out to top Wall Street players asking how close Congress can get to the May 16th deadline (or July 8th drop-dead date) for raising the debt limit without seriously unnerving financial markets. The questioning is not going over well. “They don’t seem to understand that you can’t put everything back in the box. Once that fear of default is in the markets, it doesn’t just go away. We’ll be paying the price for years in higher rates,” said one executive.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Brother In Alleged Galleon Coverup (WSJ)
In the hours after the 2009 arrest of the Galleon Group founder, Rengan Rajaratnam participated in an alleged coverup by removing notebooks with handwritten notes about stocks from Raj Rajaratnam’s office, according to filings in a Manhattan federal court.

BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Manslaughter Charges Review (Bloomberg)
Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue manslaughter charges against BP Plc managers for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico oil well explosion last year that killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in U.S. history, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Warren Faces Dimon, Hostile Chamber Agency (NYP)
Warren says regulation will bring clarity to financial services. Although she won’t be speaking at the same time as Bachus or Dimon, the US Chamber of Commerce’s fifth annual summit, entitled “Ensuring Competitiveness in a Post-Regulatory Reform Environment,” will give Warren a chance to make her strongest case yet in support of the new agency that she helped birth.

Not ‘joking’ with Rajaratnam says Rajiv Goel, former Intel exec (ET)
Former Intel executive and key government witness Rajiv Goel has said that he was not joking with Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam when telling him about the dealings of his company. The defence previously asked Goel whether he thought Rajaratnam was kidding about giving BMW cars to two women in Intel’s sales department who leaked information to him. The prosecution today went over several parts of secretly recorded phone. “Were you joking… was this idle chit chat?” asked Reed Brodsky, citing the line, “But yesterday, our board approved this deal.” “No”, said Goel, who has already pleaded guilty to telling Rajaratnam that Intel was planning to make a USD 1 billion investment in a new joint venture with Clearwire and Sprint to develop an ultra-fast wireless Internet service.

Cash-Paying Vultures Feast on U.S. Housing as Mortgages Dry Up (Bloomberg)
Delavaco Properties LP plans to spend as much as $30 million this year and $40 million in 2012 to buy bank-owned houses and condominiums in foreclosure-ridden South Florida. The private-equity fund will pay cash. “If there weren’t vultures out there, you’d have a city of dead carcasses,” Robert Theocles, an independent consultant for Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Delavaco, said in a telephone interview. “It’s like the circle of life.”

Private Exchange Wants To Challenge NYSE, Nasdaq (Reuters)
BATS Global Markets plans to list U.S. public stocks by year end, opening the door for companies to float shares somewhere other than the Big Board or Nasdaq for the first time in years.

Man Group Doubles Managed Funds (WSJ)
The firm said it continued to refocus itself as a more-diversified business following its acquisition of GLG Partners and the sale of its stake in BlueCrest as it reported that funds under management of $69 billion, almost double the level last year. Man Group also announced Tuesday the acquisition of the remaining 50% stake in Ore Hill that it didn’t already own, which it would integrate into GLG. Ore Hill manages a series of hedge funds with total assets under management of $800 million and focused on U.S. credit markets.

Time for a Sequel to AOL-Time Warner? (WSJ)
This isn’t a joke.

‘Spiderman’ Alain Robert scales Burj Khalifa in Dubai (BBC)
It took him six hours to ascend the 828-m (2,717-ft) tower in the United Arab Emirates city, including the tapered spire above the top floors. Unusually, he used a rope and harness, to comply with safety requirements.

GE: Pay Anything (CC)

Japan Finds Plutonium at Stricken Nuclear Plant (Reuters)
TEPCO said the radioactive material — a by-product of atomic reactions and also used in nuclear bombs — had been found in soil in five places at the plant, hit by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Worries Grow Over Supplies Of Japanese Cars (WSJ)
The deep impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami on the supply of made-in-Japan vehicles is just starting to become clear on the lots of Main Street car dealers and on Wall Street earnings outlooks for the big auto makers. Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. all have U.S. plants still churning out vehicles, but rely on Japanese production for about a quarter to a third of the new cars they sell in America. On Monday, Deutsche Bank cut its estimate of Toyota’s profit in the fiscal year beginning April 1 by 84%. It also cut its forecast for Honda’s fiscal 2012 profit by 50%, and Nissan’s by 79%.

