Wall Street Folly

It's Official: We've moved! Our new home is www.wallstreetfolly.com

Please join us over at our new Wall Street Folly site.  We're still working out some kinks, but it's up and running! (Note, if for some reason you're not directed to that site, keep trying.  It gonna take a bit for the redirection of our wallstreetfolly.com url to be propogated through the system.)

Must watch video: Lloyd Blankfein speaks

Q&A during Blankfein's remarks to the Council of Institutional Investors -  Part 1:

Parts 2 & 3 continue below

Lloyd Blankfein's speech to the Council of Institutional Investors

Video: CNBC interview with B of A's Ken Lewis - $BAC

On retaining talent:

Kucinich to the Treasury and the Fed: About those Merrill bonuses -- what did you know and when did you know it? ($BAC)

Those $3.6 billion in Merrill Lynch bonuses that were paid out early seem to have disappeared from the front page thanks to the likes of AIG and the auto bailout.  But Dennis Kucinich, chairman of a subcommittee of the House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is all over it now:

Three founding GLG partners will get $1 a year salaries and won't get bonuses for the year

Struggling GLG' Partners' three founding executives are taking a dollar a year inl salary and agreed to waive their bonuses for the year. The embattled firm's assets stood at around $15 billion at the end of 2008, down some 40% from the prior year.

Noam Gottesman, chairman and co-chief executive, Emmanual Roman, co-chief executive, and Pierre Lagrange, a senior executive, have all agreed to the salary cut, according to a GLG filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Senior GLG directors were awarded base salaries of $1 million each last year, according to filings. Mr Gottesman and Mr Roman both took home pay and bonuses totalling $4.4 million last year.

GLG bosses agree to $1 annual salary - The Times of London

Gutsy AIG guy outs himself and says: 'Take this $1 buck a year job and shove it, and by the way, that retention bonus? I'm not paying it back and instead donating what's left after taxes to those suffering from the downturn'

Screw Charlie Rangel and the rest of the Congress.  Screw NY AG (and future gubernatorial candidate) Andrew Cuomo and  CT AG Richard Blumenthal who were strong arming the AIG retention payment recipients into returning the money or have their names revealed to the out-for-blood masses. And screw the rest of them:  President Obama, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Jake DeSantis beat those trying to strong arm / guilt trip him to the punch. He said 'I quit', and isn't returning the $742,006.40 after tax payment he received.  If you haven't read it yet, you must read his resignation letter on the Op-ed page of today's NY Times.   In his forceful letter he notes that he was not part of the small, mostly no longer at the firm group of traders responsible for dragging down AIG.  Instead, he worked for one of the profitable areas, and agreeing to a salary of $1 a year like CEO Ed Liddy, was working hard to wind assets down enduring 10-14 hour days with the promise of a retention payment after 12 months.    He notes that three separate times employees were reassured that they would be getting their retention payments.  And DeSantis expressed his disappointment at Ed Liddy's before Congress 'outrage' about the payments.  DeSantis said that Liddy let down the troops by not going to bat for them.....

Goldman may say "Take your TARP and shove it" as early as next month ($GS)

And then they can get back to business (like having conferences when and where they want to, paying bonuses without political interference, and snapping up smart new hires)  without the albatross known as TARP hanging around their necks. Word that Goldman wanted out emerged in early February.  According to the NY Times:

So here’s something else to ponder: Goldman Sachs is planning to give back its TARP money soon. Very soon, actually — ideally within the next month, according to people involved in the process. That’s a much quicker timetable than the end-of-year goal previously set out by Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’s chief executive. As taxpayers, we should be thrilled that Goldman is going to quickly pay back the $10 billion it was given last October, right?

If Goldman Returns Aid, Will Others? - NY Times

Video: '60 Minutes' interview with Barack Obama

 Part 1: 20:36

Here it comes: Obama will propose new executive pay oversight; how far will they go?

More game changes:  Obama et al adding more uncertainty to the market, just what we all love.  They're gonna call for new executive pay oversight, but will it be increased reporting or much worse?