Britain's best-paid bank boss set for showdown with MPs over huge bonus

Crow attacks 'partying' bankers
What do Investment Banks do? Q&A: What is a Stress Test? Business Secretary Vince Cable is "standing idly by" as Bankers are set to be paid billions in bonuses, a union leader has said. The RMT's Bob Crow said Bankers were still "partying like it's 1999" despite government calls to curb bonuses. BBC business editor Robert Peston says the coalition is now resigned to billions being paid out, albeit at lower predicted levels than in 2010. Last month Mr Cable sa...

Facebook Goldman Sachs deal embarrasses Wall Street
Goldman Sachs’ rivals must be kicking themselves. The firm’s near $2 billion investment hook-up with Facebook is relatively small beans financially, but it’s a big win in franchise terms. After the lumps Goldman took last year, the deal shows the firm can still lead the way wrapping its tentacles around a key client for mutual benefit. Goldman could still lose money on the deal for its shareholders, partners and clients. And questions remain as to whether its plan to invest $45...

Banks must 'pay smaller bonuses'
What do Investment Banks do? Q&A: What is a Stress Test? Prime Minister David Cameron has called on banks to pay smaller bonuses this year. He defended his government's action on banks, saying that, on the issue of banks and bonuses, his was one the first governments in the world to introduce a banking levy. But he also said that "micro-managing" the banks was not the answer. Mr Cameron warned against "Banker-bashing", saying that it was too easy to make banks the ...

Newspaper review
The gun attack in Arizona which left six people dead and a US congresswoman critically injured makes several of Sunday's front pages. The Mail on Sunday speculates that the attack on Gabrielle Giffords might be "linked to her support for Abortion". The Sunday Telegraph says she is "a gun-owner and supporter of the right to Bear Arms". But despite this, the broadsheet says she had been named as a "political campaign target for Conservatives" by former Alaska gov...

JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley Approved For Joint Securities Ventures With China
Hong Kong — Two U.S. Investment Banks say they've been given the green light in China to operate domestic securities businesses with local partners. JP Morgan Chase & Co. said Friday that the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved its Joint Venture with First Capital Securities Co. while Morgan Stanley said its partnership with Huaxin Securities Co. has also been approved. The joint ventures will be able to help local clients raise money by selling stocks and bonds on local Chinese ...

Ex-Anglo Irish Bank chair regrets role in bank collapse
DUBLIN | Sun Jan 9, 2011 6:46am EST DUBLIN (Reuters) - The former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank AGIB.UL apologised for his role in the collapse of Ireland's third biggest bank, which forced the government to nationalise it two years ago. Sean FitzPatrick, who was CEO before becoming chairman, said in December 2008 he had kept shareholders in the dark for years about loans worth 80 million Euros he had received from Anglo Irish Bank. Police arrested him last year as part of a Fraud investigatio...

The Bill Daley Problem
Bill Daley, President Obama’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, is an experienced business executive.  By all accounts, he is decisive, well-organized, and a skilled negotiator.  His appointment, combined with other elements of the White House reshuffle, provides insight into how the president understands our economy - and what is likely to happen over the next couple of years.  This is a serious problem. Until this week, Bill Daley was on the top operating committee at ...

Simon Johnson: The Bill Daley Problem
Simon Johnson is the co-author of 13 Bankers, out in paperback on Monday. Bill Daley, President Obama's newly appointed Chief of Staff, is an experienced business executive. By all accounts, he is decisive, well-organized, and a skilled negotiator. His appointment, combined with other elements of the White House reshuffle, provides insight into how the president understands our economy -- and what is likely to happen over the next couple of years. This is a serious problem. This is not a criti...

Former Investment Bankers Mail-Order Bride Business Is Booming
Are you looking for love? A wife? A maid you can have sex with? Joseph Weiner is here to help! It’s been fourteen years since the 73 year-old former investment Banker and Wharton grad started Hand-in-Hand, a “matchmaking agency” which asks male customers to fork over $2,000 and in exchange offers a “supervised courtship” with a young Eastern European lady of their choice. Has the Financial Crisis hurt H-in-H’s bottom line? On the contrary- according to Joe (...

Former Investment Bankers Human-Trafficking Business Is Booming
Former investment Banker and native New Yorker Joseph Weiner's company, Hand-In-Hand, which matches western men incapable of finding somebody to like them with young Eastern European women in economic situations so dire they're willing to marry a stranger and gamble with their lives in order to escape them, is ordinarily pretty successful. "Every guy wants a beautiful younger woman," the aptly named Wharton grad tells Bloomberg Businessweek. "It's the nature of us." But since The Economy tanke...

Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream
Chris Whalen is a pal of mine, and the author of Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream. The book is developing a cult following amongst the Gold and anti-Fed cognescenti, the “inflationati,” and others. Whalen’s background as a former NY Fed analyst and Bear Stearns Banker puts him in a good position to look at the history of Inflation and the inherent growth at any cost bias bult into the American system. The first chapter of the book is after the jump, and a...

Probe may push Facebook to early stock offering
Stumble This! A US Probe into Goldman Sachs's massive investment in Facebook could drive the hugely popular social-networking website to go public earlier than it hoped for, analysts said. The investment, reported at 450 million dollars, has exposed the thin line between private and public markets and underscored companies' reluctance to launch an initial public offering (IPO) of shares that results in Oversight by Regulators. "Companies are doing everything they can do to avoid going public. F...

