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finance
The Jinx Of Roger Ailes
Hold for a second the vitriol that Roger Ailes usually inspires. The Fox News boss is worth watching—not so much for his abuse-inviting impersonation of a corpulent former Nixonite but as a financial indicator of a market top. The cable news network Ailes started for Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch—though a remarkable ratings success—marked the high-water-mark of the Republican ascendancy. A month after the launch of Fox News in October 1996, Bill Clinton came back from the political dead and ascendant Congressional Republicans under Newt Gingrich suffered their first big reverse. So is there an Ailes jinx? Well, take a look at the stock market. Ailes' Fox Business News was supposed to be a news channel with less of the gloom and doom of competitors such as CNBC. Since the start of broadcasting in October last year—right at the peak of the market—the S&P stockmarket index is down more than 15% (click to enlarge graph). If Ailes threatens to launch any new channels, sell!
finance
Is CNBC To Blame For Bear Sterns' Implosion?
CNBC's rumor-mongering on March 10 about Bear Stearns' liquidity crisis may have ultimate brought down the investment firm. Or so writes Bryan Burrough in the August issue of Vanity Fair, adding that the day was as bad for the integrity of financial journalism as it was for Eliot Spitzer and people with mortgages: "Publicly speculating on a firm's liquidity is akin to shouting 'Fire!!!' in a crowded theater; in catastrophic cases it can trigger panic selling. It risks, in other words, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy." More »
media
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Dumps CEO
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, the domestic queen's massive publishing and television conglomerate, has just announced that its CEO, Susan Lyne, has (ahem) "stepped down." Replacing Lyne will be two co-CEOs—an equivocation that often signals that a company was not well prepared for an executive transition. Lyne came on as head of the company when Martha Stewart went to jail in 2004, and has presided over a big drop in MSLO's stock price. But while her departure may have been inevitable, it's not necessarily a productive move. The magazine industry is in an irreversible decline, and no number of firings will change that fact. Sorry! More »
media barons
Jared Kushner: "Real estate is like porn for rich people."
Former Daily News gossip hack Lloyd Grove has a lengthy interview with New York Observer owner and golden-boy-about town Jared Kushner out today, in which the 27-year-old Kushner yacks and yacks about his real estate holdings, his media holdings, and how the Observer's revenues are way up this year (although it's doubtful the paper has made him money yet). He's guarded, and talks a lot like a PR person. But one thing comes through quite clearly, just by his use of examples: this is a rich, rich young man. And maybe done dating Ivanka Trump? He won't say. Still, the time to snag this wealthy media baron is now!: More »
scandal
Spitzer to Devote Self to Making Money
There's some good news for Eliot Spitzer today! The former governor, who prematurely became former when he was caught sleeping with prostitutes, has been laying low since his resignation, leaving people to speculate just what he'll do next. And today we get an answer! He's going to screw over homeowners. Spitzer, who built his reputation on defending the little guy against Wall Street's worst, is starting a vulture fund. He's taking over his dad's real estate company in order to "scoop up distressed real estate assets around the country, revamp them, and flip the properties for a profit," he told a group of DC union officials last month. Now that he's free of the obligation to govern people to the best of his ability, he's free to take advantage of the massive credit crisis that's shaking the very foundation of our economy for a quick buck. The Sun explains more: More »
the way we live now
"Can I Call You Uncle Bill?" A Harrowing Account of Fashion Meets Finance
Yesterday, we told you about Pocketchange's Fashion Meets Finance douche-dating event, which would enjoin members of two equally vicious industries: fashion and finance. "The claim 'I am in finance' is a heavily weighted statement,'" you know! Luckily, a wily tipster named Jose smuggled himself into the event. And the things he saw at this douche-dating festival were truly an example of the Way Some of Us Live Now. "Um, so where do you live again? I'll get the cab..." More »
urban anthropology
Fashion, Finance Douche-Dating Event: For People Who Deserve Each Other
"Ladies," yells the website for Pocket Change's Fashion Meets Finance event, which promises to enjoin members of two of the most vapid, vicious professions. "You no longer need to worry that the cute guy at the bar works in advertising... in New York City you are defined by what you do and the dating world has to follow the same rules. The claim 'I am in finance' is a heavily weighted statement.'" It's heavy 'cause they're trying to compensate! But seriously: "Women in fashion need men who can facilitate their pre-30 marriage/retirement plan, and men in finance need women who will allow them to leverage their career in their dating equity." Let's meet some of the potential attendees who have RSVP'd to tonight's event! More »
public relations
Billionaire Financial Firms Losing PR Battle To The Poors
Super-rich guys who work in private equity may be the masters of the universe, but it's remarkably easy to get under their skin. All it takes is some crappy "street theater" mocking them as mean, heartless wealthy elites, and they run back into their corner offices and cry into their monogrammed handkerchiefs. The huge union SEIU has, for the last year, been staging little theatrical protests of the private equity industry's greed, featuring puppets and megaphones and whatnot. Which you would think would be as effective as sitting across the street from the White House with a "No Nukes" sign. But it really gets the rich guys worked up! Now the SEIU is taking their campaign international, with help from grumpy comedian Lewis Black, and it's making the titans of finance so upset they want to run out and buy the Kleenex Corporation. It's not fair! More »
