As you may have heard, Wall Street is not, lets just call it, the most “popular” place these days. This is especially true if you’re currently in or running for office. Gotta give the people what they want and what the people want is, for example, you to very publicly and hurtfully break off your bro-mance with anyone in the upper echelons of the Street, no matter how charming, handsome, and sweet they may be. The fact that he was once a managing director at Lehman Brothers is naturally something that Republican Gubernatorial hopeful John Kasich’s opponents are throwing in his face but it wasn’t until recently that they uncovered a relationship that could ruin his chances. It’s not with a hooker and it’s doesn’t involve a source who identified Kasich servicing a hobo in the men’s room of the Port Authority, though it does involve a Dick.

“Fuld is an awesome guy,” Kasich told New York Observer for a September, 2001, story. “He is the kind of guy you want to go into battle with,” the article quoted Kasich as saying. “He is a great leader.”

After Lehman’s demise, Fuld quickly emerged as one of the chief villains of the financial crisis. He was even rumored to have been punched in the face while exercising in the Lehman gym around the time of the company’s bankruptcy. Kasich backed away a little from his association with Fuld during his Reuters interview, saying: “I called him a good leader because of what he did after 9-11.”

Kasich, though, was interviewed for the story before September 11 and the piece made no mention of the attacks, which destroyed Kasich’s New York office.

“Fuld had his thing to do and I had my thing to do,” Kasich added.

Shorting Wall Street On The Campaign Trail [Reuters]

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You’d really be helping them out and apparently they’ve got high hopes, so it’d be yet another kick in the pants for yet another thing to fail. Do it for Dick. [CNBC]

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Please?

Probably not, but hear me out. Goldman is making a documentary about itself. Here’s why we really shouldn’t give rat’s ass: because Goldman is “paying for the film, has editorial control and is overseeing the project through its marketing department.” Also, it will only be distributed to employees, as a sort of pick me up of sorts, that Lloyd can watch when he’s feeling a bit melancholy or in the event of another really bad day. The bank has hired a real filmmaker, Ric Burns, to make the thing, which is kind of like asking the Coen Brothers to tape your son’s Bar Mitzvah. So, the very serious odds are the thing is going to suck, if you were looking for any sort of drama, intrigue, conflict or humor. But. As one guy told the Journal, it is quite strange for Burns to take on this project.

Given the company’s starring role in the financial crisis, some filmmakers are skeptical about Mr. Burns’s movie. “It is very unusual for a documentary maker of his stature to take on a project like this, and especially one with strings attached,” said Robert Greenwald, whose 2005 documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” cast an unflattering look at the retailer. “It goes against everything we fight for as documentary makers.”

And that just makes me think, and cross my fingers, and hope for one slim but potentially incredible outcome, that only Burns can make happen. Two words my friends: America’s Sweethearts. Show us the good stuff, B.

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Why? According to Pitt, in a bold (though perhaps not so far-fetched) claim, nobody’s actually read the thing.

Dodd-Frank is a ponderous beast. If Congress were paid by the word or the page, this verbiage might be understandable. But neither of those conditions exists, meaning all we can be certain of is that no one in Congress or the administration has actually read the entire bill. Who actually knows what’s in the bill?

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I don't care if you have to set up a desk in some god-awful club out there. You will take one for the team.

It was just last month that we noted that you could once again buy that $300,000 car you’d had your eye on without people judging you. “I have the cash for this thing and I don’t have to worry about someone thinking I’m a douchebag for buying this thing,” you were finally able to say to no one in particular. It felt good! No, it felt great, particularly for those of you who were so excited the good times were back you chose to spring for the auto-fellate enabling dashboard tilt feature. And now, this. This total crock:

[Before the shit hit the fan] many financiers took it a step further. Hedge-fund manager Jim Chanos (of Enron fame) has kept an office in East Hampton for years. Hayground Cove founder Jason Ader works from his East End home on weekends and the occasional Friday. Why stick around the city on a summer Friday when you can log on and invest from the beach? But the wave of “beach bankers” who opened temporary summer offices crashed along with the stock market three years ago. Realtor Robert Kohr of Elliman told me that during the boom, groups of Manhattanites would often turn home rentals from $50,000 to $100,000 into summer offices. One innovative CEO, Brian Villante of Grace Financial, opened a “hedge-fund hotel” in Southampton in 2005. Leasing East End office space to other money managers seemed like a good idea when virtually everyone was hanging out a shingle in the $2 trillion hedgefund industry. But in the jittery post-crisis world, fewer financial types are swapping their loafers for flip-flops. Last year Villante shuttered the hotel and decided to take advantage of the cheaper rents himself: His mini broker-dealer reopened in a single-firm location next door to Saks Fifth Avenue.

God damn these people! You will set up your offices out East in order to give us a sense of confidence and you will like it. And on a related note, here’s a q: why must Jim Chanos always be the one who has to do all the heavy lifting? Why does he have to be the guy always holding this place up like Atlas? I mean, really.

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12:10 Sure, it would’ve been worse to do it on 4/20 but Cinco de Mayo? Still pretty mean.