Hughes call on university intake
Does Rioting change anything? Universities should drastically limit their intake of privately educated pupils, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes has said. Mr Hughes, the government's adviser on access to Higher Education, spoke in the light of the move to raise Tuition fees in England to up to £9,000 a year. He told the Guardian that universities needed to be far more active in seeking out the brightest state school pupils. Universities had "failed miserably" on t...

Newspaper review
The 18-month Prison sentence given to the ex-Labour MP David Chaytor for falsely claiming thousands in parliamentary allowances is widely scrutinised in Saturday's papers. The Daily Telegraph refers to him as a "broken man". In the Independent, former Tory cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken said Chaytor will find the start of his sentence "a cultural and personal shock". Chaytor "was not a lone sinner in a house of saints", says the Daily Mail. The Financial Tim...

2 US banks get approval for China securities JVs
Two U.S. Investment Banks say they've been given the green light in China to operate domestic securities businesses with local partners. JP Morgan Chase & Co. said Friday that the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved its Joint Venture with First Capital Securities Co. while Morgan Stanley said its partnership with Huaxin Securities Co. has also been approved. The joint ventures will be able to help local clients raise money by selling stocks and bonds on local Chinese markets. For...

Britain parries threat to Queen's head on stamps
The British Government said Sunday it had closed a Loophole that could have seen Queen Elizabeth II's head chopped off stamps if the Royal Mail national Postal Service was sold to a foreign firm. Ministers have squared the plans with Buckingham Palace and the sovereign's head will be kept on stamps in the future, Postal Services Minister Ed Davey said. "After listening to views of members of both houses of parliament and the palace, we have agreed this additional safeguard," he told The Mail on ...

Britain parries threat to Queen's head on stamps
The British Government said Sunday it had closed a Loophole that could have seen Queen Elizabeth II's head chopped off stamps if the Royal Mail national Postal Service was sold to a foreign firm. Ministers have squared the plans with Buckingham Palace and the sovereign's head will be kept on stamps in the future, Postal Services Minister Ed Davey said. "After listening to views of members of both houses of parliament and the palace, we have agreed this additional safeguard," he told The Mail o...

China OKs JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley joint ventures
By Michael Flaherty and Denny Thomas Hong Kong | Fri Jan 7, 2011 2:14am EST Hong Kong (Reuters) - Chinese securities Regulators on Friday approved the Joint Ventures of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N), bringing the banks a step closer toward operating securities businesses in China that they, and other banks, have long sought. The widely-expected decision will enable the two Wall Street banks to underwrite stocks and bonds in one of the fastest growing securities ...

China OKs JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley joint ventures
Hong Kong (Reuters) - Chinese securities Regulators on Friday approved the Joint Ventures of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N), bringing the banks a step closer toward operating securities businesses in China that they, and other banks, have long sought. The widely-expected decision will enable the two Wall Street banks to underwrite stocks and bonds in one of the fastest growing securities markets in the world. But the two banks will have to wait another five years b...

"The Bill Daley Problem"
Simon Johnson discusses how Obama's choice of Bill Daley to be his Chief of Staff might impact his views on "a huge Time Bomb," the continued existence of too big to fail banks: The Bill Daley Problem, by Simon Johnson: Bill Daley, President Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, is an experienced business executive. By all accounts, he is decisive, well-organized, and a skilled negotiator. His appointment, combined with other elements of the White H...

So, what did all those union dues really buy? Obama chooses Wall St. over Main St.
Wasn’t the Obama Presidency supposed to be all about putting Main St. ahead of Wall St? Wasn’t “Hope” and “Change You Can Believe In” all about stopping those Wall St. “fat cats?” Didn’t union bosses convince their members that this time it would be different? Well, they got what they paid for…for a while (December 13, 2009): President Obama has ratcheted up his Rhetoric against Wall Street just as some of the nation’s top banke...

China Just Swung The Door Wide Open For Two American Banks (JPM, MS, GS, UBS)
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. China just allowed two American banks access to its domestic market, in an opening not seen for 6 years, according to the FT. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were both granted approval to open joint ventures on the Chinese mainland. These JV partnerships will see both banks invest in different companies in Shanghai that sell and market securities. Several major international banks already have JV partnerships in China, like Goldman Sachs and UBS. ...

Also kind of a problem.
Anyone else think $172K/year is "relatively modest"? I don't, and neither does Walter Shapiro. Obama's sympathetic comments about Gibbs' financial sacrifice illustrate that Populism remains an abstraction for the president, despite the persistence of the worst economic downturn since the Depression. In the world of Obama (or Clinton or either Bush), it is par for the course that William Daley, the new White House Chief of Staff, served as Midwest chairman for JP Morgan Chase between his stints...

Ex-Anglo Irish Bank chair regrets role in bank collapse
Sean FitzPatrick, who was CEO before becoming chairman, said in December 2008 he had kept shareholders in the dark for years about loans worth 80 million Euros he had received from Anglo Irish Bank. Police arrested him last year as part of a Fraud investigation but he was released 24 hours later without charge. "I am very happy to put my hands up. I am very happy to apologize to all my creditors. I don't feel ashamed, but I do feel regret, very serious regret, and I am sorry that it is going to...

Guess How Much Larry Summers Will Get Paid To Go To Bermuda And Pal Around With Hedge Fund Managers
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Larry Summers isn't wasting any time. Not even a year after announcing his Resignation from the position of Obama's Chief Economic advisor (partly because of his close ties with Wall Street), the former Harvard president will be the Keynote Speaker at May's 17th annual Alpha Hedge Bermuda Global Hedge Fund Summit. It should be more than a fun Vacation. Summers gets paid well to speak to Wall Streeters. For instance, in April 2008, Summers spok...