crime
Keith Olbermann On The Run From The Tax Man
Raging liberal tax-and-spend broadcaster Keith Olbermann is a hypocritical tax cheat who wants to deprive the government of revenues in order to further enrich himself! That's according to the well-named site Olbermann Watch, which reports that the MSNBC host has a tax warrant out against his personal corporation in New York, for failing to pay about $2,300 in state taxes. All of which would have gone to buying baby formula for children on welfare, but which Olbermann wantonly hoarded to enhance his own hair gel collection instead! He should really pay up. Disclaimer: Although this news is true, it comes from a right-leaning website, which is inherently untrustworthy. Unlike, you know, Huffington Post. [Olbermann Watch]
journalismism
Anecdotes Prove Bear Stearns Savior Is A Jerk
The WSJ wraps up its three-part series on the Bear Stearns Wall Street clusterfuck today, and it is a masterpiece of financial journalism that's a lock for a Pulitzer. Uh, not that we care. In the final installment, various cutthroat maneuvers lead to JP Morgan's bitter $2-per-share salvation of the troubled Bear. And it's clear that enemies of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon (such as: formerly wealthy people who work at Bear Stearns!) were very forthcoming sources on this story, because two of the best anecdotes in the piece do nothing but make him look like a snippy asshole: More »
media
Former Air America Radio Exec Arrested; Network Just Happy To Get Its Name In The Paper
Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network that has come to dominate the radio dial and our country's political media at large (you can't go anywhere these days without hearing about the latest Rachel Maddow show) is back in the news. This time, for fraud! The network's fugitive former director, Evan Montvel-Cohen, was arrested in Guam yesterday on money-laundering charges unrelated to Air America. But boy, they should really consider rehiring him for his fundraising skills alone: More »
crises
How Spitzer's Hooker Scandal Stymied Bear Stearns' Fightback
The Wall Street Journal is in the midst of a trillion-word ongoing series chronicling the downfall of Wall Street firm Bear Stearns earlier this year. Today's installment looks at the rapid compounding of the firm's financial problems, which builds inexorably into a crisis. That's nice and everything, but the really interesting part comes when the story reveals what threw a wrench into the multibillion-dollar firm's effort to save its public reputation: Eliot Spitzer and his stupid hooker! Not to mention their old card-playing stoner chairman of the board: More »
public relations
America's Most Villainous CEO Finds The Little People 'Disgusting'
Angelo Mozilo is the CEO of disastrous mortgage lender Countrywide, and one of the most overpaid, reviled, and villainous business executives in America today. He's drawn huge salaries even as his company led to the way for the subprime mortgage collapse. So you might expect the guy to be surrounded at all times by a team of highly-paid image consultants, ensuring that every word out of his mouth in some way helped to resurrect his shattered reputation. Wrong, bitches! With a classic "Hitting reply instead of forward" move, Mozilo inadvertently let a desperate homeowner (and the world) know what he thought of his plea for help: "Disgusting.": More »
american dream
Bankers, Lara Flynn Boyle Put on Show to Save Wall Street
It's worthwhile sometimes to stop and think about the real victims of today's tanking American economy. Like Sanjay Sanghoee, a hedge-funder who's running into trouble financing the film version of his corporate intrigue novel. The novel, Merger, is your standard tale of "an Indian corporate titan who begins a hostile takeover of a satellite company that transmits information from the C.I.A." Obviously, it'd make a great little indie film. So Sanghoee, none of whose Law & Order spec scripts were ever accepted, raised millions in private money from his hedge fund friends. They loved the book, and the pitch, and the fact that it was a movie made by a banker about bankers. But then, the mortgage crisis! Suddenly, not even a verbal agreement from Lara Flynn Boyle "to take a supporting role as a sultry henchwoman" was enough to keep the checks rolling in. More »
corporate america
GE Taking Its Business Cues From '30 Rock'
Business types are excited about the news today that General Electric is planning to sell off its appliance division in a $5 billion move. Normal types are excited because this proves that GE CEO Jeff Immelt is now making decisions for his $323 billion company based on how they would affect the characters of 30 Rock. After Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy got relieved of his imaginary position running the microwave division of GE's NBC on the April 21 episode, it was only a matter of time before this sale happened. The loss of a leader of Alec Baldwin's caliber—and its ripple effects on Tina Fey—sends strong signals to Wall Street. Recap video of that fateful episode is below. If GE decides to finance Tracy Morgan's Fat Bitch 2 movie, we're rating its stock a strong buy. More »
branding
Titans Of Finance Undone By Larry The Cable Guy
When massive corporations decide to come up with a new slogan, they almost always end up with something short, trite, and massively expensive. Citigroup just unveiled its earth-shaking new slogan "Citi Never Sleeps," which is a reworking of its classic "The Citi Never Sleeps" tagline. But didn't they just spend $30 million last year launching a different slogan? Well yes, but that one didn't work out, because it sounded like it came straight from the mouth of bottom-rung redneck comedian Larry the Cable Guy. Derisive laughter is appropriate here: More »
payback
