Friday Links
Bloomberg Asks for Patience on M.T.A. Plan [NY Times] Reyna Breaks With a Formidable Patron [NY Times] It’s Plaza Sweet on Schermerhorn Street [NY Post] Artists Transform Fort Greene Laundromat [NY Daily News] Arby’s Opening Soon in Fulton Mall [NY Daily News] Sustainable Living Structure for Flatbush Building? [Brooklyn Paper] Guerilla Marketing Campaign for 23rd…
Bloomberg Asks for Patience on M.T.A. Plan [NY Times]
Reyna Breaks With a Formidable Patron [NY Times]
It’s Plaza Sweet on Schermerhorn Street [NY Post]
Artists Transform Fort Greene Laundromat [NY Daily News]
Arby’s Opening Soon in Fulton Mall [NY Daily News]
Sustainable Living Structure for Flatbush Building? [Brooklyn Paper]
Guerilla Marketing Campaign for 23rd Street Project [Brooklyn Eagle]
“Pokey” Award for Slowest Bus Presented [Gothamist]
Photo by
>>Tell us who they actually are.
lets start with bill gates, warren buffet, stevie cohen, steve balmer, the list goes on
>>Pay ’em or lose ’em
I say you let all these incompetent banks fail. This is American, not the Soviet Union. There should not be bailing out of the incompetent and rewarding of the reckless. If you screw up, you bear the consequences. There should not be socializing of losses while profits are privatized.
Top 5% of income earners are not all wall street bankers.
Posted by: stevieb at November 6, 2009 9:53 AM
Tell us who they actually are.
Steveib – thank you for finally enagaging us on this actual fact instead of ignoring it.
So when you talk about wall st. stealing from taxpayers your’re worried about wall street stealing from the remaining in thr 5% – the entertainment types, lawyers and doctors right?
but income created via the MOACT supports the replenishment of the capital base of the bank, which is necessary to get the zombies lending again
>>SteveieB – top 5% of income earners in the US pay 60% of federal income taxes. Fact, an IRS fact.
Top 5% of income earners are not all wall street bankers.
Lending and lending profits come from a different part of a “bank” then do “trading profits.” The two are not connected and have no bearing on each other.
The repeal of Glass Steagall allowed for this combination for which interestingly, John Reed today apologized for merging Citi with Travelers group!!!!!!!!
SteveieB – top 5% of income earners in the US pay 60% of federal income taxes. Fact, an IRS fact.
As opposed to waffle and bluster.
im with brokedeveloper on this one.
[begin rant]
Let’s see if I get this right. Virtually all banks reported strong trading profits. Trading profits should be a zero sum game, at least in a flat interest rate environment like today, right? One side wins at someone else’s expense. But all the banks seem to be making profits on “trading†and (for the most part) continue making losses on their lending/IB business. So banks are “solving†their capital base problem via collectively trading profitably in what should be a zero sum game.
What is going on? Banks are not making fresh loans, but they are borrowing money cheaply (free?) from the Fed and allocating it to traders. Is this that simple that the vaunted traders are making money hand over fist by investing dollars borrowed from the Fed in bonds issued by the Treasury? Call it the Mother of All Carry Trades underwritten by US taxpayers via TARP initially and free borrowing subsequently. Clever traders take their Treasury notes to the Fed desk and convert them to more cash to invest in more Treasury notes. This is a previously unseen version of the multiplier effect. Private sector leverage that brought down Bear then Lehman is replaced by public leverage brought to you by the US government. Voila, brilliant. And, to add insult to injury, these traders must be reimbursed for their clever strategies else the banks will lose their ability to grow out of their capital hole.
But at least let’s be honest and call it back-door nationalism. What is wrong with this picture?
It does look like Freddie and Fannie in the sense that the losses are backstopped by the US government and the profits (while they last) accrete to the shareholders. We saw how that turned out.
[end rant]