Dying Banks Kept Alive Among Secrets Fed Data Will Reveal (Bloomberg)
U.S. regulators closed Chicago- based Park National Bank in October 2009 when it owed $345 million to one of the lowest-cost lenders in town: the Federal Reserve’s discount window. Park National had been a constant customer at the window for more than 18 months before it failed, records show. Without identifying them as of yet, Fed officials say all the discount window loans made during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s have been repaid with interest.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Kan Seeks Calm as Japan Tries to Contain Meltdown, Panic Buying (Bloomberg)
Japanese stocks fell after reports of today’s explosion and fire, sending the Topix 9.5 percent lower at the close in Tokyo, the largest one-day slide since October 2008. The gauge has dropped 18 percent since the quake. The central bank injected 8 trillion yen ($98 billion) into the financial system today, on top of a record 15 trillion yen yesterday. “We are in uncharted waters now,” said Kirby Daley, a Hong Kong-based senior strategist with Newedge Group’s prime brokerage business.

Hedge Funds Had Bets Against Japan (WSJ)
In recent years, a chorus of voices has warned that Japan is facing an inevitable crisis to be brought on by a stagnant economy, a shrinking population and the worst debt profile of any major industrialized country. Hedge-fund managers from Kyle Bass of Hayman Advisors LP in Dallas to smaller firms like Commonwealth Opportunity Capital have made money since the earthquake on long-held bets on Japan’s government and corporate bonds.

Marc Faber: If Markets Keep Falling, Fed Will Keep Printing (CNBC)
“We may drop 10 to 15 percent. Then QE 2 will come, (then) QE 4, QE 5, QE 6, QE 7—whatever you want. The money printer will continue to print, that I’m sure,” said the author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report. Later in the interview, he added, “Actually I made a mistake. I meant to say QE 18.”

Pandit Picks Emerging Markets as Citigroup Future in New Risk (Bloomberg)
Citigroup now earns more than half its profit from developing countries, Chief Executive Officer Pandit said at a March 9 conference in New York. The bank increased assets in Latin America and Asia by 16 percent to more than $470 billion last year, adding customers in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and India…“If it grows like a weed, maybe it is a weed,” said Mike Mayo, who recommends investors sell Citigroup shares. “They’ve had risk- management mishaps. We’re not convinced the culture has changed enough to prevent similar mishaps from occurring.”

Gaddafi Says European Friends Betrayed Him (Reuters)
“I was really shocked by the attitude of my European friends,” he told the newspaper. “They have damaged and endangered a series of major accords on security that were in their interests and the economic cooperation that we had.”

Fed’s Next Steps Divide Economists as Asset Purchases Slow (Bloomberg)
Of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News last week, 49 said the Fed will buy the full amount of bonds in a bid to boost the economy. Thirty-one said the central bank won’t adjust the pace or duration of the purchases, as it did in the first round of so-called quantitative easing in 2009-10. Respondents were further divided over how long the Fed will keep its bond portfolio stable after the purchases end, with a plurality of 16 betting on a period of four to six months.

Banking’s Scourge On Charm Offensive (WSJ)
A wall map of the U.S. in the Consumer Protection Bureau’s offices tracks Ms. Warren’s methodical campaign with colored push-pins. Each blue pin records an “in-person meeting w/[Elizabeth Warren], while a red pin means a “one-on-one EW call” and a white pin a “group meeting w/EW.” The map has 47 pins so far.

EU Agrees On Economic Overhaul (WSJ)
Mr. Trichet said the changes aren’t ambitious enough. “We continue to think that the improvement in governance that is presently envisioned is, in our opinion, insufficient to draw the lessons from the crisis we had to cope with,” he said.

Roubini: Yen Will Further Weaken In The Long Run (CNBC)
“Japan is going to need significant depreciation of the yen to increase its net exports because domestic demand is going to be anemic for a while. Therefore on a fundamental basis, the yen is going to be much weaker rather than stronger because you need improvement of external balance given the shock to the domestic economy,” he said.

Japanese Nuclear Plan Radiation Recedes As Engineers Restore Water Level (Bloomberg)
Water supply at reactors No. 1 and No. 3 stabilized and radiation readings at the front gate of the plant dropped to a level that isn’t “harmful to the human body,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said this afternoon in Tokyo. Separately, Tokyo Electric said it hadn’t decided whether to bring workers after the utility evacuated 750 of its 800 employees following this morning’s blast.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

The second wave of e-commerce is coming, buoyed by a flood of fresh cash. European flash-sales site operator Privalia, which offers short-term, steeply discounted fashion deals in Spain, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico, is expanding to Germany with a $280 million acquisition of rival Dress-For-Less.

The deal is funded in part by $123 million in fresh cash from General Atlantic, Highland Capital Partners, Index Ventures, and Insight Venture Partners, as well as debt and newly issued shares.

