(unbelievable) WSJ: Bear Stearns chairman played cards amid crisis

[jordi_fanclub]

Source: Wall Street Journal via Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bear Stearns Cos Inc Chairman Jimmy Cayne was playing cards in a tournament late last week while his company's future appeared to be at risk, according a published report.

As the bank hammered out an emergency funding deal on Thursday with the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase, which resulted in Bear's shares falling by as much as half, Cayne was playing in the North American Bridge Championship in Detroit, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Friday.

Cayne, who in January stepped down as Bear Stearns' long-time chief executive, is no stranger to controversy about his hobbies. Last year he was criticized for spending too much time playing bridge and golf while Bear stumbled on wrong-way bets on subprime mortgages.

Cayne played cards last week during a period in which Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz held conference calls with directors about the pending cash pledge, the newspaper said, although Cayne participated in at least some of the dialogue.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN1649428620080316?rpc=44

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Bear Stearns is a major Bush crime family player.

James E. Cayne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bear Stearns, is a Bush Pioneer having raised at least $100,000 for Bush in the 2004 presidential election. <4>

Bear Stearns gave $127,500 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee - 25% to Democrats and 75% to Republicans. <5>

Other political campaign contributions:

P. Nicholas Hurtgen, Bush Pioneer, Texans for Public Justice, accessed August 2007.
Douglas R. Korn, Bush Pioneer, Texans for Public Justice, accessed August 2007.
Peter J. Murphy, Bush Pioneer, Texans for Public Justice, accessed August 2007.
Texas for Justice is a Tom Delay legal defense slush fund{/b]

Bear Stearns & Co., Inc Political Campaign Committee FKA Bear Stearns PCC], Candidate Contributions, Congress.org: 2003-2004 Campaign Cycle: Total contributions: $66,500; and 2005-2006 Campaign Cycle: Total contributions: $79,000.
Bear Stearns & Co Inc Political Campaign Committee FKA Bear Stearns PCC Political Action Committee, Campaign Contribution Details '04 Election Cycle, CampaignMoney.com.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bear%2C_Stearns_%26_Co.%2C_Inc.

Why should he worry when he knows his friends will bail him out?

[DrDebug]

3. Indeed. Let's repost an oldie but goodie

Bear Stearns, Harken Energy, Texas Rangers and Clear Channel

by Al Martin

The $7 million that Bush Jr. put into the deal came from the Harken Energy stock fraud. He and his father George Bush Sr. entered into a conspiracy with Bear Stearns and others to artificially manipulate the price of Harken Energy stock, wherein the Bush Family illicitly proceeded to trade their shares "against the box," through the Pilgrim Investment Trust, the Bush Family-controlled Panama-registered investment entity, wherein the price of Harken Energy stock was pumped up from 1-1/ 4 up to 7-3/8 and then dumped all the way back down again. This whole round trip as it were was accomplished in only about 4 months time. By being long at the bottom through the Pilgrim Investment Trust with shares that they had borrowed from Bear Stearns -- by the way. They didn't even put up their own damn shares. It's one thing to commit a scam, but the Bushes added a new twist. They commit scams with Other People's Money. They take it one step further by using OPM to commit the scams. Thus they generate the money for nothing.

So then Bush Jr. takes the $7 million out of the Harken Energy Stock Swindle that he and his father orchestrated with their longtime ally Ace Greenberg, chairman of Bear Stearns. He then invests in a syndicate to buy the Texas Rangers sports franchise. Then Bush becomes part of the general management of the team and proceeds to run the team into the ground, financially speaking. Then he is allowed to sell his interest back to the syndicate, including his shares in Mays Hicks for 4 times what he paid for them. Despite the fact the franchise was worth only half of the purchase price since he had "managed" it . In order to bail the whole deal out, he as governor of Texas then authorizes the expenditure of $345 million of public monies in order to build the new stadium and surrounding complex for the Texas Rangers.

(...)

The syndicate was composed of the Hicks Muse crowd essentially. James Baker was an investor in it and so was Dick Cheney. Then how this ties in to Clear Channel Communications is that Hicks was the regent of the University of Texas, which is another whole scam. This is a scam within a scam. The regents of the University of Texas is an infamous scam.

(...)

Everybody promoted Clear Channel stock then, not only Bear Stearns, but Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan, and they ran it up. They got everybody to promote the stocks. so it got as wide as possible distribution. All these stocks were coming out of Clear Channel, and there was an enormous amount of money coming in with virtually no accountability as to how they have to spend that money. Then they can start paying 2 or 3 times what radio stations are worth just to own them. It was simply for the ownership of the market. It doesn't have anything to do with making any money. And yet the stock, which is now in the 40s, still trades in what is over a 35 P/E I think. It is still considered a high P/E stock.

http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/archive/index.php/t-23809.html

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Nominated this thread because of the information

it gives.

