Remember when besuited money-Gollum and CEO of Lehman Brothers Dick Fuld denied knowing that his bank was headed for a ditch in 2008? Well, internal emails and documents released by the law firm who performed the "post-mortem" on Lehman reveal that the bank's executives were repeatedly warned about the risks the company was taken, and willfully ignored them. more ›

In the freezing rain a few yards away from Bank of America's New York headquarters on 42nd Street, the man who made America see Goldman Sachs as a "vampire squid" was describing his research on a forthcoming article. "I called up my source and told him that I wanted to highlight all the really bad things Bank of America has done, and he said, 'What, do you have 1,000 pages?'" Matt Taibbi was speaking to a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters about BoA's central role causing the still-reverberating mortgage crisis, and explained the bank's crimes thusly: "Mortgage backed securities are like banks selling oregano as weed. And that's exactly what Bank of America was doing." more ›

A letter bomb addressed to Deutsche bank CEO Dr. Josef Ackermann was found in the mailroom of the bank's Frankfurt headquarters this morning. The bomb did not detonate, and no one has claimed responsibility yet. (ABC reports that Ackerman "is one of Europe's most powerful bankers and is a key advisor in the European Union debt crisis to Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel.") We hope you didn't have any big heist plans cooking this week, because now the NYPD is warning local banks to step up security. more ›

Remember when we taxpayers just had to bail out all those financial institutions because they were in terrible financial shape and "too big to fail?" If we fronted them a little money now, we were told, these normally successful banks would keep on humming. But through FOIA requests, Bloomberg News reveals that the bailout was much larger than initially believed—$7.7 trillion by September of 2009, and banks made an estimated $13 billion of the generous terms of the loans. more ›

It's official: the bipartisan Congressional supercommittee charged with coming up with a compromise of budget-cutting (entitlement-slashing) and new revenue (taxes) has failed. Because the twelve lawmakers couldn't even come up with a way to call a press conference, the two chairs released a statement saying they were "unable to bridge the committee's significant differences." But enough of the doom and gloom: check out these AMAZING Black Friday deals! more ›

You may remember the "Fabulous" Fabrice Tourre, the mid-level Goldman Sachs trader who the SEC cherry-picked last year to make an example of. Goldman scrounged around in their manatee-leather couches and found $500 million to settle charges of fraud and gee they were really sorry. An article in today's Times seems to confirm what most people knew all along: Tourre was a scapegoat and his superiors should have been targeted for investigation, but weren't. more ›

Vampire squid Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein testified today in the Galleon insider trading trial of Raj Rajaratnam. Rajaratnam, a hedge fund founder who is out on $100 million bail, is accused of a huge insider trading ring. The trial is pretty complicated, what with hours of secretly recorded conversation and financial details, and the jury is made up of mostly blue collar New Yorkers—and one alternate juror dubbed the "Hipster Juror" who has already fallen asleep—who don't know who the hell Lloyd Blankfein is. more ›

William Cohan wrote "House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street", detailing the collapse of Bear Stearns. He's speaking tomorrow at 92YTribeca from 12-1pm, at 200 Hudson Street- tickets are $16. We asked him some questions about Bear Stearns and the financial crisis. more ›

According to Bloomberg News, former Citigroup CEO Charles "Chuck" Prince's prepared testimony in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reveals that "he wasn’t aware of the mortgage-related securities that caused the bank’s biggest losses until the financial crisis struck." But that didn't matter, since “Everyone, including our risk managers, other banks and CDO structurers, all believed that these [mortgage-related] securities held virtually no risk. It is hard for me to fault the traders who made the decisions to retain these positions on Citi’s books." Now, Prince admits, their belief in the collateralized debt obligations "looks pretty unwise." more ›

In light of "severe cash-flow difficulties" Paterson is ordering state constructions workers to lower their excavators and shut off their jackhammers. Effective April 1, he's cutting money to hundreds of current and not-yet-begun constructions projects, until a budget comes out or emergency financing can be arranged. Actually, that's the same day the budget is due, but so far Paterson has not given an estimate of when it will actually be completed. (According to CBS a final budget has been delivered before the deadline only six times since 1975.) The AP reports that state-funded projects addressing "emergency health and safety needs" are exempt from the order, as are those paid for by federal economic stimulus funds. Still, there will be layoffs, warned a senior advisor to Paterson. more ›

According to officials and experts, the city's financial crisis is almost over and the job market is on the rise, but who do we thank for the less-devastating-than-expected downturn? Address cards and flowers to the federal government, which provided huge bailouts to Wall Street institutions like Citigroup, JPMogran Chase and Goldman Sachs, economists say. “If you pick almost any economic statistic—income, house prices, construction activity—it would tell the same story: New York has gotten hit, but it hasn’t gotten creamed," Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, tells the Times. more ›

It's beginning to look like the glitzy, upscale Plaza Hotel may go the way of Tavern on the Green. After a century in the business, the landmark hotel and playground to Eloise is losing its cache, and its profits too. Where the Plaza's gilded halls are concerned, do New Yorkers want in with the new, out with the gold? more ›

