 The Wild Wild World of Wealth |  |
James Konaxis was quite the guy. In just a few years he was associated as a stockbroker (registered representative) with a half dozen different brokerage firms – Raymond James, Morgan Stanley & Sentinel Securities, to name a few. He also had quite a track record of severe regulatory violations. Nothing, however, like the most recent violation – taking money from the widow of a one of the people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.
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:
Over the past few days, I’ve spent way too much time inside planes and rental cars. And during my travels, I’ve been thinking about one idiom, the one we keep hearing when Washington discusses Wall Street: “too big to fail.” Do we know what it means? Can songwriters explain the essence? Does TBTF have anything [...]
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