[DrDebug]

15. If you like the excerpt, read the whole thing

Al Martin is the master of the Republican Scandals (TM), because he was a former Iran-Contra insider who is spilling the beans on exactly how the scams are operated...

Edit: One very important paragraph:

If you look at the bigger picture, Bushonomics will eventually cause the economic destruction of the United States. But before that happens we will have a period of hyper-inflation. The first result of Bushonomics will be an ever-decreasing standard of living in this nation, which is going to mean ever-increasing civil unrest and economic and social dispossession. To hold the nation together, you are going to need a strong leader, someone that the people, ever more fearful, ever more ignorant can look up to and say there is the very symbol of State Power.

This is not incompentence, it is simply malice...

[Ichingcarpenter]

19. You and I are on the same page

thanks for informing our readers.

[DrDebug]

22. I preferred a happier message though

But I don't have any. This article was written in July 2003. The economy was still fine. Four and a half years later, we've started the recession which is merely the beginning.

This is a long term strategy. It is vital to have a good new president who will try to reverse the situation a bit, however even eight years of solid government cannot repair the damage done by eight years of Bush and they will try again until they've succeeded. So first objective is to repair the damage a bit, however the Bush clan needs to be held accountable. I still have the impeach signature since November 2006 as a reminder of what should happen first...

This Bear Stearn episode is merely an example. Bear Stears financed lots of Bush and other Republican scams, so it was clear that they were going to be bailed out with public money of course, just like George Junior was bailed out with public money. It's simply a quid-pro-quo and Bear Stearns is just one of the cronies. There are many and they all have a quid-pro-quo agreement.

If nothing happens and it's business as usual then eventually the paragraph above becomes reality. It will not be tomorrow or next year, because it's long term...

[calimary]

21. No kidding!

I'll chip in there, too! EXCELLENT resources in this one!

[UpInArms]

2. this is the compensation from 2007

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amhloYnjzkB0&refer=home

Bear Stearns Paid Chief Cayne $40 Million Last Year (Update1)

By Yalman Onaran

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Bear Stearns Cos. paid Chief Executive Officer James Cayne $40 million last year, a 32 percent raise, after the firm reported its fifth straight year of record profit.

Cayne, 73, received a $250,000 salary, a $17.1 million cash bonus, $14.8 million in stock, $1.69 million worth of options to buy stock and $6.15 million in other compensation, the New York- based securities firm said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. The stock and options awards were initially revealed in December. Cayne made $30.3 million in 2005.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the largest U.S. securities firm, set a new all-time high for Wall Street compensation last year, granting CEO Lloyd Blankfein $54 million. Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack was paid $41.4 million while Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. paid CEO Richard Fuld $40.5 million. Fiscal 2006 profit at Bear Stearns, the fifth-biggest U.S. brokerage, surged 40 percent to an all-time high of $2.1 billion, half that of Lehman, one third of Morgan Stanley and one fifth of Goldman.

``You think there ought to be some consistency in CEO pay across similar firms, based on their size, but there isn't,'' said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an executive search firm in Chicago. ``It has a lot to do with history, how long the executives have been around, what they negotiated at the beginning.''

Wall Street's Richest

Cayne has worked for Bear Stearns since 1969 when he landed his first job on Wall Street. He became president in 1985 and CEO in 1993.

Under Cayne, Bear Stearns's stock has more than doubled in the last five years, the best performance among the largest brokerage firms. Shares of the company have lost 8.6 percent this year, compared with a 1.5 percent decline in the 12-member Amex Securities Broker/Dealer index.

Cayne is the richest Wall Street CEO, with $1.3 billion in assets, according to Forbes magazine's 2007 billionaires survey. As the third-largest shareholder of the firm, Cayne holds a stake valued at about $900 million, according to regulatory filings.

...more...

he should have to forfeit it all

[TomClash]

4. He had an ace up this sleeve

He knew he would be bailed out. It's all three card monte anyway.

[Karenina]

9. It's a house of cards!

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Cool. I usually kick back with 'My Pet Goat' when the shit hits the fan. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

"But, whatever floats his republicon yacht. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

[notadmblnd]

6. Economic terrorism is what they have perpetrated on us. They should be arrested and their assets

should be seized.