Sources say the Times is poised to reinstate its online paywall as a metered system where readers begin paying once they exceed a certain quota of articles viewed. According to NY Magazine, “One personal friend of [NY Times Chairman Arthur] Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days.” The move to make readers pay for content has been long in the making, but was made more pressing by the drop in online advertisement caused by last year’s financial crisis. The meter system—in which big readers pay while casual readers may browse for free—beat out two other options: a model like the old TimesSelect where some parts of the site are free and some are paid and an NPR totebag-for-donation model. more ›

History as it happens: NY Times looks at how different colleges and graduate schools are adding new classes or updating courses to include the recent global economic crisis that has left the world hurting. An American Studies course from Columbia University professor Steven Fraser previously only covered Wall Street culture though the 1990s, but now includes last year's meltdown. He says, "The class is struck by the similarities between today and the darker periods of Wall Street’s past, for example in the Gilded Age — the meltdown, the bonuses, the reckless speculation, the impact of Wall Street’s behavior on the rest of society. We compare the confidence man of 1840 to the confidence man of today," adding, "One kid is doing a paper comparing Jay Gould, who was known as the Mephistopheles of his day, to Richard Fuld." more ›

The NY Times has an interesting article wondering about Henry Paulson's many calls to his former company, Goldman Sachs, while he was Treasury Secretary and overseeing bailouts. Sure, Paulson had sold his shares and obtained ethics waivers, but the Times reports, "During the week of the A.I.G. bailout alone, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Blankfein spoke two dozen times, the calendars show, far more frequently than Mr. Paulson did with other Wall Street executives. On Sept. 17, the day Mr. Paulson secured his waivers, he and Mr. Blankfein spoke five times. Two of the calls occurred before Mr. Paulson’s [ethics] waivers were granted." Lawyer and former executive director of the NY State Commission on Government integrity Peter Bienstock said, "If it can happen on a phone call and can happen without public scrutiny, it destroys the standard because then anything can happen in that fashion and any waiver can happen." Paulson's apparently busy writing a memoir, so he didn't comment. more ›

Remember when the financial crisis waterboarded the American economy to within an inch of its life, and then taxpayers threw all their money at Wall Street to stop the drowning? That's all behind us now, and those of you reading this in the basement of your parents' tent under the bridge can take comfort in knowing that everything's coming up Goldman. Though CEO Lloyd Blankfein recently urged employees not too buy anything flashy in the wake of record profits, everything else at Goldman is back to normal and no lessons have been learned, just like the end of a Seinfeld episode."Our risk appetite continues to grow year on year, quarter on quarter, as our balance sheet and liquidity continue to grow," crows Goldman president Gary Cohn to the Times. What could go wrong? more ›

The latest happy tidings from that fountain of good news named Albany warn that ballooning pension costs may drain local government coffers in the next six years. As reported in today's NY Times, an analysis from the state comptroller's office forecasts that state pension costs will triple to $8 billion by 2015, and the only solution is—you guessed it—there isn't one! Upset by that prospect, NY State Association of Counties Director Stephen J. Acquario tells the Times: "It’s alarming, eye-popping and unthinkable...Where is this money going to come from?" In keeping with local custom, no one in Albany can agree on an answer. Governor Paterson wants to limit pensions for new workers, while Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli thinks instead that counties should borrow money from the state to cover the costs. Others believe a tax increase will have to be in the offing, but of course, the legislature is a bit indisposed at the moment. A strong economic recovery could help matters, but what's the bottom line here? Cut benefits or bottom out, says Zvi Bodie at the Boston University School of Management: "Going forward, we’re going to have to promise less." more ›

In yet another look at how the financial downturn is changing job prospects, the NY Times reports that suddenly MBA candidates are thinking outside of the Wall Street finance firm box when it comes to post-grad careers. One Wharton student was considering rabbinical school while an NYU Stern student started a show company, "For me, the Wall Street crisis was a blessing in disguise." Harvard Business school said its job postings were down 30%, with a 40% drop from financial firms, plus " 78% of Harvard’s second-year M.B.A. students had job offers, down from 90 percent at this time last year." Another Wharton student is now looking at a job at the State Department, "A lot of my peers, we’re exploring things that we used to not even think of as an option. A finance major who was minoring in music was suddenly looking into opening a jazz club. All of a sudden, I saw that a lot of Wharton people were interesting." more ›

Let's hope Governor Paterson isn't as whimsical with our state budget as he is with his own. Less than twenty-four hours after being presented with the idea to take a pay cut while at a town hall meeting in Niagara Falls, the governor announced that he will in fact give up ten percent of his salary. While in Buffalo today, he said, “I will symbolically make the gesture for the state. I will take that sacrifice.” But while the governor might be desperate to get in the good graces of state voters, don't expect to him to do it at the expense of his staff members, who recently drew attention to him for the raises he gave them amidst the budget crisis. As for them, Paterson said, “I don’t want anyone else to do anything but do their jobs and make sure that we get rid of this budget deficit." more ›

