No special reason for the Clinton photos. Inisde I placed my favorite "I feel your pain" picture of Bill. I have included the famous black & white of a teenage Clinton, meeting and shaking hands with JFK. Those photos and 27 links are after the jump.
So you thought Wall Street's days of surreal compensation structures had become forgotten because of the bailouts and near collapse of all the majors last Fall. Think again. Today we had news that Morgan Stanley has set aside 72% of total revenues from the 2nd quarter for employee compensation. And this in a Q where Morgan Stanley reported a net loss to shareholders of $1.3 billion, and a $159 million loss from continuing operations.
This 72% figure compares to a decade-long street average of 48% of revenues being set aside for pay, bonuses and benefits. Bloomberg has a nice compensation breakdown comparing Morgan Stanley to Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
First-Half Revenue, Compensation and Head Count from Bloomberg:
Revenue Comp Employees Comp/Employee
Morgan Stanley $8.36 bln $5.91 bln 62,215 $95,009
Goldman Sachs $23.2 bln $11.4 bln 29,400 $386,429
JPMorgan $15,7 bln $6.01 bln 25,783 $232,983
Dylan Ratigan's new MSNBC show Morning Meeting is proving to be the spot for discussion of our favorite issues. Political capture, too big to fail, financial regulation, the Wall street bailout, failed banks, failed risk management, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, AIG, compensation and bonus structure, it's all in here. Another outstanding discussion. This clip includes the Black Swan and Stephen A Smith.
Many have rightfully complained (see SD's detailed transcript of the exchange in comments) about the tone that CNBC anchors Becky Quick, Carl Quintanilla and reporter Steve Liesman adopted in their interview of TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky yesterday morning, prior to his testimony before the House Government Oversight Committee yesterday.
We present a Bloomberg discussion with Barofsky also aired yesterday as evidence that not all financial news is as warped as CNBC. Barofsky is proving to be an outstanding steward of the taxpayer's interest and this discussion should not be missed. Try to make time to watch the whole thing.
Short, somewhat funny (slightly strange) video that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger posted on his twitter page yesterday afternoon. The massive knife represents Arnold's predisposition to cutting, we suppose.
More from today's Congressional hearings. Here Bernanke is being questioned by Bill Posey of Texas and when discussing the excess reserves in the system and the potential for inflation, B-52 says we have ways of "sucking it back in." Comes sometime near the 45-second mark.
Former prosecutor and current Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky was a guest of CNBC's Squawk Box this morning ahead of his later Congressional testimony, which we will post as soon as it becomes available. This is an outstanding interview. Covered: bailout arbitrage, Treasury transparency, TALF, TARP, bailout totals, fungible assets, Fannie, Freddie, $23.7 Fracking Trillion in total commitments. Try to make time to see this one.
"Doctor, Nice To See You Doctor...Now About That Fed Audit"
This clip is B-52 versus Ron Paul from CNBC today. We also have the 5-minute youtube versions of this video inside. Outstanding discussion of several issues including an actual adult conversation about the ramifications of a Federal Reserve Audit.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke makes his semiannual testimony to Congress on the economy and monetary policy.
Later this morning, SIG TARP (Special Inpsector General) and frequent Geithner critic, Neil Barofsky will testify before the Congressional Oversight Panel headed by Elizabeth Warren. Select details of the report were leaked Monday. In addition to criticizing Treasury's lack of transparency and unacceptable accounting, Barofsky reaches a mind-numbing, numerical conclusion: total gross committments could potentially reach $23.7 trillion. And yet the bailout spigot continues flowing, and still no one has been charged with a single felony.
Charlie's a pretty vocal Goldman critic, so there was some surprise that they chose him to be their mouthpiece to the detractors. Some decent information in this clip.
As I've written many times, he is wrong about the failure of Lehman. Conventional wisdom has a way of ridding the mind of thought.
Really, there are no words for an interview this good (TechTicker Clip 6:10). Best one of Dr. Ron Paul I've ever seen.
For the record we and our commenters are none of the following: vicious, homophobic or nihilistically negative. Short, funny Dennis Kneale brain spasm (1:38 CNBC Clip). A very broad brush, a very broad brush indeed.
Jul 23, 2009 at 4:13 AM