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Journalists are trained to “follow the money” – to uncover who donates how much to what campaign, especially in the midst of a presidential election. When Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld testified before the House Oversight Committee Oct. 6, the media criticized his wealth and spending amidst financial turmoil in his company and on Wall Street. But conspicuously missing was the story of Fuld’s political contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Fuld has donated to Democratic candidates over Republican candidates by a margin of almost 5-to-1 in the last 15 years. He has given $106,400 to Democratic candidates...

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Are you capable of taking a perfectly good 158-year-old company and turning it into dust? You should be raking it in like Richard Fuld, Lehman Bros CEO. He took home nearly half-a-billion dollars in total compensation between 1993-2007. Last year, Fuld earned about $45M, according an executive pay research company. ........ roughly $17,000 an hour to obliterate a firm. If you’re willing to drive a company into the ground for less, apply by calling Lehman Brothers........ Fuld (who continues to lead Lehman since it entered bankruptcy proceedings) is the winner of my annual Michael Eisner Award for corporate rapacity and...

If you had purchased $1,000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $42 left. With Lehman, you would have $6.60 left. With Fannie or Freddie, you would have less than $5 left. But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.

It seems anxiety from the financial crisis is reaching new highs, but the tipping point for one individual came at the Lehman Brothers gym in the midst of the company’s collapse. While former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld was testifying before the House Oversight Committee Oct. 6, CNBC reported he had been punched in the face at the Lehman Brothers gym after it the firm announced it was going bankrupt. CNBC and Vanity Fair contributor Vicki Ward said Fuld was attacked at the gym on a Sunday following the bankruptcy. “Frankly, I sat there and listened and I’m with the guy...

Disgraced CEO Richard Fuld, who oversaw the demise of venerable Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc that helped tip the credit crunch into a full-blown crisis, will testify at a congressional hearing next week. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has called Fuld and former chief executives of insurer American International Group Inc to appear at hearings into the financial excesses that led to the collapse of the companies. "Lax oversight and reckless investments on Wall Street are causing massive disruption throughout our economy," Waxman said in a statement on...

Millions held in hedge funds lockdown By James Mackintosh Published: October 1 2008 23:43 | Last updated: October 1 2008 23:43 An increasing number of hedge funds are telling customers they cannot have their money back as rising withdrawals and exposure to Lehman Brothers hit the industry. The inability to access money has already had a knock-on effect: Absolute Return Partners’ Millennium Wave, a small fund of hedge funds, has had to tell its customers they cannot have their money back until it can retrieve it from the funds in which it invests. Luqman Arnold’s Olivant is also struggling to...

One thousand hedge funds scramble for new prime brokers David Walker 01 Oct 2008 At least 1000 hedge funds, one in eight of the worldwide total, are trying to unwind investments held by their prime brokers amid moves today by investment firm Olivant to recover its 2.78% holding in UBS, which was held in accounts managed by Lehman Brothers in Europe.

The smart college boy/college girl MBAs* who run investment banks and other businesses have less practical ability than a man who did not even finish high school. Henry Ford told us in 1922 exactly why a good 20-30 percent of our investments vaporized during the past several months, and he summarized the cause in one sentence: The primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation. There are exactly three ways to create wealth: grow it, mine it, or make it. While transportation does not add actual value, one usually has to move whatever one grows, mines, or manufactures. Other activities, such...

IT'S FULL-COURT LEHMAN PRESSBy BRUCE GOLDING Posted: 3:26 am September 20, 2008 A legion of lawyers descended on bankruptcy court yesterday to pick over the bones of Lehman Brothers after one of the biggest business bust-ups in US history. More than 200 finance professionals jammed federal Judge James Peck's downtown courtroom where early today he approved a plan for the company to sell its investment banking and trading businesses to British bank Barclays. The deal was said to be worth $1.75 billion - but may now be worth closer to $1.35 billion given the drastic change in the company's net...

“It's a terrible idea. It's undemocratic. It's bad economic policy, and it's bad social policy. And it has a very little chance of solving the problem in a meaningful way.” -- Allan Meltzer, Carnegie-Mellon University Beware of politicians or business leaders who say, “I’m a firm believer in the free market, but…” “But” thinkers have come out of the woodwork during this financial crisis: Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett proposes tax increases…..Patrick Byrne, the new CEO of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation who calls himself a “classical liberal,” demands that Congress impose a transactions tax on every stock market transaction...

