Lunchtime Links: Does this mean they'll get paid like retail bankers?
So, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are to become bank holding companies regulated by the Fed rather than the SEC and able to take in deposits from the man in the street. Fintag poses the obvious question - does this mean pay will gravitate towards levels more commonly seen at retail banks? Cashier-level remuneration is out of the question (obviously), but long-term reductions look inevitable. Henry Blodget says Morgan Stanley, for example, has promised to reduce its leverage from 20x to 10-15x. The good news? MS and GS won't have to mark to market from now on.
Morgan Stanley doesn't need Wachovia any more. (FT)
But it's accepting cash from Mitsubishi UFG. (Reuters)
GS and MS bankers are better off moving to hedge funds. (Fintag)
Or are they? - "The next stage will be a run on thousands of highly leveraged hedge funds." (FT)
Merrill and Bank of America merger might not happen. (Clusterstock)
Diary of a Lehman banker: it was just the rank and file. We stepped up to try and save the firm. (Financial News)
My week of hell at Lehman HQ. (The Times)
"They were paid so much, and there they were scrambling for the last Mars bar." (FT)
Lehman's most re-employable. (Financial News)
"If they hadn't acted, you'd have seen a panic in America that would have made Northern Rock look like an ice-cream queue." (The Times)
Wanted: money managers to run a $700bn bailout of Wall Street. (Reuters)
Hank Paulson: deity. (Fintag)
Dollar may yet get crushed. (Bloomberg)
China Investment Corp is hiring. (Wall Street Journal)
