More of the Same - But Perhaps Some Are Listening?!

Finally, an honest banker among the big boys. Okay, he is retired, but that makes him a tad less biased, and as a former Chairman of Citigroup, the guy has major street cred and mojo, whatever that means. In any event, he agrees with Volcker - something I have been recommending for many months - that there needs to be a division between traditional banking and those that deal primarily with capital markets. And he agrees that more demanding capital requirements would help. Go figure?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/opinion/l23volcker.html?_r=2

Hang Him High

If you ask me Stephen Friedman, who benefited by millions off taxpayers through what appears to be conflict of interest should repay it all. And the company for which he is a director should give us back around $14 billion. See, it turns out that Goldman made about $14 billion off of AIG's demise and that money came from the folks on the street - as in us taxpayers. Now they probably would have done okay without us, but that does not change the fact that they did even better with our money, just in time to start paying record bonuses again. Disgusted, I am, and I hope the prosecutors figure out a way to get the bucks back from Goldman one way or another. Friedman, on he other hand, deserves to be in jail in my opinion. He was playing both sides of the fence - director for the Fed of NY who approved AIG payments to Goldman and also director for Goldman - and to add insult to injury added his own multi-million dollar investment in Goldman before the Fed payment was announced to make sure he made out personally. I am ill again. Then again, I have been ill a lot lately. He claims he is being falsely portrayed, which is easy for someone with many millions of new found dollars to say.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a7T5HaOgYHpE

Must Read of the Month

And here is the must read of the day, week and month. I have mentioned before Jeremy Grantham of GMO. He is one advisor who understands what is going on. He is now out with his latest quarterly report. It is a long read - 14 pages - but do not skip to the ending. The tale is best read from cover to cover. Well worth the read and I highly recommend it.

http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/JGLetter_ALL_3Q09.pdf

Disclosures: None.