12:12 This thing is set to get underway in a few minutes. While we wait, I have a ton of items on the “wish-list” but beyond the obvious, I really, really want him to act like a stoned 17 year old who just got busted. “I know my rights, man.” “I’ve read the constitution.”

12:20 LET’S DO THIS. Reading of the prepared statements. Incredibly, CNBC thinks interviewing the CEO of Nike is more important than Big Jim, so you can follow along here.

12:30: Alan Schwartz maintains that Bear was awash– nay, drowning– in liquidity days before it went down for the dirt nap.

12:32: Jim concedes, “in retrospect, in hindsight, leverage was a bit too high.”

12:41: Angelides: Could you have done anything to prevent that weekend in March?

Cayne: Nothing. There was nothing that could have been done. We were taken down by hedge funds. Bear Stearns [and these words seriously just exited JC's mouth] “was a big fat goose walking down the lane that’s about to be eaten up by competitors.”

Angelides: You were in Detroit that weekend, right? At a bridge tournament?

Cayne: That’s correct.

12:55 Schwartz: Equity was not the issue, man! Confidence was the issue!

12:58 Brooksley Born: Do you think maybe Bear Stearns was too big to manage? Maybe that’s why it failed?

Schwartz: No, it was the rumors.

1:03: Jimbo: “I have no opinion about this too big to fail thing.”

1:05: For C’s sake, can we get to the important questions already? i.e. is J seeing more seeds in his weed these days now that he’s a nobody?

1:10 Brooksley Born: What is this thing I’ve heard about “window-dressing” of the balance sheet at the end of the quarter? Can you explain that to me?

Schwartz: It was standard industry practice to make your balance sheet look better than it was. Basically.

Cayne: I don’t like the term ‘window-dressing.’ That implies some sort of skullduggery, which was not going on.

BB: Oh, oh, I wasn’t saying that, that’s just something I’ve heard other people say. I didn’t mean any disrespect to you Mr. Jim [batting of eye-lashes]

Cayne: I know you didn’t, sugar tits.

BB: [Coy grin]

New rule: take a hit every time Schwartz or Cayne says ‘rumors.’

1:23 Bill Thomas: Do you think it was unfair that the discount window wasn’t opened until after Bear was sold?

Cayne: [Whose decision to go with the wake 'n bake this morning has resulted in a serious mellow] I don’t know. That was their call.

(NB: This was Cayne’s answer to that question one year ago: Asked about Geithner’s comments and his decision regarding opening the discount window to Wall Street after Bear had been sold for $2 a share and not earlier, Jimmy Cayne became spitting angry.

“The audacity of that p— in front of the American people announcing he was deciding whether or not a firm of this stature and this whatever was good enough to get a loan,” he said. “Like he was the determining factor, and it’s like a flea on his back, floating down underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a h—o-, saying, ‘Raise the bridge.’ This guy thinks he’s got a big d–. He’s got nothing, except maybe a boyfriend. I’m not a good enemy. I’m a very bad enemy. But certain things really–that bothered me plenty. It’s just that for some clerk to make a decision based on what, your own personal feeling about whether or not they’re a good credit? Who the f– asked you? You’re not an elected officer. You’re a clerk. Believe me, you’re a clerk. I want to open up on this f—-r, that’s all I can tell you.”)

1:32 While I’m digging Jim’s extreme brevity (“I don’t have an opinion,” “No,” “Ask Alan”), this is getting boring. While we wait for things to pick up, just going to throw this very much relevant question out there. So last night, I had some people over to get myself in the Jimmy Cayne Frame of Mind. It’s decided that we should order milkshakes and I pull up a menu for the only place delivering at that time. Am I a cheapskate for thinking $10/shake is a ridiculous amount to charge for one normal-sized shake? I called over there to place our order and was like, “Did MenuPages get this wrong? Is it really $10/shake?” and fully expected the lady to be like, yeah, that’s a typo or tell me you get ten shakes for it. We still got them of course but I still think this is an abomination and need to know if I’m off base here.

1:45 Peter Wallison: Mr. Cayne, what were these overwhelming “market forces” that caused Bear Stearns to bite the big one?

Cayne: Rumor, innuendo, I’m not going to use the word ‘conspiracy,’ but that was part of it.

2:05: Byron Georgiou, attempting to be a hero, bring up the fact that there’s a book by William Cohan in which Uncle Jim “said some unfavorable things about Tim Geithner,” and asks if JC remembers that. Obviously he does remember [saying that Geithner "thinks he has a big dick" and also that he's a homosexual] but Cayne evades the question by saying he’s never read the book and because this hearing is the biggest letdown OF ALL TIME, Georgiou doesn’t read him the passage aloud and moves on. WHERE IS CLAIRE MCCASKILL WHEN WE NEED HER?

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Thoughts? Opening reaction– disappointed in the lack of Blankfein shout-outs (especially since Gary Cohn canceled a lunch to make this thing) and not enough jokes.

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Via Reuters, the CDO created by John Paulson which was in turn marketed to Goldman investors (sans the 411 that Paulson&Co was betting against it). Nothing new for the investors who lost a billion or so on this thing but in they event they’re looking for some JO&C material this afternoon, here ya go.

Abacus 2007-Ac1 Flipbook 20070226

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