Now, could you please use them on the stayBehinds?!
;-)))

It is worth noting that pension funds in red states — of public employees! — may well have been called upon by Cerberus to help toss in $$$ last summer at a time when the economy was tanking and Chrysler was sinking under the $20 b-b-billion dollar debt load that Cerberus had placed it under.

So two questions;
1. When is the SEIU and the UAW going to start educating us all about the looting ways of hedge funds, including letting us all know how they first loaded companies with debt AND THEN looted the public pension funds to help save those debt-laden companies, and

2. When do we start adding the names of hedge funders — John Snow, Dan Quayle, Stephen Feinberg (Cerberus) to Ken Lewis’s? Oh, I would so dearly love to believe that some very smart, tough FBI types were ‘interviewing’ these cads… (yeah, I’m a dreamer…)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04…..berus.html

But Mr. Feinberg did not go quietly. He also discussed additional federal money to help his other wayward investments in Detroit: GMAC and Chrysler Financial. Cerberus is now pushing the government to help orchestrate a merger of the two auto financing companies — a move that might eventually yield a profit for Cerberus.

Cerberus persuaded some of the most prominent names in the financial world to join it in its Chrysler and GMAC investments. Its co-investors in those include the investment arm of Abu Dhabi as well as hedge funds like York Capital. Some hedge funds, like Eton Park, invested only in GMAC, but they, too, are feeling the pain….

But Cerberus, like many private equity firms, loaded its new ward with what turned out to be crippling amounts of debt. Cerberus piled about $20 billion of debt onto Chrysler, Mr. Gabbert said. As car sales plunged across the industry — and, in particular, at Chrysler — the carmaker began to buckle under its load.

Cerberus is also pushing the Treasury and the Justice Departments for support of its goal to merge GMAC and Chrysler Financial…

Cerberus’s investors in the Chrysler deal include pension funds for public employees in Indiana and for public school employees in Pennsylvania, according to PitchBook.

The main path of hope for Cerberus depends on government support for Chrysler Financial, which Cerberus split into a separate company from the automaker. Regulators informally rejected its request to become a bank holding company late last year, even while approving an application for such a conversion by GMAC. Political rancor related to Cerberus contributed to that decision by regulators, according to one of the people briefed on the situation. Now Cerberus is pushing the new administration to reconsider.

It was one of his earliest posts at “Down With Tyranny” and IMHO it is brilliant. Perhaps one day FDL would run it as a cross post…? IIRC, the title is “Who’s Going to Save Capitalism This Time?“

It is the best synopsis of managerial capitalism that I’ve encountered, and covers some of the roots of the mess we’re in along with the dynamics that drove it off the rails.

Are you worried about your job?

I don’t have time to worry about my job. If somebody wants me to go, all they have to do is ask one time, and I’m gone.

Andy Stern’s asked, so I assume ole Ken’s packing up his desk about now.

Wall Street makes a lot of money performing the necessary money changing that greases the economy’s wheels. It also makes enormous sums gaming weaknesses, whether in a target’s (or a client’s) finances, management, product portfolio. It is particularly adept at gaming weaknesses in rules, such as tax or corporate disclosure rules (the compliance end of the spectrum is for the non-predatory types).

In the case of Merrill’s bonuses, they were obviously paid when insiders knew of the company’s financial peril. They paid themselves first, knowing the odds were low that even in bankruptcy they would not likely be made to pay them back. It was more likely, and has been proven in the case of AIG, that the umbrella purpose of “retention” bonuses would be an adequate fig leaf to cover their looting their own coffers to protect themselves. They need only stave off bankruptcy for a year to remove the threat that they would be clawed back.

In a neighborhood, the dog usually gets the benefit of the “one bite” rule. Once its proven its viciousness, the next time it bites is the last. Will we do the same with these financial predators, who add far less value to the economy than their self-promotion claims to do, or is the only lesson history teaches is that we never learn from it?

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/firekenlewis

I went to Change to Win site, but didn’t see a petition (i.e., doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just that I didn’t see it):

http://www.changetowin.org/