"And the Bush administration and Hank Paulson are asking for taxpayers’ money to keep these very same guys filthy rich? I vote NO! for the bailout plan. Have Buffett and the billionaires of the world inlcuding the Arab sheiks invest in America, but please please do not use taxpayers’ money! If America falls apart, then Read More
Artist Geoffrey Raymond did not have much luck soliciting signatures on his portrait of ousted AIG Chairman Hank Greenberg when he displayed it outside the firm’s Wall Street headquarters last week.
When Mr. Raymond first unfurled "The Annotated Spitzer" outside of the New York Stock Exchange 15 minutes after the governor resigned on Read More
Down on Wall Street, the word of the hour is “deleveraging.” In the financial markets, deleveraging is a brutal and unpleasant thing, where lots of innocents get badly hurt.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have become plain old-fashioned bank holding companies. Lehman declared bankruptcy. The bull (Merrill) and the Bear (Stearns) have both been Read More
It’s Governor Paterson’s turn for a statement. He chose to lay out the scope of this weekend’s events:
These three firms – Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch – had nearly 30,000 employees in New York, paid roughly 10 percent of Wall Street wages, and approximately 15 percent of all Wall Street bonuses.
20 Read More
When the Bush administration brokered JPMorgan’s March takeover of Bear Stearns, it stirred many questions, not least: Should the government be in the business of bailing out big business, especially when it involves billions in public money?
Apparently, the Republican Party doesn’t think so. Here’s an excerpt from the section about housing in the Read More
The Bear Stearns man, the lifer, the one they would have put on the cover of their recruiting pamphlet if they had one—Bear Stearns wants you!—he’s a self-made man. Daddy didn’t put him through Harvard Business School, and if he did, you better keep that to yourself.
Ace Greenberg—the man who Read More
Two Bear Stearns fund managers were arrested for securities and wire fraud this morning, becoming the first executives to face criminal charges in the wake of the subprime mortgage debacle. Wearing a polo shirt, a sport coat, and incongruous manacles, Ralph Cioffi was escorted from his home in Manhattan to federal court in Brooklyn under Read More
The day after Bear Stearns shareholders approved the firm’s sale to JPMorgan Chase, the clubby men’s salon frequented by the fallen masters of the universe was buzzing as usual.
Suited, silver-haired men and their early-middle-aged protégés reclined in chairs while getting preened and massaged by young women inside John Allen’s on 46th Street and Vanderbilt Read More
If you have the chance, get in on the ground floor of the Wall Street Journal‘s three-part series on the collapse of Bear Stearns. The first part debuted this morning under the headline "Lost Opportunities Haunt Final Days of Bear Stearns."
The story has everything–egos clashing, a confrontation in the office gym, ominous phone Read More
JPMorgan Chase’s takeover of one-time investment giant Bear Stearns just got that much messier.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that 383 Madison LLC, the owner of the land on which Bear Stearns built its headquarters at 383 Madison Avenue, is suing Bear Stearns for violating a written agreement that allows the LLC to get Read More