It may seem like a long time ago, but it was only on Monday of last week (Sept. 15) that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy; the equally big news was that the Federal Reserve declined to bail Lehman out. I've read several details regarding Lehman's demise and learned some interesting facts. The bankruptcy filing was "pre-dawn" on the 15th, according to Bloomberg. The filing document is available in PDF form on the internet: it names Lehman's largest unsecured creditors, and the dollar amounts of their claims. "Citibank, N.A., as indenture trustee" is listed as Lehman's largest unsecured creditor, with a...

Derivatives Pose New Wrinkle in Lehman Case 'A Huge Amount of Uncertainty' By JULIE SATOW, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 25, 2008 http://www.nysun.com/business/derivatives-pose-new-wrinkle-in-lehman-case/86595/ Bankruptcy lawyers and law professors are preparing for a journey into uncharted territory as the credit default swaps market gets dragged into the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy proceeding. "The courts have dealt with credit default swaps very infrequently, and certainly not at the scale they are now out there," a lawyer at Washington, D.C.-based Caplin & Drysdale, James Wehner, said. "We have a new law and a new financial phenomenon, so there is a lot of...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 25, 2007 CONTACT: Erin Isaac (850) 488-5394 Erin.Isaac@myflorida.com Governor Crist Announces Theodore Roosevelt IV as Keynote Speaker at Florida Summit on Global Climate Change -- Other keynote speakers to include California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- TALLAHASSEE – Governor Charlie Crist today announced Theodore Roosevelt IV as a keynote speaker at the Serve to Preserve Florida Summit on Global Climate Change. Last week, Governor Crist announced California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as other keynote speakers. “It is truly a privilege to announce that one of our nation’s foremost...

AP: FBI Investigating Fannie, Freddie, Lehman & AIG

What is the connection between the bankrupt Lehman Brothers and the likelihood that in four years' time our electricity bills will jump another 25 per cent (on top of the rises likely from soaring coal and gas prices)? The answer is that, before its collapse, Lehman was pitching to become the leader in the vast trade created by the new worldwide regulatory system to "fight climate change" by curbing emissions of carbon dioxide. The biggest money-spinners will be the schemes whereby industry will pay for permits to emit CO2 at so much a ton, either directly to governments or by...

As Lehman's demise and Merrill's acquisition make clear, a business model built on ramping up risk and leverage simply doesn't work. NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Rumor has it that Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld recently wanted to turn off the firm's signature Jumbotron, the giant panels that flash the Lehman name day and night at its headquarters in New York's theater district. Running the lights, the story goes, was costing Lehman (LEH, Fortune 500) $500,000 a year. But New York City rejected Fuld's plea, since buildings in the Times Square area are required to keep their facades aglow to create...

Standard Chartered, Barclays and Nomura are battling to acquire the flagship Asian operations of Lehman Brothers, the collapsed US investment bank. Top executives of the trio spent the weekend in talks with Lehman trying to assess the value of its regional assets, which include its investment banking, fixed income and equity divisions. Each was expected to submit bids around midnight in Hong Kong. People close to the discussions said there had also been preliminary inquiries from Samsung of South Korea and Citic, the Chinese conglomerate. Barclays, the UK lender, has already signed a deal to acquire Lehman’s North American investment...

Lehman Brothers’ British staff reacted with fury when told that colleagues at Lehman’s New York office were expected to share in a $2.5 billion bonus bonanza while they would be paid just until the end of the month. A spokesman for the TUC said: "It looks like those that will suffer the most from the Lehman Brothers collapse are those at the bottom of the corporate chain while many of those at the top will be looked after." He suggested there would be real hardship for more junior staff, saying: "Few may have sympathy for the red braced bonus receivers...

HK investors protest losses on Lehman products By Jeffrey Hodgson Sun Sep 21, 6:06 AM ET More than 100 angry Hong Kong investors marched on government offices on Sunday, calling for action after losing money on structured products linked to failed U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The protesters, many of them elderly retirees, accused the government of failing to provide proper oversight and said local banks did not do enough to warn of them of the risks involved. Many had purchased so-called "minibond" products, notes secured by swap obligations guaranteed by Lehman. "They were misleading investors on the...

