Actual news in the newspaper for once

No Sunday Screening tonight because I'm in a serious mood. Instead, go read this front-page NYT article about AIG, its questionable ties to Goldman Sachs, and its enormous, mind-blowing irresponsibility. WALL STREET FUCK YEAH!

Shorter Wall Street:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

...I especially love this tastefully understated bit from the abovelinked NYT article. Emphasis mine:

Over the weekend, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York called together the leaders of most major financial firms in an effort to get them to act collectively to stem any possible panic, but could not force a deal.

In a way, that was similar to what happened a little more than a century ago, when the financier J.P. Morgan called the heads of all the trust companies in New York to a meeting in his library, and demanded that they agree to put up money to stop the bank run at another trust company.

The bankers did not want to do so, in part because they would need that money if the panic spread. Morgan locked the door, and kept the presidents in the library until morning, when they finally gave in. No such coercion exists this year.

No kidding.

...Also: all the suit-wearing Harvard douches who'd planned long and fruitful careers at Lehman Bros can kiss my soon-to-be-delivering-pizza-for-minimum-wage ass. That's right.

Sympathy from the bottom of my heart

A message, from me, to those Harvard sellouts students who'd landed I-banking internships and jobs at the prestigious Bear Stearns, just to see their ambitions cruelly dashed. Ahem:

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! HA HA HA HA HA! AHH, HA HA HA. HA."

UPDATE: From the Crimson article:

[J.P. Morgan spokesman Brian] Marchiony tried to assure prospective applicants that future recruitment would not be affected by the recent downturn in the market... Marchiony added that the troubles with Bear and the takeover by J.P. Morgan was a “unique situation."

"Unique situation." And if you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you. This whole system is on the verge of collapse and there's only so much the Fed can do...

Bush & Paulson's Awful New Financial "Regulation" Scheme

STILL IN CANADA STOP -- CAN ONLY COMMUNICATE BY TELEGRAM STOP -- LOOK AT THIS BULLSHIT STOP --

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation's financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.

The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve... the Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability.

SOUNDS GOOD RIGHT STOP -- EXCEPT THE ACTUAL PLAN DOES NO SUCH THING STOP --

While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation.

The plan would not rein in practices that have been linked to the housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages into securities carrying the highest ratings.

The plan would give the Fed some authority over Wall Street firms, but only when an investment bank’s practices threatened the entire financial system.

And the plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and largely unregulated markets for risk sharing and hedging, like credit default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but became a speculative instrument themselves and gave many institutions a false sense of security.

Parts of the plan could reduce the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock and bond markets and protecting investors... The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.

IF THIS IS "BROAD AUTHORITY" THEN I'M THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND STOP -- IT'S JUST A TROJAN HORSE FOR RIGHT-WING DEREGULATIONISM STOP -- ANYONE WHO THINKS THIS WILL END THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS NEEDS THEIR HEAD EXAMINED STOP -- THIS IS WHY WE NEED DEMOCRATS IN POWER STOP

ENJOY THE REST OF SPRING BREAK AND SEE YOU ALL NEXT WEEK STOP