Tag archive for ‘Bankers’

• Who Owns You?

  29 July 10 • 4 comments

  Early in July I met Keith Raffel at Thrillerfest, which is a convention for thriller writers and their readers. Keith is a veteran of Silicon Valley and the author of Smasher and Dot Dead. He agreed to blog on Acrimoney, talk about his books and pull back the veil of venture capital. I think you’ll enjoy Keith’s insights, not to mention the anecdote that gives rise to the title of this post. BTW, after you read Keith’s post, you will understand why Acrimoney is looking for $50 million in seed capital.

• Financial Reform and the Fungus Five

  20 May 10 • 3 comments

  Recently, I described financial reform as a “petri dish” of pending legislation. The government is tackling too many issues at the same time. Without constants—we don’t know how markets will react to all the moving pieces.

  It gets worse. Last night The Wall Street Journal profiled the back-room deals working their way through pending legislation. I guess you can hide anything in a 1,500 page document. And those legislative walkabouts are what trouble me.

  How can we trust financial reform when approval depends on non-related issues?

  Here are five “amendments” that have nothing to do with sub-prime debt, banking leverage, or even the flash crash of two weeks ago. I’ve dubbed them the “Fungus Five,” because they call into question the Congressional focus on “getting it right.”

• Morgan Stanley and Dead Presidents

  12 May 10 • Comments Off

  The news is out. US prosecutors are investigating several Morgan Stanley CDOs. Like the Abacus inquiry at Goldman Sachs, the issue is what representations Morgan Stanley made to clients. How did the bank market those Weapons of Money Destruction? Here’s what The Wall Street Journal reports:

  Among the deals that have been scrutinized are two named after U.S. Presidents James Buchanan and Andrew Jackson, a person familiar with the matter said. Morgan Stanley helped design the deals and bet against them but didn’t market them to clients. Traders called them the “Dead Presidents” deals.

  So without further ado, I’d like to play a little song for my friends from Morgan Stanley. I give you Little Walter and Dead Presidents:

• Too Big to Do the Right Thing?

  30 April 10 • 4 comments

  I’ve been extremely critical of Goldman Sachs. The bonuses, funded by taxpayer bailouts, teed me off. And back on January 2, I asked, What does $22 billion in Goldman bonuses buy? Now, I have a different concern:

  Is the prosecution of Goldman Sachs going too far?

• Goldman Sachs: Must-See Outtake from Senate Panel

  28 April 10 • 3 comments

  In the Senate chamber yesterday, our elected officials grilled reps from Goldman Sachs. The Senators illustrated, I think, the outrage felt by Americans over bailout dollars that turned into banker bonuses. Even if—Senator Carl Levin trash-talked with the kind of language that triggered FCC fines of shock-jock Howard Stern:

• Top 5 Ways for Wall Street to Regain Trust

  15 April 10 • 1 comment

  We’ve all heard about what Government should do to strengthen the financial industry but what about bankers themselves? If Wall Street is serious about maintaining leadership in global finance over the long term, banks could already be implementing smart changes to enable just that. Here’s what Wall Street can do right now to regain its credibility—without waiting for Washington.

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