Fury at $2.5bn Lehman bonus Nomura and Barclays table bids today for US giant’s London operation as bank’s administrator likens collapse to Enron John Waples and Danny Fortson STAFF at Lehman’s New York office who helped to cause the world’s biggest corporate bankruptcy are to share in a $2.5 billion bonanza. The bonus, which has been described by London staff as a “scandal” has been pledged by Barclays Capital, the British-based bank that last week acquired Lehman’s American operation and took on 10,000 staff. The $2.5 billion (£1.4 billion) pot, which has been ring-fenced as part of the acquisition, has...

A nuclear winter? Sep 18th 2008 From The Economist print edition The fallout from the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers WHEN Warren Buffett said that derivatives were “financial weapons of mass destruction”, this was just the kind of crisis the investment seer had in mind. Part of the reason investors are so nervous about the health of financial companies is that they do not know how exposed they are to the derivatives market. It is doubly troubling that the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near-collapse of American International Group (AIG) came before such useful reforms as a central clearing house...

How much will he make this year? Question/Comment: Last year Lehman Brothers' CEO Richard Fuld, Jr. made $71 million. Today his company collapsed. How much will he make this year? Paul Solman: I don't know about this year. You've covered last. In 2006, according to Forbes.com, he was the 5th highest-paid CEO in America: "Total Compensation $122.67 mil; 5-Year Compensation Total $375.81 mil."

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A small group of House Republicans urged the Treasury and Federal Reserve against bailing out any more companies on Thursday, saying the government is putting taxpayers on the hook for too much money. "Enough is enough. It is time to bail out the American taxpayer from bailout mania," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. Hensarling and others said consumers and companies need tax cuts to help them amid one of the worst financial crises in U.S. history.

German bank pays Lehman 300 million euros -- by mistake Wed Sep 17, 12:21 PM ET German state development bank KfW transferred by mistake 300 million euros (427 million dollars) to Lehman Brothers after it had collapsed, Berlin admitted on Wednesday. "We are working to shed light very quickly on this technical fault," finance ministry spokesman Torsten Albig said. The transfer happened on Monday after the US investment bank had filed for bankruptcy protection.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was quick to blame the bankruptcy of Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers on Republicans’ “failed philosophy”. Obama’s September 15 comments were repeated throughout the media--yet reporters have not noted Obama’s glaring conflict of interest—the Lehman debt owed to a bank owned by the financier who loaned millions of dollars to Tony Rezko.

Al Gore’s carbon trading business GIM was banked with Lehman Bros. It will be interesting to see how this will play in the future but I suspect that this increases the risk of participating in Carbon trading. Merrill Lynch, was also deeply involved in this business. Last year Lehman Brothers released a long and highly publicized report about climate change in which they preached about decarbonization, trying to make their investors keep getting high profits from the Kyoto carbon trade scheme and the support of huge public subventions. All that, of course, with the applause of the usual choir...

What a sad day it is for America when an op-ed columnist feels obliged to describe politicians as brave for not using taxpayer dollars to bail out a collapsing company.As Avinash Persaud writes in today's Financial Times:It was a brave decision. By abandoning Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old piece of Wall Street furniture, and refusing to remove their hands from their pockets when Merrill Lynch came calling, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and New York Fed Governor Tim Geithner had one of the busiest weekends of dispassion on record.Imagine that: in the U.S. big businesses are actually allowed to fail.What a...

One of the original and largest money market funds has put a seven-day freeze on investor redemptions after the net asset value of its shares fell below $1, in a rare instance in the fund industry of what is called "breaking the buck." Primary Fund (RFIXX), managed by New York-based money market fund inventor The Reserve, said late Tuesday that its $785 million holding of Lehman Brothers Holdings debt has been valued at zero. As of 4 p.m., Eastern, the value of the fund's share was 97 cents. The Reserve said that redemption requests received before 3 p.m. will be...

