Straight talkin' James Gorman told The Financial Times that pay cuts would continue: “What the Street has historically done is when revenues went up, they kept the comp-to-revenue ratio flat. They rank comp by ratio. When revenues went down, they increased the comp-to-revenue ratio because they said, ‘We might lose all our people. We have to increase it.’” The Morgan Stnaley CEO added: “That’s a classic Wall Street case of ‘Heads I win; tails you lose.’ The current Wall Street management is a little tougher-minded about that and shareholders are certainly tougher-minded.”

Royal Bank of Scotland suspended a trader for trying to rig the Singapore dollar interest rate swap, according to Bloomberg. The trader, Chong Wen Kuang, was named in the lawsuit of Tan Chi Min, who is suing RBS for wrongful dismissal after being fired for trying to manipulate interbank lending rates.

The Department of Justice and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are among authorities investigating Credit Suisse over mortgage-backed securities, according to Reuters.

Mr. Schneiderman is said to have so-called tolling agreements with 12 banks, allowing the prosecutor to continue his investigation into mortgage-securitization practices at the firms beyond the statue of limitations.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his country will be out of cash by the end of November if it doesn't receive the next bailout installment from its European neighbors.

Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos told an audience of academics that “Spain doesn’t need a bailout at all” ... and the academics laughed.

Dave & Buster's pulled its initial public offering yesterday, citing market volatility.

Junk bond issuers looking to pay interest rates with bonds instead of cash set off alarm bells, according to the Journal.

U.S. and European officials may step up sanctions against Iran after the nation's currency, the rial, fell 40 percent against the dollar over the last two weeks.

Put a $65 million bounty out for the man who can win the heart of your lesbian daughter, and all sorts of undesirables come calling. Sacha Baron Cohen, for instance ...

Right on time, The Wall Street Journal has an "analysis" that shows Libor doesn't actually reflect banks' borrowing costs.

Kareem Serageldin, the former head of Credit Suisse's CDO business arrested in London on Wednesday, said he will fight extradition to the U.S. When Mr. Serageldin was charges in February for running a scheme to falsify trading positions, he expressed surprise over the indictment, noting through lawyers that he was cooperating with attorneys. When he was nabbed outside the U.S. embassy in London this week, he said through a lawyer that he was working on a plea deal, and that his capture was the result of "miscommunication."Investors pulled capital from Spain for the 13th straight month.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is wading into the void left when the Securities and Exchange Commission decided not to propose new rules for money market funds.

The White House is circulating a draft executive order on cyber-security after a string of DDoS attacks on the consumer banking websites of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and other financial firms.

Former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan is flying her East Hampton coop.

A forgery suit against Allen & Co. CEO Herb Allen—who was being sued on claims that he had conspired to forge a dying cousin's will—has been dismissed.

True story? A British oil trader got blotto, bought $520 million in oil futures in the middle of the night, had no recollection of any of it. The Financial Services Authority suspended him for five years, commented dryly: “Mr Perkins poses an extreme risk to the market when drunk.”

Would you give money to a hedge fund called POOF? Would you be surprised to learn that said fund's manager just coughed up $6.8 million to settle cherry-picking charges—that he stuck clients with losing trades and moved profit-making trades to his wife's account?

“This is a great day for the art world and all those who seek order and justice in our society": Bond king Jeffrey Gundlach's Mondrian has been recovered.

In February, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara charged Kareem Serageldin, a former global head of the Swiss bank's collateralized debt obligation business, with masterminding a scheme to mismark positions in asset-backed securities, helping Mr. Serageldin and his traders meet targets linked to annual bonuses.

Mr. Sergaldin expressed surprise at the time of the indictment, noting through a lawyer that he'd been cooperating with the law. Nonetheless, prosecutors requested his presence in New York, threatening extradition if he refused. That now seems likely, according to The Journal:

Mr. Serageldin, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, is expected to appear in court in the U.K. on Thursday and the U.S. will likely to seek his return to the U.S. to face charges of criminal conspiracy, filing false books and records, and wire fraud. Sean Casey, a lawyer for Mr. Serageldin, declined comment Wednesday.

This news after former UBS executive and Belgian citizen Peter Ghavami was arrested at Kennedy Airport in 2010 on charges he helped rig bids on municipals bonds—and after Dealbook cited Mr. Ghavami's case to warn Libor manipulators in the employ of foreign banks to consider keeping out of the country—leaves us to wonder: Is there no place safe?

