Free Republic

Excerpt - Sources: Grasso Ally Langone Mounting Bid for Archipelago Financier Kenneth Langone is mounting a rival bid to buy electronic trading platform Archipelago Holdings Inc. (AX), a move rich in Wall Street politics that threatens to derail its proposed union with the New York Stock Exchange, according to people familiar with the matter. The Home Depot Inc. (HD) co-founder and friend of former NYSE chief Dick Grasso quietly reached out to a number of Wall Street chief executives, asking them if they would be interested in participating in a counterbid for Archipelago. Mr. Langone, according to some of the...

Elliot Spitzer is running for governor. The attorney general who thinks he single-handedly cleaned up Wall Street now wants to clean up Albany. But the Spitzer model of corporate governance that worked so well for him in Manhattan won't work Upstate. Spitzer was able to "reform" Wall Street only because New York's financial luminaries care about their corporate and personal reputations. New York state's officials don't. Spitzer said Tuesday that he's running for governor to "make state government more responsive and accountable." That's a fine idea — and Spitzer's pithy diagnosis of Albany's woes is apt: "The system is broken....

<p>Dick Grasso resigned as chairman of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, offering to quit after the board held an emergency meeting to discuss the embattled chief's fate shortly after the close of trading.</p> <p>Mr. Grasso, under fire for what many on Wall Street called an excessive pay package that saw him walk away with $139.5 million a few weeks ago, tendered his resignation at the meeting, and the board accepted, sources say.</p>

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Live now on FNC ... Dick Grasso asked to resign, conference call ongoing right now.

<p>Blundering and clueless - those are just two of the more polite adjectives being hurled at New York Stock Exchange head Dick Grasso for his latest misstep. Grasso caused a firestorm of protest by nominating disgraced Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill to sit on the board of the world's most important stock exchange.</p>