With the grim state of the city budget a hot topic these days, questions are being raised about how long we can continue to sustain the heavy financial burden that comes from the city's pension system for municipal retirees. Last year the city paid out a total of 9% of its budget ($5.6 billion total) for its pensions and analysts project that percentage is only expected to rise. Former NYPD officer and current State Senator Martin Golden told the Post, "Everything's got to be explored...The bottom line is everything's on the table." more ›

Yesterday was the release of the annual report of cost-cutting suggestions filed by the Independent Budget Office, the nonpartisan, publicly agency, whose report shows both the pros and cons of certain suggested measures. While many of the ideas are bureaucratic pipe dreams, this could be the year that the city takes the IBO up on some of its offerings with the city in a budget crunch resembling nothing from recent years. more ›

This week's New York Magazine has a sprawling piece on the state of small businesses in the five boroughs, and how they're surviving during the financial crisis. While things look pretty glum (even beer sales are down!), the sex toy kingpins at Babeland have seen a rise in sales. Not only that, but their luxury products are flying off the shelves. Are singles and couples alike saving money by staying in and spicing things up? Babeland tells us: "December was our best month in a 15 year history. It’s holding strong, too, as we go into Valentine’s day. What’s interesting, I think, is what isn’t selling. Novelty items have had a drop. These are things like the Ducky vibrator, penis cupcake molds, products that function more as gag gifts than real sex aids. Customers are making purchases that are more of an investment—luxury vibes are made of high quality materials, rechargeable, and customizable, high functioning toys that tend have multiple ways they can be used." more ›

The Times' Metropolitan Diary offers two financial crisis-related anecdotes today. First, there's one about a stockbroker on a subway car ("He seemed sort of agitated and couldn’t seem to stand in one place") who arouses NYC-style sympathy from a fellow passenger. And then there's this short and sweet missive from Carol Weston: "Dear Diary: Overheard on Broadway and 90th, in a conversation between two boys: 'I’m really worried about my bar mitzvah money because it was all put in stock.'" Related: A month ago, a Metropolitan Diary reader sent in their experience with the "You Broke My Glasses Scam." more ›

With Citgroup in serious trouble of being taken over as stock prices continue to plummet, will Citi Field, the Mets' new stadium set to open next year, still have its name by Opening Day? Citigroup's deal with the Mets calls for the financial company to pay the team $20 million annually for the name. The Hoston Astros were still playing in Enron Field when the company went bankrupt and was mired in an enormous scandal. But with other financial giants lining up as potential Citigroup suitors, could Queens become home to Goldman Sachs Stadium? It seemed that New Yorkers' ability to pretend it was called "City Field" softened the blow of the town's first major corporate handle for a hometown team's digs. Maybe now we'll just have to pride in not being San Diego, a city saddled with the Jenny Craig Pavilion. more ›

If losing your job in finance is driving you to drink, what more practical way to go about it than getting a job as a bartender? Enrollment is up at bartending schools in the area--as much as 53% for the month of October at New York Bartending School. The Daily News says that dozens of those enrolling are from now-defunct financial institutions. And one of the teachers from the NYBS sounds like he's encouraging even more to give it a try by noting how organized the ex-traders are. "If you watch how someone sets up before making a drink, you can see how their mind works," he told the paper. But not everyone's sold that education is the best way to become a barkeep. A VP from the NY Restaurant Association told the Boston Globe, "Establishments may be more likely to hire an experienced bartender who is out of work because a restaurant closed than someone fresh out of training." more ›

Today's Times looks at how rapidly Mayor Bloomberg has moved from the controversial and dragged out term limits issue headfirst into proposing potentially unpopular solutions that would deal with the city's dire financial picture. The mayor's moves to take away the property tax rebate, cut city jobs, close low-income dental clinics and suggest new taxes not only make for strange actions from someone in an election year, but also are creating a strained relationship with City Council members who are up for re-election as well. Councilman Vincent Gentile told the paper, “People are just holding on by their fingertips. (They have) a tin ear when it comes to the concerns of everyday New Yorkers.” But Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler defended the moves, “It’s hard to argue that a mayor who is proposing fewer police officers and the elimination of a property tax rebate is making decisions based on politics, rather than the best interest of the city.” more ›

Feeling blue because the recent downturn in the economy has left you with a pink slip from your latest employer? What could be a better way to lift your spirits than heading to New Jersey and cheering on a struggling NBA franchise? The New Jersey Nets are offering to help you do just that with a new program that will give away 300 free tickets for each of five upcoming games to fans who email the team their resume and contact information. The team will then pass along resumes to sponsors and possibly even do some hiring of their own from the pool of job-seeking fans. Nets CEO Brett Yormark says that "it is a chance to relieve stress (and)...a means of escape that people need now more than ever." more ›

JP Morgan Chase announced yesterday that it will take a break from leaving Americans in the cold and hold off on foreclosures for the next ninety days. A JP Morgan executive told the press, "We felt it is our responsibility to provide additional help to homeowners during these challenging times. We will work with families who want to save their homes but are struggling to make their payments." In the interim, the company will attempt to find ways to make payments easier on the $110 billion of problem mortgages. Meanwhile in Washington yesterday, Barney Frank complained that banks thus far are using their portion of the $700 million government bailout for "bonuses, dividends and acquisitions." more ›