The Facts: [waiting for Lucas vP to weigh in] [TSC]

$$$ NYU sued for revoked MBA [NYP]

$$$ "When people have more than one house, you can live in them all," says Ms. Clearly. [WSJ]

$$$ Inside Toyota's epic breakdown [Reuters]

$$$ Galleon Defendants Ordered to Turn Over Wiretaps [Dealbook]

1) Things are still bad, but on the upside, it could be worse, which is why Hank feels "fortunate."

2) Bush "was like a mom" to Paulson, urging him to "exercise, get more sleep, eat healthy."

3) That Nancy Pelosi kneeling thing was just him asking her to "please don't go and blow this thing off," because everyone was in "deep doo-doo."

4) Comp was "out of whack even during benign times" but now people should be "showing some restraint." "If you've had some losses, you have responsibilities."

5) Congress should start doing its job, putting on some pressure and stop calling in snow days.

From: [redacted at Rice]

Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 9:22 AM

To: [redacted at Jefferies]

Subject: Interviewee

To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to sincerely apologize for not attending the interview I had scheduled with Jefferies & Company on Rice campus. I would also like to thank you for informing the CSPD, so as to keep me accountable for my selfish and careless actions. While I cannot take back time and no excuse suffices to rectify this great wronging, I would like to offer a brief explanation of my lack of attendance in hope that you will forgive me.

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Update: Paulson: "[George] Bush was like a mother to me." So there's that.

Watch Live: Buffett And Paulson [Omaha World Herald]

Related: Collapse Of Bear Stearns Took Away From Hank Paulson's Bird Time
Folksy Business Wisdom And Abberant Sex Fetish, With Warren Buffett

S&P's rationale is that if Financial Armageddon 2.0 were to come, they're not too sure about "the U.S. government's willingness to provide additional extraordinary support to highly systemically important financial institutions."

What should Ben do with his snow day, besides snow angels with Timmy?

"I think I'll keep my office exactly the way it is," he said.

This is something addicts say in their first go at rehabilitation, when they think they're bigger than the drugs. They want to overcome their demons, sure, but they have no idea how truly brutal and demanding the road ahead will be. It's not realistic to say you will categorically never use again because, statistically speaking, almost everyone has at least one or two relapses, especially when put it high risk environments rife with triggers. Such as, the hideous office of one's predecessor, which I don't think John actually got a look at before taking the job, and certainly not prior to speaking with Bloomberg.

I don't think something simplistic like prohibiting proprietary trading in banking is the answer.

Varley, who's getting more irritated by the week, would also like to remind people that he never asked anyone - and certainly not the FSA- the permission to buy Lehman. So he doesn't really see the point of responding to anyone now, especially since Barclays is the best bank ever.

Time For Bonus Round At Banks (Charlotte Observer)
At Foreign Cars Italia of Charlotte, where cars run from about $100,000 to $1 million or more, bank bonus season used to provide a boost every February. But Gary Furnas, a sales consultant at the dealership, said he hasn't been involved with a sale to a bank employee since November 2008. That customer, a Bank of America employee, bought a black Ferrari, but then kept it on the lot for two months because he worried that it was too flashy. It wasn't a matter of money - "he could have bought four or five of them if he wanted," Furnas said. In the end, the customer asked the dealership to resell the car, and he opted for a less showy Maserati instead. "He said he was getting too much grief from his co-workers, that he couldn't be seen driving it around his neighborhood or in the bank parking lot," Furnas said.

S.E.C. Enforcers Focus on Avoiding Madoff Repeat (NYT)
In the headquarters of the SEC, Mr. Madoff's name is rarely spoken. More than seven months after he was sentenced to prison for orchestrating a global Ponzi scheme, shaken employees are still struggling to come to grips with how they failed to catch him before it was too late.

Nassim Taleb: Warren Buffett May Just Be Lucky (CNBC)
"I don't want to spend too much time on Buffett. George Soros has 2 million times more statistical evidence that his results are not chance than Buffett does. Soros is vastly more robust. I am not saying Buffett doesn't have skill--I'm just saying we don't have enough evidence to say Buffett isn't doing it by chance."

Wall Street's Race To The Bottom, By Elizabeth Warren (WSJ)
Banking is based on trust. The banks get our paychecks and hold our savings; they know where we spend our money and they keep it private. If we don't trust them, the whole system breaks down. Yet for years, Wall Street CEOs have thrown away customer trust like so much worthless trash.

UBS bankers' 2009 cash bonuses up a third on year (Reuters)
UBS will pay about 2.9 billion Swiss francs ($2.7 billion) in cash bonuses for 2009, up about a third from depressed payouts a year earlier.

Goldman's Response To The New York Times, By Lucas Van Praag (Huffington Post)
NYT assertion: "Goldman's demands for billions of dollars from the insurer helped put it in a precarious financial position by bleeding much-needed cash."
The facts: Relative to the size of AIG's overall business, Goldman Sachs was a small counterparty. We don't believe our marks were "aggressive," they reflected market prices at the time. We requested the collateral we were entitled to under the terms of our agreements. The idea that AIG collapsed because of our marks is not credible. In any event, the story later asserts that, by the spring of 2008, AIG's dispute with Goldman Sachs was just one of its many woes.

$$$ German pensioners 'kidnapped financial adviser' [BBC]

$$$ Cash Money Records Founders Start An Oil Company [BI]

$$$ Should Individuals Be Regulated Like Wall St. Banks? [The Atlantic]

$$$ Toy Mogul Said To Buy Madoff Penthouse [Dealbook]