Date archive for January, 2010

• Holden Caulfield on Banking

  29 January 10 • 5 comments

  “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is who made all the lousy decisions leading up to the banking disaster of 2008, and how the government was out to lunch during the entire bailout, and all that Neil Barofsky kind of crap, but I don’t feel [...]

• How To Do a Perp Walk

  27 January 10 • Comments Off

  

  It’s Worst Case Wednesday. And here’s the advice column I promised last week. Consider the following scenario: You’re at your desk, drinking $5 Starbucks and listening to the morning call. Three burly guys—Mack Truck faces—appear from nowhere on the trading floor. They’re miked up, wearing earbuds that stream deep inside their wrinkled jackets. Watch CBS News [...]

• Turnaround at the SEC

  25 January 10 • 1 comment

  

  At SEC, a Scholar Who Saw it Coming I’ve been tough on the SEC. Talked about their incompetence. Blogged (or is it blahhed?) about their failure to catch Bernie Madoff, even after Harry Markopolis served him up. Now, I’m thinking the commission has turned the corner. That the SEC, under the leadership of Mary Schapiro, [...]

• Worst Case Wednesday

  20 January 10 • Comments Off

  

  Next week I’m starting an advice column for finance professionals: Worst Case Wednesday. It’s about what to do when the unthinkable happens. You’re late for a meeting—even worse, you sleep through it. The SEC shows up at your front door. Your client asks an uncomfortable question, inviting a white lie. You flunk the Series 7. [...]

• Health Care Makes Me Sick

  18 January 10 • 7 comments

  

  Aetna reinstates customer who made $64 error I haven’t followed the pending health care legislation. Not closely anyway. But from personal experience, I know something needs to give. Health care is broken: pre-existing conditions, reliance on employers, incomprehensible coverage. You know what I’m saying. Here’s a horror story I just read. According to The Los [...]

• I, Bonus

  15 January 10 • Comments Off

  

  Taxing Banks for the Bailout On Wednesday night I spoke at the Rotary Club in Boston. We discussed my novel, Top Producer, but concentrated on Wall Street and the topic of bonuses. It seems everybody wants the finance industry to justify its compensation. Bank CEOs have taken their case to the public. But they haven’t [...]

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