Attention AIG Executives: THE NATIONAL BACKLASH IS COMING. CASH THOSE BONUS CHECKS AT YOUR OWN PERIL. _____________________________________________________ The below is an actual first paragraph of an article in the NY Times business section this morning. Seriously, its actually real. The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from…
Joshua M Brown
Hot Links: Doug Kass, DinoTrader & Jamie Dimon
Hot Links for Weekend Reading: Earlier this week, in print and on Kudlow & Co, Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners emphasized that he felt the market was printing a significant bottom at these levels. Regular readers of TRB know that Kass is my fave pundit/ commentator and his bottoming call is an important one. It’s…
TGIF: What a Difference a Week Makes!
In the TGIF space last Friday, I posted a clip of R.E.M. doing “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” as the Dow plunged below 6500 (seen here). This week, the Dow has ripped about 11% as of this writing and although nothing in the ecconomy has gotten better, a few days…
Forbes 400 List: Out of Date, But Still Interesting
The just-published 27th annual Forbes 400 list, a ranking of the wealthiest people in the world, does not disappoint. Buffett, Gates, Carlos Slim, the Ikea guy, Page and Brin, Ellison, Bloomberg, the Koch’s…all your faves are here again this year although the order of the top 25 has seen quite a bit of jostling and adjustment. One minor…
Layoffs on Sesame Street
From the San Francisco Chronicle: The crisis on Wall Street is plaguing Sesame Street. Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of “Sesame Street” and other kids’ programs, is cutting 20 percent of its workforce because of the economic downturn. These are dark days indeed. This disastrous economy has reached the point where even MAKE-BELIEVE places are reporting…
Cuomo to Thain: I Know What You Did Last Christmas
Aww Yeah! Forget about that Jon Stewart vs. James Cramer noise…who cares? The real action is taking place in the New York State Attorney General’s Circle of Death between Andrew Cuomo aka Spitzer 2.0 and Merrill Lynch aka the Hamburglar of Wall Street. From DealBook (NYT) The office of Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo filed…
Jamie Dimon is a Dreamboat
I’m a happily married man, but Jamie Dimon’s Chamber of Commerce speech today set my heart aflutter and was EXACTLY what the market and the media needed to hear after the last few weeks. A lot of the mud that’s been hurled at Wall Street lately has been completely warranted but at a certain point, its…
I Can Haz LOLFed?
Today, we’re going to talk about one of my guiltiest pleasures on the financial web, LOLFed. I go through withdrawal when I can’t check in to see what Alyx and Jason have cooked up on LOLFed.com each day, as the economic and stock market news gets more and more ridiculous. For the uninitiated, LOLFed is…
Get-Tarp Hero: Take This TARP and Shove It
More banks giving the money back. Fabulous. I dont care that their reasons are selfish, the point is that there are winners and losers again and someone out there still has some fight left in them. From the New York Times: Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off…
A Guide to Prison Gangs for Bernie Madoff
Dear Bernie, News of the 150 year jail sentence you may be facing has reached The Reformed Broker in his lair this evening and so I decided to take a moment out to offer some advice. Picking a prison gang is an important choice, not unlike choosing a Palm Beach country club or a Hebrew…
