No posts around here beacuse I've been busy reading House of Cards, the William Cohan book on the Bear Stearns collapse. It's fascinating for someone who's never really had any exposure to the culture of Wall Street, but it's ultimately going to be really unsatisfying because it ends far too soon -- the Lehman and AIG deals, along with the concurrent political machinations by McCain and Obama, will have to be in the sequel I guess.

One thing that's amazed me is the language some of these people are willing to use in interviews that were obviously on the record. Since Tim Geithner is so popular these days, here's a quote from Jimmy Cayne, a former Bear Stearns executive, on the then New York Fed president:

The audacity of that prick in front of the American people announcing he was deciding whether or not a firm of this stature and this whatever was good enough to get a loan. Like he was the determining factor, and it's like a flea on his back, floating down underneath the Golden Gate bridge, getting a hard-on, saying "Raise the bridge." This guy thinks he has a big dick. He's got nothing, except maybe a boyfriend. I'm not a good enemy. I'm a very bad enemy. But certain things really -- that bothered me plenty. It's just that for some clerk to make a decision based on what, your own personal feeling about whether or not they're a good credit? Who the fuck asked you? You're not an elected officer. You're a clerk. Believe me, you're a clerk. I want to open up on this fucker, that's all I can tell you.