[Demeter]

8. Precisely! And that Horse's Ass They Rode in On: The Bush/Cheney

[ryanmuegge]

16. No surprise that the world's biggest international terrorist nation engages in domestic economic

terrorism. No surprise.

[truthisfreedom]

7. Riding it down in style.

Fiddling while America's economy burns.

[tanyev]

11. GWB was yukking it up this week, singing and dancing.

I'm sure he never took the time to learn how to play an instrument.

[Neshanic]

12. "Thurston! Please stop playing cards, But Lovey I'm ahead gads of money!"

[unblock]

13. not this sh*t AGAIN!!!?!!?!!

unbelievable. no one gives a flying f*ck when people take vacations or if they play golf or bridge or whatever they do in their off time when the company makes big money and/or when business deals are cut at the bridge table or on the golf course, but when the shit hits the fan, they act like someone who lives on a phone suddenly can't take a phone call when they're playing bridge, or they pretend that somehow cayne (who's NO LONGER THE CEO) could have prevented this crisis were he not playing bridge.

idiots!

criticize cayne for not diversifying the company like lehman brothers did.
criticize cayne for not putting sufficient controls on their liquidity risks.
criticize cayne for caving into the anti-bridge pressure and letting schwartz further screw up the company.
criticize cayne for BUSINESS reasons
but do NOT criticize cayne for having a hobby for crying out loud!

[Neshanic]

17. "Lovey my hobby IS screwing companies."

[Gormy Cuss]

20. The OP article does in fact say that Cayne was criticized for his hobbies while CEO

and why as newly named chairman he should be let off the hook for ignoring the problems at Bear Stearns is beyond me. Even if he's been taking phone calls at the bridge table it seems rather obvious that his counsel didn't justify a chairman's salary, perhaps because his hobby was too much of a distraction.

Personally, I wouldn't care at all about his hobby had he turned back most of his compensation as CEO and refused compensation for his chairmanship, but of course that would never happen because it's always someone else's fault.

[Doctor_J]

33. Bush's hobbies are playing guitar and posing on his pig farm

So we should excuse him for staying on vacation while Al Qaeda was getting ready to attack and NOLA was under water?

Yeesh, you're pretty confused on what "leadership" means.

[peacetalksforall]

14. It all fits. This admin intended to bring us down - it's no surprise

that a key player is this company. Are we sure that the our 200 billion that went to saving homes that would have been lost had B-S failed? Two hours to go?

[Faygo Kid]

18. No surprise. He knew that W. would butter his bread.

All of the Bear Stearns top guys will walk away with millions of our taxpayer dollars.

W. would have it no other way. Nothing to see here; move along, please.

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. He wasn't worried because the cards were marked

and he knew the outcome of the game.

[timtom]

24. What???

Poker?
Bridge?
Euchre?
Honeymoon hearts?

Playing cards. Indeed.

(I know it's not a fault of the OP. The article was sketchy.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Not sketchy at all - it says bridge, in the excerpt

Yeah, I know it doesn't actually matter.

[timtom]

28. Thanks.

So much for Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Dynamics...

[paparush]

32. Spades for Dope?

[bulloney]

25. Look who he has as a role model. Bush was fartin' around the country

while New Orleans was being destroyed by Katrina. 9-11 was happening while Bush sits and looks stupid in a Florida classroom.

[Amonester]

27. Did he eat cake 2??

These Crooks Have NO Shame.

[Phred42]

29. Nero must have been a Republican

Fiddling while Rome Burns

It's even more disturbing knowing that the heads of these criminal operations don't notice what's crashing down around thet rest of us

[Blue_Tires]

30. recc'd

for all those out there who still try to say CEOs work 100,000 times harder than the rest of us, and therefore deserve more money than god...

[Doctor_J]

31. Per Krugman today, Bear-Stearns is a criminal enterprise

"Nobody expects an investment bank to be a charitable institution, but Bear has a particularly nasty reputation. As Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times reminds us, Bear “has often operated in the gray areas of Wall Street and with an aggressive, brass-knuckles approach.”

Bear was a major promoter of the most questionable subprime lenders. It lured customers into two of its own hedge funds that were among the first to go bust in the current crisis. And it’s a bad financial citizen: the last time the Fed tried to contain a financial crisis, after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, Bear refused to participate in the rescue operation."

Bush plays the guitar while NOLA dies, and now this slime ball plays bridge while his customers lose all of their money. Republicans are completely amoral - every last one of them

Full Krugman article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[BigDogDistrict44]

34. He is a Republican so Uncle Sugar will catch his fall

Sad sad sad