July 2009

CIT's Peek - The Guy Who Destroyed CIT Gets Paid Before We Do?

Jeffrey Peek, CEO of CIT, has held this post since 2003. Peek has tried to transform CIT from a boring lender to "mom and pop" businesses to a Wall Street player.

He installed CIT's top brass in a glitzy office building on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, eschewing the company's historical base near a big shopping mall in Livingston, N.J., and brought CIT into his high-society orbit as well. CIT became a sponsor of the New York City Opera. Its role as a donor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art may have helped Mr. Peek win a prestigious spot as a museum trustee in 2008.

Mr. Peek threw parties both at the office and in his home. At an Edwardian-themed fete at his home on Valentine's Day 2008, male guests donned top hats provided by the Peeks.

Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Appointed to Key State Dept. Position

That is right. Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, has be appointed to a very important position in the State Department.

Hormats was named by the Obama administration Friday to be the department's undersecretary for economic, energy and agricultural affairs, an official announcement indicated.

William Greider on Auditing the Federal Reserve

William Greider, who wrote the definitive book on the Federal Reserve, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, has a new article in The Nation magazine, Dismantling the Temple .

It's quite long, goes over some of the history of the Federal Reserve but I want to point out Greider's 6 reasons why the Federal Reserve should not be made systemic risk regulator.

  1. It would reward failure.

CBO on House Health Care Bill

The Congressional Budget Office Director's Blog has a new primarily estimate on H.R. 3200, the House Health Care Bill.

According to CBO’s and JCT’s assessment, enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period. That estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill’s insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that JCT estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years.

Hank Paulson & The Committee

The House Oversight Committee held part III of their hearing Bank of America and Merrill Lynch: How Did a Private Deal Turn Into a Federal Bailout? This time the key witness was former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

Frankly, Stonewall Hank just let Ben Bernanke off the hook, with claims of Fed Privilege and confusion to deny the Federal Reserve threatened BoA, as well as it's clear Hank Paulson threatened BoA CEO with losing his job if he didn't go through with the Merrill Lynch merger, but the issue is what isn't being answered.

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