The 'moron' makes these statements standing in the middle of a FAILED Wall Street buying floor. Hello? You can tell he's well 'clued in,' huh? He still believes the markets will rebound without any help. Sure. "CLUELESS" We all need to learn a lesson. I thought we already did.
Robert Khuzami named director of enforcement at SEC (click here)
Fri, 20 Feb 2009, 12:00
Previously, Khuzami served as a federal prosecutor for 11 years with the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York....
Trustee: Some Madoff stock trades were fiction (click title to entry - thank you)
By TOM HAYS – 58 minutes ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Investors wiped out by the Bernard Madoff scandal got more bad news on Friday: Investigators have confirmed suspicions that the monthly statements showing the disgraced financier was making stock trades for them were pure fiction.
"We have no evidence to indicate securities were purchased for customer accounts" in the past 13 years, said court-appointed trustee Irving Picard at a packed, town-hall style meeting at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in lower Manhattan. "This is a case where we're going to be looking at cash in and cash out" — the shorthand definition of a Ponzi scheme.
Picard, who is overseeing the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, called the meeting to give the investors a progress report on his efforts to unravel the alleged fraud.
Madoff was arrested in December after investigators said he confessed to his sons that he had swindled investors of $50 billion in a Ponzi scheme. The 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman remains confined to his Manhattan apartment under house arrest....
Thomson Financial
US FED: Fed Worsens Projections For 2009 GDP, Inflation, Unemployment (click here)
02.18.09, 02:15 PM EST
....Participants now expect GDP in 2009 to fall by 0.5% to 1.3%, much worse than the Fed's central tendency of -0.2% to 1.1% GDP growth. Participants anticipate a 'broad-based' decline in the first half of this year as consumer spending is dampened by a deteriorating labor markets, tight credit conditions, falling house prices and stock market losses. However, as in October, the Fed still sees some recovery in the second half of the year, though at a gradual pace....
S.F. to get $19.8 million aid to homeless (click here)
Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 20, 2009
(02-19) 18:11 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco has received $19.8 million in federal grants to help the homeless and stands to gain a lot more federal funds in the coming months....
Crist Announces Increased Unemployment Benefits for Floridians (click here)
Federal stimulus money will increase weekly benefits by $25 for remainder of 2009.
Friday February 20th, 2009
TALLAHASSEE – Governor Charlie Crist today, continuing his efforts to strengthen the economy and help Floridians affected by the current economic downturn, signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor to increase weekly unemployment benefits by $25 per week, bringing $345 million to Florida during the 2009 calendar year. By signing the agreement today, the increased benefits take effect starting Sunday, February 22, 2009. The Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families Act is a result of federal funds authorized through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009....
European shares sink, led by Anglo American, UBS (click here)
Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:53pm GMT
* FTSEurofirst 300 down 2.9 pct, having hit six-year low
* Miner Anglo American tumbles 15 percent
* UBS sinks 13 percent on U.S. tax probe
* For up-to-the-minute market news, click on [STXNEWS/EU]
By Peter Starck
FRANKFURT, Feb 20 (Reuters) - European stocks fell sharply on Friday, hitting six-year lows, on worries about more capital increases and wider financial industry woes as the economic downturn deepens.
"The ongoing flood of bad news has increased the risk aversion of investors," said Markus Reinwand, equity strategist at German bank Helaba.
"A trigger for a rapid shift in sentiment is not in sight," he said....
NEWSMAKER-UBS chief faces his biggest career challenge (click here)
Fri Feb 20, 2009 4:44pm GMT
By Lisa Jucca
ZURICH, Feb 20 (Reuters) - No sooner has Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS (UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research)(UBS.N: Quote, Profile, Research), put out one fire than another blaze breaks out elsewhere.
Only one day after agreeing to a painful, though vital, tax fraud settlement with U.S. authorities, Rohner was hit by a dramatic civil lawsuit against Switzerland's biggest bank that is sending shivers through the entire Swiss banking industry.