Those are big numbers, and they come on top of a $95 million round just last October from General Atlantic and Index.

Privalia is a private-sales site that offers members deep discounts on apparel and other items for a short period of time. Others in the flash-sales category include Rue La La, now owned by GSI Commerce; Gilt Groupe, which offers deals in apparel and travel; and One Kings Lane, a home-décor site. The limited time horizon for offers, combined with a curated array of merchandise and new social tools, serves to drive demand from consumers looking to buy something new.

That customer base — those who view shopping as entertainment and largely made up of women — is potentially much larger than the hardcore online shoppers who became loyal online shoppers a decade ago.

The first wave of e-commerce, transactional and efficient, did catalogs one better by offering a nearly limitless array of merchandise and selling it cheaply and quickly. It satisfied demand, rather than creating it.

Private-sales sites, daily deals purveyors like Groupon, and other new forms of e-commerce promise to do something much bigger and more difficult: create demand. Successful traditional retailers excel at this, turning their stores into showcases of consumer delight and convincing people to reach for their pocketbooks for something they had no intention of buying when they walked into the store.

Privalia seems to have an edge in fast-growing overseas markets. Gilt currently operates in the U.S. and Japan. GSI, which is publicly traded, spent $350 million acquiring Rue La La and could expand quickly. A lot of capital is flowing into the sector. But unlike earlier waves of e-commerce, which required building and stocking warehouses to guarantee the availability of those vast virtual shelves of merchandise, the new e-commerce tends to move products quickly, making it an appealing investment to venture capitalists who might shy away from plowing their capital into inventory.

Instead, the money in this second wave of e-commerce is going into customer acquisition, technology, and some financial maneuvers — like Privalia’s rollup of Dress-for-Less.

Tags: e commerce, e-commerce 2.0, flash sales, private sales, social shopping

Companies: Dress-for-Less, General Atlantic Partners, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Privalia

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

The second wave of e-commerce is coming, buoyed by a flood of fresh cash. European flash-sales site operator Privalia, which offers short-term, steeply discounted fashion deals in Spain, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico, is expanding to Germany with a $280 million acquisition of rival Dress-For-Less.

The deal is funded in part by $123 million in fresh cash from General Atlantic, Highland Capital Partners, Index Ventures, and Insight Venture Partners, as well as debt and newly issued shares.

Those are big numbers, and they come on top of a $95 million round just last October from General Atlantic and Index.

Privalia is a private-sales site that offers members deep discounts on apparel and other items for a short period of time. Others in the flash-sales category include Rue La La, now owned by GSI Commerce; Gilt Groupe, which offers deals in apparel and travel; and One Kings Lane, a home-décor site. The limited time horizon for offers, combined with a curated array of merchandise and new social tools, serves to drive demand from consumers looking to buy something new.

That customer base — those who view shopping as entertainment and largely made up of women — is potentially much larger than the hardcore online shoppers who became loyal online shoppers a decade ago.

The first wave of e-commerce, transactional and efficient, did catalogs one better by offering a nearly limitless array of merchandise and selling it cheaply and quickly. It satisfied demand, rather than creating it.

Private-sales sites, daily deals purveyors like Groupon, and other new forms of e-commerce promise to do something much bigger and more difficult: create demand. Successful traditional retailers excel at this, turning their stores into showcases of consumer delight and convincing people to reach for their pocketbooks for something they had no intention of buying when they walked into the store.

Privalia seems to have an edge in fast-growing overseas markets. Gilt currently operates in the U.S. and Japan. GSI, which is publicly traded, spent $350 million acquiring Rue La La and could expand quickly. A lot of capital is flowing into the sector. But unlike earlier waves of e-commerce, which required building and stocking warehouses to guarantee the availability of those vast virtual shelves of merchandise, the new e-commerce tends to move products quickly, making it an appealing investment to venture capitalists who might shy away from plowing their capital into inventory.

Instead, the money in this second wave of e-commerce is going into customer acquisition, technology, and some financial maneuvers — like Privalia’s rollup of Dress-for-Less.

Tags: e commerce, e-commerce 2.0, flash sales, private sales, social shopping

Companies: Dress-for-Less, General Atlantic Partners, Index Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Privalia

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Goldman Sachs Sees Danger In US Budget Cuts (FT)
The Republican plan to slash government spending by $61bn in 2011 could reduce US economic growth by 1.5 to 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of the year, a Goldman Sachs economist has warned. The Goldman analysis also points out that a potential compromise deal with $25bn in spending reductions this year – a more likely scenario – would lead to a smaller drag on growth of 1 percentage point in the second quarter. Thereafter it would fade, with “negligible” impact on US output by the end of the year.

