Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle by Matt Taibbi

Copy + Paste from Rolling Stone Magazine:

Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren’t just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy – they’re re-creating the conditions for another crash

MATT TAIBBI

On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America’s pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman’s role in precipitating the global financial crisis.

The bank had already set aside a tidy $16.2 billion for salaries and bonuses — meaning that Goldman employees were each set to take home an average of $498,246, a number roughly commensurate with what they received during the bubble years. Still, the troops were worried: There were rumors that Dr. Ballsachs, bowing to political pressure, might be forced to scale the number back. After all, the country was broke, 14.8 million Americans were stranded on the unemployment line, and Barack Obama and the Democrats were trying to recover the populist high ground after their bitch-whipping in Massachusetts by calling for a “bailout tax” on banks. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for Goldman to be throwing its annual Roman bonus orgy.

Not to worry, Blankfein reassured employees. “In a year that proved to have no shortage of story lines,” he said, “I believe very strongly that performance is the ultimate narrative.”

Translation: We made a shitload of money last year because we’re so amazing at our jobs, so fuck all those people who want us to reduce our bonuses. … Continue Reading

Memo To Lloyd, the Morts Need Your Attention

$GS Trader (Michael Lewis) sends an email to the C.E.O., sharing 3 big ideas. HILARIOUS. LOL!

Copy + Paste from Bloomberg:

To: Lloyd Blankfein
Re: Winning the Public Relations War

Six months ago, with what I mistakenly took to be your tacit approval, I attempted to address ordinary Americans, almost as equals. (read it here)

They envied and resented our firm; I sought merely to correct their misunderstandings about Goldman Sachs and send them on their way, so that they might more briskly resume their quest for gainful employment.

In hindsight, I misjudged their ability to see the reality of their situation, and of ours. At the time I accepted your strong suggestion that I never again try to speak directly to mortals — or, as you referred to them, “The Morts.”

Now our predicament is suddenly more dire. Ordinary Americans wish to control not just our pay but our core values: We at Goldman have long stood for the right of every prop group to trade against its firm’s customers. If we abdicate that right, who are we, deep down?

In just the past few days many of us on the Goldman trading floor have wrestled with that question. We believe that rather than re-think our core values we should re-think our relations with the American public.

Hence this memo. Your recent non-verbal signals — your habit of passing directly behind my trading desk en route to the elevators, your selection of the urinal adjacent to my own — convince me that you continue to value my thoughts.
… Continue Reading

Gretchen Ruben on Planning Effective New Year’s Resolutions

Copy+Paste:

1. Ask: “What would make me happier?” It might be having more of something good. It might be less of something bad. It might be fixing something that doesn’t feel right.

2. Ask: “What is a concrete action that would bring about change?” Look for a specific, measurable action.

3. Ask: “Am I a ‘yes’ resolver or a ‘no’ resolver?” A lot of my resolutions are aimed at getting me to stop doing something or to do something I don’t really want to do. Don’t expect praise or appreciation. There’s no right way to make a resolution, but it’s important to know what works for you. As always, the secret is to know your own nature.

4. Ask: “Am I starting small enough?” We tend to over-estimate what we can do over a short time and under-estimate what we can do over a long time, if we make consistent, small steps. Little accomplishments provide energy for bigger challenges.

5. Ask: “How am I going to hold myself accountable?” Accountability is the secret to sticking to resolutions. You could track your resolutions online using the tools at the Happiness Project Toolbox. Or you could form a goals group – or even a happiness-project group! Accountability is why #2 is so important. If your resolution is too vague, it’s hard to measure whether you’ve been keeping it.

Links:
Happiness Project: Five Tips for Planning Effective New Year’s Resolutions, Gretchen Ruben, 1/1/2010.
Happiness Project Toolbox

US President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice. … Continue Reading

Obama’s Big Sellout by Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone writer and the bane of Wall Street is at it again. Another great article (Issue 1093 — December 10, 2009) by Matt Taibbi.

Copy + Paste:

Obama’s Big Sellout

The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway.

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers “at the expense of hardworking Americans.” Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it’s not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

What’s taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

… Continue Reading

Simon’s Pie Charts by David Thorne.

HILARIOUS! LOL!

Copy + Paste:

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 2.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Logo Design

Hello David,

I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.

Simon

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 3.52pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,

Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment. Please find attached pie chart as requested and let me know of any changes required.

Regards, David.

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 4.11pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Logo Design

Is that supposed to be a fucking joke? I told you the previous projects did not go ahead. I invested a lot more time and energy in those projects than you did. If you put as much energy into the projects as you do being a dickhead you would be a lot more successful.

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 5.27pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,

You are correct and I apologise. Your last project was actually both commercially viable and original. Unfortunately the part that was commercially viable was not original, and the part that was original was not commercially viable.

I would no doubt find your ideas more ‘cutting edge’ and original if I had traveled forward in time from the 1950’s but as it stands, your ideas for technology based projects that have already been put into application by other people several years before you thought of them fail to generate the enthusiasm they possibly deserve. Having said that though, if I had traveled forward in time, my time machine would probably put your peer to peer networking technology to shame as not only would it have commercial viability, but also an awesome logo and accompanying pie charts.

Regardless, I have, as requested, attached a logo that represents not only the peer to peer networking project you are currently working on, but working with you in general.

Regards, David.

… Continue Reading

Swine Flu Facts

From the fine folks at Information is beautiful.

Harvard Poker Pro Says Texas Hold ‘Em Can Teach Traders to Fold

Copy + Paste from Bloomberg (my highlights in blue):

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) — Brandon Adams, who teaches behavioral finance at Harvard University’s Department of Economics, says some of the best candidates for Wall Street trading jobs are the professional card players at FullTiltPoker.com and similar Web sites.

“They’ve essentially been the survivors in the system, a very difficult system where 95 percent of people lose money,” the 30-year-old Adams, who plays at the site, said in a telephone interview. “Anyone smart enough and disciplined enough to survive that system is probably going to do very well in the trading world.”

An increasing number of hedge funds and brokerages are scrutinizing professional poker to find talent and analytical tools, according to financial recruiters including Options Group, a New York-based executive-search company. Susquehanna International Group LLP, the Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania-based options and equity trading company, uses poker to teach strategic thinking. … Continue Reading

The Vincent van Gogh Letters

The Economist published a pretty good review on the latest series of books that attempt to provide worldy readers and van Gogh fans alike, a glimpse into the psyche of the eccentric artist…  through his letters.

… Continue Reading

Chrome Hearts Magazine Series 2, Volume 1.

Picked this up today off of Amazon Japan.
Shipping cost more than the actual magazine. -_-

I’ve been collecting this magazine ever since Series 1. I have them all! I particularly liked the CDs and stickers that accompanied them. With Iggy Pop on the cover, this one already looks like it will be another winner!