... A year ago they couldn't predict their bankruptcy but were predicting the climate 100 years ahead... Theodore Roosevelt IV is Managing Director at Lehman Brothers ... He is Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change ...[more]

Lehman Brothers staff are trying to make some money out of the dramatic collapse of the bank by auctioning off company memorabilia on eBay. * * * Goods up for grabs on the internet auction site include "Lehman Brothers messenger bag and notepad" and a white Lehman coffee mug that bears the slogan "Where vision gets built". Beneath the photo of the satchel is the comment from the seller: "I worked here for half of my career. Bought most of my stock at a weighted average price of $45 (£26). Enough said. "I guess all you employed people could use...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Reserve Primary Fund, a money-market mutual fund whose assets have tumbled 65 percent in recent weeks, fell below $1 a share in net asset value, because of its losses on debt issued by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). In the industry, money funds whose net assets drop below $1 a share are said to have "broken the buck". The Reserve Primary Fund had about $23 billion in assets on Tuesday, down from about $65 billion in assets as of August 31, said fund spokesman Ming Lee Hatch. Investor redemptions will be...

In a stunning turn, the Federal Reserve Board is lending as much as $85 billion to rescue crumbling insurer American International Group, officials announced Tuesday evening. The Fed authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) up to $85 billion. In return, the federal government will receive a 79.9% stake in the company. Officials decided they must act lest the nation's largest insurer file bankruptcy. Such a move would roil world markets since AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) has $1.1 trillion in assets and 74 million clients in 130 countries. "disorderly failure of AIG could...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Born to serve cotton farmers in simpler times, Lehman Brothers grew into a financial high roller that succumbed to the recklessness that has immersed the world's financial markets in a morass of toxic mortgages and crumbling home values. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s demise, sealed Monday with a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, served as another chilling reminder of the severity of a mortgage meltdown that began two years ago. Founded 158 years ago in Alabama by three brothers, Lehman had survived the Civil War, two world wars, the Depression, a currency crisis and the 2001 terrorist attacks that...

Wall Street's grim news has plenty of people worried about their pocketbooks. Lawmakers are among them, not only concerned with how to boost the economy but with their own personal finances tied to companies that are struggling. The richest members of Congress seem to be the most invested in the companies at the center of the Wall Street shake-up. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, nine lawmakers have between $785,900 and $1.8 million of their own money invested in Merrill Lynch, the brokerage firm that agreed over the weekend to sell itself to Bank of America for $50...

LONDON Barclays PLC was close to a deal to acquire a large chunk of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s U.S. operations for just under $2 billion, according to people familiar with the situation. The deal, for now, would allow Barclays, the U.K.'s third-largest bank in terms of market value, to buy Lehman's U.S. broker-dealer unit a day after parent Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Barclays had been in talks over the weekend to buy the entire firm before walking away because Barclays couldn't obtain U.S. government support for Lehman's $85 billion in souring assets or backing for...

They called him the Gorilla – the brawler known as the scariest man on Wall Street. In a world where the top brass are generally suave, no wonder Dick Fuld stood apart. Mr Fuld, 62, joined Lehman Brothers in 1969 after his first career as an air force pilot came to an abrupt halt when he got into a fist fight with a commanding officer. He tough-talked his way to the top and turned a $102 million loss in 1993, the year before he took over as chief executive, into a $4.2 billion profit last year. Along the way, he...

Commodities ravaged as traders flee risk Leo Lewis, Asia business correspondent Surging fears of Armageddon in the global financial system ravaged a wide selection of commodities across Asia as groups ranging from hedge funds to day traders spent the day in a headlong flight from risk. The shock waves from the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers reverberated through markets for vegetable oil, soy beans, rubber and industrial metals as confidence in the financial system faltered, global growth prospects dimmed and cash became king. Broad baskets of commodities — once seen by speculators as a sure-fire bet because of China and India’s...

LONDON (Reuters) - The bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers (LEH.N) is another blow for the hedge fund industry, though the writing has been on the wall long enough for many to have reduced their exposure to the U.S. investment bank. Legendary fund manager George Soros, who runs around $18 billion in assets, looks likely to have had his fingers burned after raising his stake in Lehman to 9.5 million shares in the second quarter. A spokesman for Soros Fund Management declined to comment on the composition of their portfolio. British activist hedge fund Algebris will also probably have taken a...

