• SAC, Diamondback, Jana and Balyasny Asset Management all beefed up their stakes in at least one of three acquired health care companies around the same time each deal was announced, although it's unclear whether the funds bought in before or after the announcements. [WSJ]
• Although it's awful to have recently lost your job, it's worse to have lost it a long time ago, because employers don't want to hire layabouts who have trouble finding work. This poses problems not only for the long-term unemployed buy also for the harried policymakers who are trying to lower the unemployment rate. Poor policymakers! [NYT]
• The Treasury has sold another $1.8 billion worth of stock in General Motors, and so now taxpayers own a mere one-third of the behemoth automaker. [AP]
• Whoa whoa whoa, say Federal Reserve officials. Quantitative easing isn't this big all-or-nothing thing; we're doing it in chunks and doing our best to make sure we don't print too much money, but rather just the right amount. [Reuters]
• U.S. banks are considering buying some of the European banks that have gotten dinged up in the sovereign debt crisis. [TheStreet]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

• According to one powerful shareholder group, Wall Street firms still tie executive pay too closely with the pursuit of short-term profit and fail to penalize executives for thoroughly gumming up their companies. In fact, this situation has only gotten worse since 2007, which wasn't exactly a banner year for corporate responsibility. [WSJ]
• The Justice Minister of Ireland is accusing the European Central Bank of trying to force his country to take a bailout. He also believes the ECB is now putting the screws to Portugal. [Bloomberg]
• In October, increasingly combatitive and off-kilter former car czar Steven Rattner dramatically refused to pay $20 million to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The Attorney General's office has since responded by seeking $26 million against Rattner in a big pension-kickback investigation. [NYT]
• The trial of Sergey Aleynikov, who stands accused of stealing a high-speed trading program from Goldman Sachs, begins today. [Reuters]
• General Motors still owes Americans $2.1 billion in preferred shares, plus the common-stock stake it's been offloading to private investors. [TheStreet]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

• As he fielded two lawsuits from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and settled his beef with the SEC yesterday, former car czar Steven Rattner also went on the offensive, suing his former buddies at private equity shop Quadrangle Group. [NYT]
• Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is still mad at China for undervaluing its currency, but he still isn't calling the country out by name. [Bloomberg]
• European countries are saying to Ireland, "Please! Take a bailout!" and Ireland is saying, "We don't know how much we need!" and some Eurpoean Union sources are saying "Between 45 billion and 90 billion euros." [Reuters]
• The Obama administration's $800 billion stimulus package is improving the economy, according to economists employed by the Obama administration. [AP]
• On the advice of JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley and after much debate, the government sold more of its stake in General Motors than it had originally planned. [WSJ]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

• General Motors' Wednesday initial public offering notwithstanding, many companies are having trouble coming public in today's business environment. [NYT]
• Other companies' troubles notwithstanding, shares of General Motors are selling like hotcakes, the dickens, and the 2010 Ford F-150 all rolled into one. Vroom vroom! [WSJ]
• Although a settlement is possibly in the works between the big banks and attorneys general from all 50 states, the foreclosure crisis could still hamstring major lenders, because of class-action lawsuits. [AP]
• The trustee in charge of recovering funds for victims of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme is suing two lawyers to reclaim $20.4 million in fake profits. [Bloomberg]
• Soon major banks may be able to start raising their dividends and initiating share buybacks, provided they can convince the Federal Reserve that their capital levels are going to conform to Basel III requirements. [FT]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

• President Obama and his administration puckered up to give corporate America a big wet kiss yesterday, but corporate America turned away at the last second and said, "I'm not that kind of girl. Plus, I heard what you've been saying about me behind my back." [WSJ]
• A settlement is in the works between major banks and state attorneys general over the matter of shoddy foreclosure paperwork. [CNBC]
• General Motors' initial public offering, expected to be priced today, will be one of the largest in American history. It will also look like a major breakthrough for bailed-out corporate America, but looks can be deceiving. [NYT]
• The National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council has found that BP ignored some risks and was not very disciplined when it came to keeping the Gulf of Mexico from becoming an ecological disaster zone. [Bloomberg]
• Republicans, irritated by the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing regime, would prefer that the central bank concern itself only with controlling inflation and let other people handle the whole unemployment thing. [FT]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

