A Day Unlike Any Other Day

At least the sky is grey. Almost no one who lives in the shadows of the towers can ignore this day with a deep blue sky.

Watching Lehman go down fills me with such sadness. I was there when Shearson/Amex bought our firm back in the early 80's. A long, rich tradition, shattered with the closing of the books. At the time of the merger, all of Lehman's windows on the trading floor were boarded shut. The rumour was that Lou Glucksman had read that withholding natural light would make us more aggressive. As it began to sink in that regime change was imminent, salesman and traders started to tear down the boards and let the light in. I'll never forget the image of watching Lou's henchmen (like Mr. Fuld) rushing around to put them back up, disoriented in the wake of the tidal wave of change.

And now Mr. Fuld will shutter the firm, after a run that left him the longest-running CEO on wall street.

More upsetting is watching the destruction of our country. A blog i've been following reports:

I was briefed on the proposed US financial reforms which will be shoved through with minimal review. Short version is that the Fed wins an explicit "financial stability" role which gives it powers and secrecy to do pretty well whatever Tim Geithner chooses to do for his capitalist crony clientele. The role will include comprehensive, global data collection which will give the Fed visibility of all open positions. In the wrong hands, this insight could be used to selectively induce volatility and margin calls which would selectively hurt some and advantage others. That could help the Fed's friends over time.The FDIC will be stripped of financial supervision and prudential intervention powers in favour of the Fed. That makes the Fed totally unreviewable and unchallenged by other authority in the USA.Additionally, the SEC will be forcibly reformed to be more like the CFTC - a service entity for the interests of those who pay good money for bad regulators. Instead of fixed rules, SEC regulation will become "principles based" which will mean that no one is ever held accountable for breaking the law unless they have done something to break the code of omerta and anger their peers.Federal law and regulation will pre-empt all state laws, and states attorney generals will be stripped of authority to investigate or sue. That means no more inconvenient Elliot Spitzers to get in the way of Wall Street excess.This may not meet Professor Roubini's recommendations, but the deal is going through with little review so far because the cries for reform are only going to be met with this one pre-agreed proposal. After all, who in Washington or Wall Street would ever suggest that Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson didn't have the best interests of American and global investors at heart?
Written by London Banker on 2008-09-11 10:27:14