Thanks a lot, Morgan Stanley. At least you knew what you were doing…. But maybe not all your employees did.
Recent conversation with friend who traded derivatives at a big bank (not Morgan Stanley) went something like this:
Friend: (proudly) I believe in capitalism, that's what it is.
Me: What useful service was your bank providing?
Friend: Making money.
Me: For whom?
Friend: Kept me employed, good for employment.
Me: What about the blow up in 2008, what about the bailouts – was that capitalism?
Friend: You just don't understand, you don't get! I'll connect you up with the COO (or something like that), he can explain it better than me. The media is so unfair to us (angrily walks out of the room).
Source: myfrenchcountryhome.blogspot.com via Cici Bianca on Pinterest
Explosive Charge: Morgan Stanley Peddled Security Its Own Employee Called ‘Nuclear Holocaust’
On March 16, 2007, Morgan Stanley employees working on one of the toxic assets that helped blow up the world economy discussed what to name it. Among the team members' suggestions: "Subprime Meltdown," "Hitman," "Nuclear Holocaust," "Mike Tyson's Punchout," and the simple-yet-direct: "Shitbag."
Source: trutv.com via Jeanette on Pinterest
Ha ha. Those hilarious investment bankers.
Then they gave it its real name and sold it to a Chinese bank.
We are never going to have a full understanding of what bad behavior bankers conducted in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have failed to hold big wrongdoers to account.
We are left with what scraps we can get from those private lawsuits lucky enough to get over the high hurdles for document discovery. A case brought against Morgan Stanley by a Taiwanese bank in a New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan has cleared that bar.
The results are explosive. Hundreds of pages of internal Morgan Stanley documents, released publicly last week, shed much new light on what bankers knew at the height of the housing bubble and what they did with that secret knowledge.
The lawsuit concerns a $500 million collateralized debt obligation called Stack 2006-1, created in the first half of 2006. Collections of mortgage-backed securities, C.D.O.'s were at the heart of the financial crisis.
Keep reading: Explosive Charge: Morgan Stanley Peddled Security Its Own Employee Called ‘Nuclear Holocaust’ – ProPublica.