The ongoing U.S. tax woes, together with an uphill struggle to restructure the crisis-hit bank, make what used to be the pinnacle of any Swiss banker's professional ambition an unenviable poisoned chalice.
"This is the last thing he would want," said David Williams, Head of European Banks Research at Fox, Pitt-Kelton. "A difficult task has become even more difficult."
Under former, all-powerful chairman Marcel Ospel, UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, waded deep into U.S. subprime assets and was hit in 2008 by a net loss of nearly 20 billion Swiss francs ($16.92 billion), the largest annual loss in Swiss corporate history....
Sir Allen Stanford could face criminal fraud charges (click here)
Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan cricket tycoon, is being investigated by the FBI over possible criminal fraud charges.
By Nick Allen, James Quinn and Alex Spillius in Fredericksburg
Last Updated: 10:15PM GMT 20 Feb 2009
He currently faces a £6.4 billion civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission but US law enforcement sources said criminal charges may be filed.
Federal prosecutors will investigate whether his Stanford International Bank (SIB) was operating a form of Ponzi scheme, in which money from new investors is used to pay high returns to older investors. They are also moving towards seizing his six private planes, worth £70 million, and his 120ft yacht.
A group of investors also announced they are suing Sir Allen for the return of their money and filed a class action suit in a Texas court.
Their complaint alleged that SIB "fraudulently peddled" certificates of deposit which promised rates of return far above those available from other banks.
In a statement the investors said: "Now that the real estate and private equity markets are in freefall, many of those who purchased SIB's certificates of deposit have recently been informed that they cannot redeem them."...
McCain campaign donates Stanford contributions (click here)
Robert Allen Stanford accused by SEC of $8 billion investor fraud
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
Last update: 1:53 p.m. EST Feb. 20, 2009
McCain campaign donates Stanford contributions
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Senator John McCain on Friday reported that he is donating all his 2008 presidential campaign contributions from Robert Allen Stanford, the Texas financier accused of an $8 billion fraud, to charity.
"The McCain campaign is donating all contributions from R. Allen Stanford, and from individuals associated with Stanford Financial, to charity," wrote a McCain spokesperson. McCain was the Republican candidate for president in 2008.
A political action committee formed by Stanford and his wife donated almost $1 million to various candidates; the rest was doled out via the Stanford Financial Group's political action committee, the watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics said in research released Thursday.
"Robert Allen Stanford now has two things in common with embattled investment manager Bernard Madoff: Both have been accused of defrauding their investors, and both have given significant funds to politicians," the group said.
In addition to McCain, big-name recipients of Stanford's donations included President Barack Obama and Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., of New York. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also received donations.
Obama ranked third among individual lawmakers receiving funds, the CRP report said, collecting $31,750 from the company's employees during his 2008 presidential bid, including $4,600 from Stanford himself....
How Sir Allen Stanford bowled Antigua over (click here)
Sir Allen Stanford's lavish spending turned the Caribbean island of Antigua into his very own theme park, as our writer reports.
By Tom Leonard
Last Updated: 7:39PM GMT 20 Feb 2009
Surely only a fraudster with a supreme sense of invulnerability – or a shaky grasp of cricket slang – would have the nerve to call his restaurant the Sticky Wicket. But then Sir Robert Allen Stanford has clearly never been short on Texan-style chutzpah. Amid claims that not only the FBI, but also a notorious Mexican drugs cartel are now on his case, Sir Allen is at the crease and facing some very tricky balls.
That said, one could understand if the flamboyant, 6ft 4in financier and sports promoter now at the centre of $8 billion fraud allegations had felt more than usually secure on the small Caribbean island of Antigua....
Wall Street hits lowest level in 6 years (click here)
By Tim Paradis The Associated Press
Posted: 02/19/2009 08:39:33 AM PST
NEW YORK - The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled to its lowest close in more than six years on Thursday as sharp declines in key financial shares led the market lower.
The blue chips broke through a psychological barrier established in November to close at their lowest level since Oct. 9, 2002, the last bear market low....
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