Credit Agricole's 2006 purchase of Emporiki Bank of Greece may cost the French lender another $779 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Credit Agricole has already written off billions on Emporiki, which has been roiled by the Greek economic crisis; the French bank is in the process of selling Emporiki, for an expected price of 1 euro. Credit Suisse cut two investment banking jobs in Dubai and relocated others to Qatar, according to Bloomberg. Those moves come after Deutsche Bank and Nomura eliminated jobs in Dubai.

The American boss of former UBS rogue trader Kweku Adoboli testified on Friday, noting that the bank's London office had an aggressive attitude towards risk.

A panel of European lawmakers asked regulators from the U.S., Europe and Japan how and why Libor-rigging was allowed to go unchecked for so long.

'Free checking' is more expensive than ever, The Journal reports.

Fake gold panic hits the diamond district.

The son of a New York hedge fund manager—and great-grandson of the man who created Junior Mints—is set to be arraigned on charges of negligent vehicular homicide while under the influence of alcohol after he crashed an all-terrain vehicle, killing a passenger, at the Yellowstone Club in Bozeman, Mont.

Real estate banker Jeffrey Baker, a managing director at Savills, is marking artisanal whiskey in the Hudson River Valley.

Picking up the pace: The Treasury and the Fed are speeding efforts to offload assets acquired during the 2008 bailout of the country's banking system. The government is expected to sell or be repaid on $29 billion in securities in the months to come.

Set free: Anil Kuman, the cooperating witness you helped the government secure insider-trading convictions against Raj Rajaratnam and Rajat Gupta, was rewarded yesterday, receiving two years probation and no jail time for his involvement in the insider-trading scheme run by Mr. Rajaratnam.

Stiffer penalties: Japanese lawmakers are seeking to rewrite securities law to provide for criminal prosecution of brokerages and bankers that leak inside information. No underwriters have been charged for giving investors early word on new stock offerings in Japan's ongoing insider trading probe.

Movers: Robert Wolf, the top UBS banker whose close ties to President Barack Obama seeming to some like less an asset and more a liability, leaving the bank to open his own shop, called 32 Advisors. Credit Suisse hired Morgan Stanley banker David Hammond to lead its metal and mining advisory. Don Mullen, one of the architects of Goldman Sachs' big subprime trade, is aiming to raise a $500 million fund to buy foreclosed homes as rental properties.

Splits: Whitney Tilson plans to keep a lower profile after separating from T2 partner Glenn Tongue. "I will dramatically reduce my television appearances, interviews with the media, blogging/writing, and public speaking, both in the investment and philanthropic realms," he said in a letter obtained by Dealbreaker.

Student protection: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recommended Congress rewrite a 2005 law to allow student debtors to seek bankruptcy protection on private loans.

IPO off: Guitar maker Fender is not going public after all, citing market conditions in cancelling its initial public offering.

Bank of America is expected to increase the rate at which it sheds jobs, and Morgan Stanley chief executive James Gorman indicated that the firm will add by subtracting about 4,000 bodies over the course of 2012.

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, may seek an additional $500 million in cost savings in 2012 by hiring on the cheap—expect "a more junior and less senior weighted headcount,” chief financial officer David Viniar told investors this week.

Even Wells Fargo, which said profit rose 17 percent in the second quarter, is preparing for leaner times. Costs "are still too high…given the operating environment," CEO John Stumpf said on his earnings call.

In case you're keeping score, here are the latest to cross the wire:

Citigroup: Plans to cut 350 jobs in its securities division, which includes investment banking and trading, according to Bloomberg.

Credit Suisse: To do away with 138 Manhattan-based positions by October, per a Department of Labor filing.

Deutsche Bank: Thinking about eliminating 1,000 jobs in its investment bank, also according to Bloomberg.

Think of the fees! Somewhere a lawyer is drooling over the possibility that Wall Street firms that don't participate in setting Libor will start suing the firms that do. Asked about such a legal stance during Goldman Sachs' second-quarter earnings call, Chief Financial Office David Viniar demurred. The more banks enter settlements like Barclays $451 million pact with regulators, the higher the likelihood of interbank lawsuits, Bloomberg reports.

Soon to be Libor-ated? Bloomberg has the names of three traders—Michael Zrihen at Credit Agricole, Didier Sander at HSBC and Christian Bittar at Deutsche Bank—said to be under investigation for manipulating interbank lending rates.

So you'll have to share..."I have to apologize that there are so many people in the audience I don't have enough subpoenas for all of you," U.S. attorney Preet Bharara told a room full of investors yesterday at the Delivering Alpha conference. Also: “If you have open and aggressive and fair and proper and proven cases that you bring, and you show that in the kinds of cases that I’ve brought, that’s the kind of thing that over time gives people more confidence in the market.”

