Man of the Meltdown – 4 Milliarden $ Bonus für John Paulson

Das wird er wohl wert sein!

Business Week Books November 25, 2009, 5:00PM EST text size: TT

How hedge fund manager John Paulson made billions in the crisis

By Spencer E. Ante

The Greatest Trade Ever
By Gregory Zuckerman
Broadway; 293 pp.; $26

The Great Recession of 2009 destroyed trillions in wealth. But a few lucky or shrewd souls profited from this catastrophe. Perhaps the single largest beneficiary was John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who engineered the greatest trade in history, earning his firm $20 billion by betting against the housing market. In 2007, Paulson took home a staggering $4 billion for himself, the largest one-year payout in the annals of finance. That’s more than $10 million a day, if you’re counting.

Jim Rogers on Why Gold Is Glittering So Brightly

siehe untenstehend die richtige Meinung zu Tim Geithner (hfk):

Business Week,Facetime November 25, 2009,

Maria Bartiromo talks to Jim Rogers, creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index

By Maria Bartiromo

I was on assignment in Singapore on Nov. 24 when gold hit an all-time high of $1,174 an ounce. That was fortuitous because Singapore is the home base of commodities guru Jim Rogers, creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index. Meantime, back in the U.S., reports were surfacing about growing discontent in the halls of Congress over the performance of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the possibility he might be replaced by JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon. When I rang up Rogers, he was his usual low-key self, with quiet opinions about the future of gold prices, commodities to watch, and why Obama should dump Geithner.

Tim Geithner Is Starting to See Daylight

Es wird immer mehr verständlich, warum viele ernsthafte Kommentatoren sagen, dass sich Amerika keine zwei so schwache Präsidenten hintereinander leisten kann: Bei so einem Finanzminister? Was war denn der Herr Geithner zuvor? Chef der Fed von New York! hfk

Business Week, Facetime December 10, 2009, 5:00PM EST text size: TT

Bloomberg TV’s Al Hunt talks to the Treasury Secretary about TARP

While the Troubled Asset Relief Program is winding down, it will still be used to aid small banks. On Dec. 9, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner exercised his option to extend the TARP bailout program until October 2010. And according to Bloomberg.com, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has suggested that lawmakers may seek to finance job-creation measures with unused TARP money. In a talk with Bloomberg TV’s Al Hunt on Dec. 4, Geithner spoke about the unemployment crisis and the debate over so-called Tobin taxes, a proposed global levy on financial transactions to discourage destabilizing speculation. Here are excerpts from the interview.

An Ambitious Look at Wall Street’s Convulsions

Business Week, Books October 29, 2009,

A New York Times reporter brings the drama alive with unusual inside access and compelling detail

By Adrienne Carter

Too Big to Fail:
The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington
Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves
By Andrew Ross Sorkin
Viking; 600 pp.; $32.95

There’s no paucity of books about the financial crisis. Journalists, academics, economists, and pundits seem to have chronicled every event surrounding the drama on Wall Street. Some bite off just a piece, as did Wall Street Journal reporter Kate Kelly in Street Fighters, which looks at the last three days of failed investment bank Bear Stearns. Others, such as journalist Duff McDonald’s biography of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, Last Man Standing, consider a single player’s role. And a raft of works chronicle the roots of the meltdown, including the forthcoming How Markets Fail by New Yorker writer John Cassidy.

The GDP Mirage

By overlooking cuts in research and development, product design, and worker training, GDP is greatly overstating the economy’s strength.

Aus der Business Week: BW November 4_2009 The GDP Mirage

Magic Tricks on the Corporate Books

With the stroke of a pen, companies can make themselves appear more financially fit than they are

By Mara Der Hovanesian, Business Week

Accounting shenanigans bubble to the surface every few years. In the dot-com days the trick was to book virtual revenues. After the tech bust, tinkering with expenses was all the rage. Now forensic auditors and analysts worry that troubled companies are playing fast and loose with asset valuations and cash management.

These recent numbers games, which rely on some familiar techniques, may be the most troublesome yet. Companies that employ aggressive accounting tactics aren’t just inflating earnings and cash flow—their motive may also be to hide a true financial picture from lenders to avoid losing credit and other lifelines.

BW November 4_2009 Magic Tricks on the Corporate Books

Eine interessante Geschichte für Anfänger. Wenn Sie etwas für Fortgeschrittene lesen wollen, dann lesen sie bitte die Bilanzen der (österreichischen) Banken! (hfk)

Peter Morici: Behind the Dollar’s Dog Days

 

Maria Bartiromo talks to outspoken University of Maryland economist Peter Morici

By Maria Bartiromo

The continuing weakness of the dollar has led to what The Washington Post has called „a growing international chorus“ to push aside the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. The Post quoted a recent speech by World Bank President Robert Zoellick in which the former U.S. Trade Representative said: „The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency.“ To better understand the dollar’s dilemma, I talked with Professor Peter Morici of the University of Maryland, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Jamie Dimon: Lucky or Good?

Na, der Jamie Dimon schien ja immer als ein „Guter“ bei den Investment Banken, auch weil er nicht diese Spekulationen einging.

Books October 8, 2009, 5:00PM EST text size: TT

How the JPMorgan Chase CEO weathered the global financial maelstrom and emerged almost unscathed

By Mara Der Hovanesian

Last Man Standing:
The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase
By Duff McDonald
Simon & Schuster; 340pp.; $28

Few figures of today’s financial world are more respected than Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM). For a banker to emerge from the financial meltdown with mere flesh wounds might be accomplishment enough. But for Dimon—whose rise, fall, and rise again has been one of the most compelling stories on Wall Street for decades—the crisis proved he is much more than a survivor. Dimon has earned the ear of the U.S. President, the gratitude of the Treasury Dept. for helping the U.S. escape financial ruin, and the respect of legendary investor Warren Buffett.

An IMF Just for Emerging Markets

Developing countries don’t trust the fund to serve their interests. Solution: An EMF

By Simon Johnson

Fresh from its annual meeting in Istanbul on Oct.6-7, the International Monetary Fund is taking a moment to celebrate itself. The IMF rediscovered its role as a lender of last resort in the global crisis (with Iceland a notable rescue). Earlier this year it got an extra $500 billion from member countries to triple its lending capacity. And it is positioned to manage the G-20’s much-hyped peer review of countries’ monetary, fiscal, and financial policies.

But below the surface, problems are intensifying: The IMF’s ability to stabilize the global economy may hit a wall because of resentment among emerging economies. Developing nations have long complained about the extent to which the U.S. and Western Europe dominate the 186-member group—and about

The Case for a Global Central Bank

Date: 19-09-2009
 Source: BusinessWeek

With world finance increasingly intertwined, we’ll need one sooner or later

When the finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s 20 largest economies gather in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24, they can congratulate themselves for averting a 1930s-type meltdown. But nothing the G-20 has done, or is likely to do, will prevent or substantially moderate the next global crisis. That will require deep-seated, global financial reforms. And for such change to take root, something else will be needed: the establishment of a global central bank.