• National Economic Council head Larry Summers, whom we'd forgotten about since he announced in September he'd be leaving the White House, said getting along with China would be crucial to America's economic recovery. [WSJ]
• The Congressional Oversight Panel has an idea for what to do about the foreclosure crisis: Stress tests! [CNNMoney]
• The Federal Reserve is pouring $600 billion in monetary stimulus on the economy -- economists, foreign officials and politicians be damned. [NYT]
• In fact, New York Federal Reserve head William Dudley, who's normally press-shy, gave an interview about quantitative easing. [CNBC]
• Investors are so stoked to get a piece of majority government-owned automaker General Motors that the company is raising the price on tomorrow's initial public offering. [Bloomberg]

mtaylor [at] observer. com | @mbrookstaylor

• There was an election yesterday. This definitely impacts the financial markets and the economy, although hardly anyone can say how, exactly. [AP]
• Now that the election's over, traders are looking to see what the Federal Reserve's next monetary move will be. Whatever happens, it will definitely impact the financial markets and the economy, although hardly anyone can say how, exactly. [NYT]
• General Motors may not have to pay any taxes for a long time, which would actually be an improvement when one considers the tens of billions in "negative taxes" the government has lavished on the automaker in recent years. [WSJ]
• Eternal basket case Greece stopped sending mail to other countries because its packages have lately shown an alarming tendency to explode. [Bloomberg]
• The SEC is looking at high-frequency traders with unfettered access to financial markets, and in light of recent events may have to fetter those traders' access. [Reuters]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

• Some people would like Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke more if he were weighing in on fiscal matters like the Bush tax cuts and stimulus spending. Much to their dismay, Bernanke seems to view himself more as a central banker than a bloviating pundit. [NYT]
• Yes, yes, General Motors is preparing for an initial public offering next month, that much is true. But is it also true that the bailed-out automaker is no longer a crappy company? [WSJ]
• How much did the economy grow in the third quarter? At a 2-percent annual rate, say experts. The official estimate from the Department of Commerce comes out this morning. [Bloomberg]
• AIG's AIA Asian life insurance unit took off like a rocket following its initial public offering today. The 17 percent increase in share price is a healthy sign for otherwise bedridden AIG, which continues its effort to repay a massive government bailout. [FT]
• Big software company Microsoft announced a 51 percent increase in third-quarter profit and said that all the Apple fanboys can suck an egg, because that silly little iPad couldn't make a dent in Microsoft's PC business. [Reuters]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

Mort Zuckerman's Boston Properties, which owns the stunning rascacielos, revealed the news in its second quarter earnings report:

On June 1, 2009, General Motors Corporation filed a petition under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. At that time, the Company leased approximately 120,000 square feet of office space to General Motors Corporation at 601 Lexington Avenue (formerly known as Citigroup Center). Rent commencement for the lease at 601 Lexington Avenue began on June 1, 2009 and the lease was to expire on May 31, 2019. However, on June 12, 2009, General Motors Corporation rejected the lease in bankruptcy effective as of June 30, 2009. The contribution from this lease, on a contractual basis, from July 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009, was projected to be approximately $6.6 million.

That's a bummer for Boston Properties, which we're assuming got a pretty nice rent for the space, as the lease was signed during the boom years. If it's any consolation, this means that the GM Building, the skyscraper at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, also controlled by Boston Properties, will remain the New York headquarters of General Motors (the tower's original landlord) for the foreseeable future.

GM's lease for 101,000 square feet there expires on March 31, 2010. And, as The Observer earlier reported, the firm is in negotiations to renew its lease there.

drubinstein@observer.com