RBS Earnings Disappoint (MarketWatch)
RBS said it swung to a fourth-quarter profit of 12 million pounds ($19 million) from a loss of £765 million a year earlier. The net loss for the year shrank to £1.13 billion from £3.61 billion, but was still worse than the £700 million loss analysts had been expecting. The bank said total impairment losses for the quarter were £2.14 billion. The charges were down 31% compared to a year earlier, but were up by £188 million from the third quarter due to rising losses at its Ulster Bank unit.

Obama Vows to Put Pressure on Qaddafi, Sends Clinton for Talks (Bloomberg)
In his first remarks on the uprising that has split the North African country and prompted a deadly response from Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and his loyalists, Obama described “the suffering and bloodshed” as “outrageous” and said those responsible must be held accountable. “These actions violate international norms and every standard of common decency,” Obama said yesterday at the White House after meeting with Clinton.

JP Morgan Raises $1.2 Billion For Digital Growth Fund (WSJ)
According to a regulatory filing, J.P. Morgan’s asset management unit raised $1.22 billion for a fund called J.P. Morgan Digital Growth Fund LP.

Bonuses on Wall Street Declined 8% in 2010, N.Y.’s DiNapoli Says (Bloomberg)
“Cash bonuses are down, but that’s not an indicator of a weakness on Wall Street,” DiNapoli said yesterday in a statement. Wall Street is changing its compensation practices in response to regulatory reforms adopted in the aftermath of the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Past practices rewarded short-term gains at the expense of long-term profitability.”

Silver Lake Partners Starts Clean Energy Fund (Dealbook)
The private-equity firm, which focuses on investments in the technology industry, has started Silver Lake Kraftwerk, a unit that will take stakes in companies in the energy and resource sectors. The move highlights the popularity of “cleantech” businesses — companies that use technology to improve energy efficiency. Silver Lake’s partners in the new venture are Soros Fund Management, which will invest in the fund, and Adam Grosser, a West Coast technology executive and venture capitalist who will will run the business. Joining Mr. Grosser will be Cathy Zoi, who recently served as the Obama administration’s Acting Under Secretary for Energy and Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Ex-Yanks Fight Wipe Swap Film (NYP)
Former Yankee Mike Kekich is desperate to block Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s movie “The Trade,” based on the huge scandal when he and fellow pitcher Fritz Peterson swapped wives in the 1970s. Die-hard Red Sox fan Affleck and his brother, Casey, are rewriting a second version of the script and have hired veteran sportswriters to help reach out to Yankees from that era. But Kekich, who’s believed to have created a completely new life and family in New Mexico, is refusing to participate.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Buoyed by Insurance ‘Float’ (WSJ)
Berkshire is likely to report improved fourth-quarter earnings and an increase in book value, a performance yardstick Mr. Buffett uses to measure the company’s growth…Of importance, Berkshire’s pool of funds from insurance—something known as “float”—could have swelled to roughly $67 billion at the end of 2010 from $63 billion a year earlier. It is poised to rise further in 2011 despite challenging insurance-market conditions amid the slow economy, analysts say.

GM Posts First Full Year Profit Since ’04 (Reuters)
The automaker reported fourth-quarter net income of $510 million after paying dividends on preferred shares, or 31 cents per share, down from the pace of earnings in the first three quarters of 2010 on higher costs to launch new vehicles and a continuing drag from losses in its European operations. After adjusting for a loss of 21 cents per share on the purchase of preferred shares that had been held by the U.S. Treasury, adjusted earnings per share were 52 cents.

UK Court Orders Assange Extradited (WSJ)
A U.K. court ordered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be extradited to Sweden to face questioning about sexual assault allegations, dealing a serious blow to the document-leaking site and its founder. The decision ensures that Mr. Assange’s efforts to build and promote WikiLeaks will be to some degree detoured in coming months by the possibility that he will face criminal sex charges.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

As you may have heard, last night President Obama gave his State of the Union address, in which he mentioned China a couple of times. This, legendary businessman Donald Trump says, “was the low point of the speech.” While Trump pretty much hated the entire thing (there was “no substance whatsoever” and he “didn’t hear anything about all these states that are going to go bankrupt”), it was the China stuff that really grinded his gears. “Totally inappropriate,” the bankruptcy expert told Joe Kernan and Becky Quick this morning on Squawk Box. “What’s up with you and China? What got your dander up,” Joe asked, hoping to lighten the mood. “Did they tell you you couldn’t build a golf course over there or something?” Unfortunately, Donald was in no mood for jokes. Not when it comes to China, or the suggestion anyone tells him where he can and cannot build golf courses.