The blast furnace known as the finance industry that has stoked the economies of New York and London for decades is rapidly cooling. Both cities have relied heavily on the securities industry for jobs, taxes and a prosperity that has lifted restaurants, stores, auto sales, fashion, entertainment and a wide range of other businesses. The future of that largess is in doubt a year into the credit crunch, with the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. adding to the thousands of jobs already lost -- and the likelihood that more will...

NEW YORK: Governor David Paterson of New York said on Monday that the state would allow the American International Group, one of the world's largest insurance companies, to lend itself $20 billion to bolster its capital as it faces potentially disastrous credit downgrades. Shares in AIG tumbled more than 60 percent early Monday as investors grew concerned that the firm lacked capital to withstand cuts to its debt rating. But Paterson reiterated the state's support of the company and declared AIG "financially sound." The company approached the state for help, Paterson said, and government officials worked closely with AIG throughout...

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Monday night was negotiating a last-minute plan to sell large portions of itself to Barclays PLC, the U.K. bank that has been circling the U.S. investment house. Barclays Americas Chairman Archibald Cox Jr. was leading the talks, and an agreement is hoped to be reached by Tuesday, said a person involved in the talks. Lehman's top executives were huddled at the bank's Manhattan headquarters trying to craft a plan that would preserve many Lehman jobs and operations, say people briefed on the discussions. A deal wasn't certain, and many questions remain, chief among them, the price...

S. Korea orders Lehman Brothers to halt operations SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean operations of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. were halted by the nation's financial regulator on Tuesday, a day after America's No. 4 investment bank filed for bankruptcy. In Seoul, stock prices fell sharply and the Korean currency's value against the U.S. dollar nosedived as concerns escalated about the soundness of the U.S. financial system amid news that U.S. insurance giant American International Group Inc. was struggling to survive. In the wake of the growing unease, government officials have tried to calm the markets, saying the...

Turmoil hits Asia, Hong Kong, Seoul deep in the red By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch Last update: 11:41 p.m. EDT Sept. 15, 2008 Comments: 54 HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Markets across Asia were blasted by a wave of selling Tuesday, with creditors of Lehman Brothers among the leading decliners, followed by consumer export shares,

We literally feel our readers' pain for today's 504 point drop in the DJIA because of Lehman Brothers' impending collapse on the stock market, because it impacts our own investments. However, we will shed no tears for Lehman Brothers itself, and we are not particularly surprised that it is going south. Furthermore, even if Lehman Brothers disappears tomorrow, it will in no way affect the United States' remaining ability to create genuine wealth. Henry Ford told us long ago that there are exactly three ways to create wealth: mine it, grow it, or make it, but Lehman Brothers apparently had...

Lehman employees in London were seen leaving carrying boxes filled with Lehman swag--which might fetch a pretty penny on eBay. After the firm detonated their shares and bonuses, it's the least they could take:

Lehman Brothers survived the American Civil War, two world wars and the Great Depression, but today, Monday, the firm that set the standard in fixed income markets will be liquidated. Potential losses are so toxic that none of the major financial institutions was willing to acquire it. Lehman’s demise follows the failure last week of the two American mortgage guarantee agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is remarkable that the US authorities, exhausted from their efforts to bail out the mortgage guarantors and other firms, have left Lehman to its fate. An enormous hoax has been perpetrated on global...

Obama has raised a full $395,574 from employees and PACs of the now-bankrupt Lehman brothers, second only to Hillary Clinton. Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer did quite nicely too; McCain is seventh among the firm's favorite pols (though its favorite Republican), having raised $145,100, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Wall Street crisis: Is this the death knell for derivatives? On page 62 of last year's accounts, under the heading "off balance sheet arrangements" Lehman had derivative contracts with a face value of $738bn Nils Pratley guardian.co.uk, Monday September 15 2008 09:18 BST If this is the death of Wall Street as we know it, the tombstone will read: killed by complexity. Derivatives in their baffling modern forms – collateralised debt obligations, credit default swaps and so on – lie at the heart of the failure of Lehman, Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, and even our own Northern Rock. The...