Rebound: How Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general who lost a 2010 Senate seat to Scott Brown, declared war on Wall Street's role in the collapse of the housing market.

Not so golden: The foreclosure rate among Americans over 50 is rising faster than in previous years, according to the AARP.

Whither Europe: Spain is paying more to borrow on 5-year bonds than it has at any point since 1996.

CFPB strikes: Capital One will pay $210 million to settle charges that call-center contractors pressured customers into buying products such as identity-theft monitoring. The settlement included a $25 million fine paid to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in what has been touted as the year-old agency's first major enforcement action.

Will travel: Lloyd Blankfein would not waive his magic wand over Dodd-Frank and make it disappear, he said at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. He also joked that he'd like to be courted for a political appointment when his career at Goldman ends. “By any president," he said. "I didn’t mean to limit it to the United States.”

Missed: Morgan Stanley reported second-quarter earnings of 16 cents per share, well short of Wall Street's expectations for 29 cents.

The 4,000-square foot apartment shows all the signs of being the subject of a bidding war. Not only did the co-op spend all of three weeks on the market, but Mr. O'Hara and wife Dara plunked down $7.25 million for it.

And why not? The 4,000 square-foot full-floor apartment, listed with Sotheby's brokers Brenda Straus and Olivia Hoge is the kind of place that's likely to appreciate in value during the years to come. It's got all the bells and whistles that an elegant pre-war pad should: high ceilings, original moldings, wood paneling, parquet floors. Bonus points for a working fireplace, classic layout and an eat-in kitchen.

It will be a nice base of operations for the O'Haras—who appear to be relatively active on the charity circuit—close by plenty of cultural institutions and exclusive fundraisers. They can even start by contributing to seller May Skinner's eponymous philanthropic organization that she once helmed from the apartment with late husband David, the former president and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

kvelsey@observer.com

Goldman isn't the only bank cutting staff, The Times notes politely:

Morgan Stanley reduced its work force by 2,935 during the 12 months that ended March 31. While it is a similar number to Goldman’s, this represents just 4.7 percent of its work force. If markets continue to deteriorate this summer, Morgan Stanley is likely to make additional small cuts.

Other firms have been cutting aggressively. Credit Suisse, for instance, had laid off people and earlier this year filed filed a notice with the New York Department of Labor, saying that it planned to lay off 109 people in the state before May 1.

Goldman Sachs managing directors earn a base salary of $500,000, with annual bonuses climbing into the millions, according to The Times. In absence of which pay, Greg Smith's seven-figure advance may be looking better and better.

Who needs revenue? The world's largest social network may yet challenge the record for the world's largest IPO, as Zuck & Co. increased the price range for Facebook shares, then increased the shares offered by 25 percent, valuing the offering at as much as $16 billion. Those numbers place Facebook in the neighborhood of GM—$15.8 billion, expanded to $18.1 when underwriters exercised an option to sell more shares given high demand—and Visa, which raised $17.9 billion, later raised to $19.7 billion.

It hardly seems to matter that some ads aren't translating into product sales.

Goes around, comes around (JPM): Hedge funds weren't the only ones to jump at the chance to snap up credit default swaps on the cheap from JPMorgan's chief investment office: Turns out JPMorgan's own Strategic Investment Opportunities Fund, which runs $13 billion in client money, accumulated $380 million in credit insurance identical to the type the London Whale was selling. Which one wag suggests means the metaphorical walls meant to keep information segregated between different parts of the bank appear to have been working.

Goes around, comes around (AIG): Remember when the Federal Reserve bailed out AIG to the tune of $182 billion, assuming devalued securities from the insurer in the process? Now AIG is buying some of those assets back, including $600 million in commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS.

Rush for the Grexit: This is sort of scary: Greek savers withdrew at least 700 million euros—$894 million—on Monday, as speculation rises the country may exit the eurozone. Reuters reports that withdrawals continued at the same rate on Tuesday, adding that for the moment, there aren't lines outside the banks. But when you have to mention it as a possibility...

Understocked? E-mails included in judicial filings by Overstock.com appear to show that Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch traders intentionally failed to find and deliver borrowed shares for short-selling clients. Overstock lawyers said that the banks' behavior caused widespread short-selling of Overstock's stock.

Battle of the Sexes: In the wake of Ina Drew's exit from JPMorgan, Time dusts off this old question: Do women make better traders than men?

Swiss miss: Credit Suisse told New York State regulators that it would eliminate 126 bankers in its Manhattan offices.

Pepsi Next? Activist investor Ralph Whitworth's Relational Investors took a $609 million stake in Pepsi last quarter, according to filings.

Preaching to the choir: President Barack Obama told rich private equity guys he believes in free enterprise.