“Well, Joe, I understand China,” Trump replied, deadly serious. “I’ve done business with the Chinese- and actually done very well to put it mildly- and I know that the Chinese are no friends of this country. I see what’s happening with respect China, with respect to the manipulation and all of the other things. I also buy a lot of products- so many from China. I don’t want to buy from them but I have no other choice….it’s a very unfair playing field and it was inappropriate of the President to praise them.”

“Well we’re in a bit of a tough spot, as consumers,” Kernan offered. “We could do something about it, Joe,” Trump said. “We have all the cards; if we stop buying from China they’ll go into an economic depression like you’ve never seen before. WE HAVE THE CARDS, JOE.”

Trump had other complaints, too. Fiscal irresponsibility. Taxes. Outsiders “stealing from us.” And don’t even get him started on Mexico. But you want to know what the biggest problem with this country is? The Don has a simple anecdote to illustrate.

“I’ve never said this before,” he told Jose and Becks. “But recently, I saw that they were in a tent in the White House, when those two people broke in. And I called the White House and I said listen, you know, I have a ballroom in Palm Beach Florida that’s magnificent. I offered, for nothing, to build them a $50 million ballroom. When a foreign leader comes over, when we host our own people they should be in a ballroom- not a tent. I spoke to a very high official. I said I will build– free!– a 40, 50, 60 million dollar ballroom, for the White House. I said, it’ll be the most magnificent ballroom there ever is- and I never heard from them! THAT is the problem with this country.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Morgan Stanley Profit Surges (Fortune)
The bank made $1.1 billion, or 43 cents a share, from continuing operations. That’s up from $653 million, or 18 cents a share, on a comparable basis a year ago and ahead of the 35-cent analyst consensus estimate.Revenue rose 14% from a year ago to $7.8 billion, beating the $7.4 billion analyst target. Revenue rose 12% in institutional securities and 7% in global wealth management. Within institutional securities, principal transactions trading revenue fell 27% from a year ago.

FrontPoint’s Steve Eisman Weighs Leaving The Firm (WSJ)
Mr. Eisman, 48 years old, said Wednesday in response to questions about his plans, “At this point in my career, I want to have more control over my destiny.” He said he hasn’t decided on a structure for a potential new firm, and he plans to continue managing investments for FrontPoint, as well as for other investors, in any event.

David Tepper Is Cautious For 2011 (NYP)
Tepper said while “the biggest opportunities” will remain in equities, 2011 will be “harder and not without risk.” “When things go up too high, they will go down,” Tepper said, referring to the recent market surge, which saw the S&P 500 close the year up 13 percent, in line with his prediction.

Initial Jobless Claims in U.S. Fell to 404,000 Last Week (Bloomberg)
Applications for jobless benefits decreased 37,000 in the week ended Jan. 15, the biggest decline since February 2010, to 404,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 420,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls fell, while those getting extended payments rose.

More Than 100 Suspected Mobsters Arrested (WSJ)
The arrests were made around the New York area on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, extortion and murder, a person familiar with the situation said. The takedown involved accused members and associates of all five New York organized-crime families: the Gambinos, Genoveses, Bonnanos, Luccheses and Colombos, this person said. Also arrested were members of the DeCavalcantes in Newark, N.J., and accused New England mobsters in Providence, R.I.

Spain To Ramp Up Bank Bailouts (WSJ)
In a first step, Spain is preparing to issue €3 billion ($4 billion) in debt in coming days, the people familiar with the matter said. Government officials are putting plans in place to eventually raise as much as €30 billion, according to these people, though some say the final tally will be less.

Blackstone on Pensions: ‘We Oppose Scapegoating Public Employees’ (Deal Journal)
“Blackstone’s view on public employee pensions is clear and unambiguous: We believe a pension is a promise. Working men and women should not have to worry about their retirement security after years of service to their communities. We oppose scapegoating public employees by blaming them for the structural budget deficits that cities and states face. We at Blackstone are committed to helping public employees retire with confidence in the strength and reliability of their pensions.”

Carlos Slim: Invest In Mexico Or Else (CNBC)
In fact, he says those choosing not to invest in Mexico are making a big mistake: They will lose. “If they are already here, they will lose market share. If they are not here they will lose a very big market. We are 110-112 million people, and growing the economy,” Slim says.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker