Missing Links ~ Lost in the Shuffle

10CC ~ The Wall Street Shuffle

WSJ: The End of Wall Street

"The world had changed," said the Morgan Stanley spokesperson yesterday, and you can mark that down as the understatement of the year.

July 10, 2008: THE FINAL GLOBALIZATION OF THE U.S. BANKING SYSTEM

WSJ: Why a China Deal Didn’t Work Out for Morgan Stanley

John Mack turned to China for support in his most desperate hour and ended up getting in bed with the Japanese. Days of talks with China’s $200 billion sovereign-wealth fund to boost its minority stake in Morgan Stanley ended when the U.S. investment bank announced a deal Monday to sell a 10% to 20% stake to Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group

The deal means Morgan Stanley will be nearly a third-owned by Far Eastern investors, having last year sold a 9.9% stake to Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation (CIC).

China Investment Corp. Wants You

Job-seeking Wall Street types don’t have a lot of options. Cutbacks have eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. The number of investment banks narrows seemingly by the day. How about going to work for China? China Investment Corp., Beijing’s $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, is launching a new round of recruiting, aiming to fill more than 30 spots from macroeconomic research to stock picking. With Wall Street firms slashing payrolls globally, Chinese working for global investment banks may be tempted to take up public service and help the motherland invest its cash stockpiles. Hey, at least they’ve got a nice, fat balance sheet.

China Cuts Interest Rates for First Time in 6 Years

FEBRUARY 2008: China Investment Corp. hiring foreign fund managers

"The hiring is going smoothly," Gao told reporters at a pension fund forum in Suzhou, near Shanghai. "The asset classes we are hiring managers for include the cash market, fixed income, equity and hedge funds. "We will also be hiring managers for private equity."

According to media reports, CIC could plough about $4 billion into a private equity fund run by the former Goldman Sachs executive, Christopher Flowers, that will focus on financial institutions weakened by the global credit crunch.

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Norway, Singapore and Abu Dhabi are also among the more than 20 countries with sovereign wealth funds. The International Monetary Fund estimates their worth at between $2 trillion and $3 trillion, a total that it says could reach $10 trillion by 2012.

Some Western critics fear state-owned sovereign funds will not invest for long-term commercial returns but for political purposes, building up stakes in leading companies that will give them influence in politically sensitive sectors.

Paulson's Sheikh-Up Plan:
The United States has created the best sovereign wealth fund ever

September 13, 2008:

J.C. Flowers, which is led by billionaire J. Christopher Flowers, is seen as targeting Lehman's most toxic mortgage assets, which were slated to be spun off. He's got $4 billion from China Investment Corp. and wants to buy Lehman's debt for pennies on the dollar.

JANUARY 2008: Queens-born John Paulson makes fortune on home foreclosures

The publicity-shy Paulson, who is not related to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, eschews the workaholic Wall Street ethos and tries to get home to his $15 million townhouse on the upper East Side in time for dinner.

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His funds jumped by up to 600% last year. And the sultan of subprime predicts there's plenty of cash to be made by betting house prices will plunge further.

"It's still not too late," he crowed.

The global financial crisis will have minimal impact on Turkey, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday as he vowed to maintain strict fiscal discipline

EU mergers and takeovers for 9/22/08

EU executive fends off market regulation calls

The Army's Totally Serious Mind-Control Project

Russian mind control research behind DHS project

THE RAPE OF THE MIND

EU Influence Falls at U.N. as Russia Rises

A lawyer for a suspected Russian arms dealer urged a court in Thailand on Monday to refuse a U.S. request to hand him over for trial

U.S. prosecutors say Viktor Bout, arrested in Bangkok in an American sting operation after arriving from Moscow in March, has been trafficking arms since the 1990s, using a fleet of cargo planes to send weapons to Africa, South America, and the Middle East

Questioned whether he would sit down for face-to-face talks with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Obama told Radio Caracol Miami, "Of course. Spain is a NATO ally."

McCain Considers Zapatero A "NATO Ally"

Bush's U.N. Swan Song

Colorado:
PUBLIC School suspends 5th Grader for anti-Obamanable t-Shirt

ALL HAIL GLOBAL DHIMMING:

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll also showed majority support for Washington to take a new tack in foreign policy by talking to enemies like the leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar (Burma), Hamas and Hezbollah

BMW Jihad in the Holy City

PLO publishes Israeli "violations"

Fedayeen Islam claims responsibility for Pakistan attack

Fadayan-e Islam (also Feda'iyan-e Islam or in English "Fedayeen of Islam" or "Devotees of Islam") was an Iranian Islamic fundamentalist or Islamic terrorist secret society founded in 1946, by "a charismatic" 22 year-old "theology student" named Navab Safavi. Safavi sought to "purify Islam" in Iran by ridding it of `corrupting individuals` by means of carefully planned assassinations of certain leading intellectual and political figures.^[1] After a series of successful killings and the freeing of some of its assassins from punishment with the help of the group's powerful clerical supporters, the group was suppressed and Safavi executed by the Iranian government in the mid-1950s. The group survived as supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution of Iran.

Iraqi Shiites Torture With Drills, Sunnis Like Beheading

Supreme Leader of Iran said Israeli people are : “The army of Zionist regime. Muslims can not show friendly relations toward those who fulfill order of enemies of Islam"

Afghan envoy-designate abducted

CAIR to Release Report on U.S. Muslim Civil Rights

OIC: Protecting the Presidential Right of GENOCIDE in Sudan:

The head of an organization of Islamic nations on Monday urged the international community to proceed with caution in seeking to arrest Sudan's president on genocide charges. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir in July on charges he is behind attempts to wipe out three African tribes in Sudan's western Darfur province. The Arab League and African Union have already sought a United Nations resolution to suspend the International Criminal Court's indictment against al-Bashir. Speaking a press conference at the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, appeared to support their stance, warning it was important that the international community did not "head to a point we cannot retreat from." "I think we really have to be a little bit more prudent before we proceed more in this direction and I sense this is now the emerging consensus among different international organizations," Ihsanoglu said. "We have to give a chance to more negotiation for the Sudanese government to take more actions in the right direction before we have the international committee head to a point which we might regret."

Al Qaeda calls for jihad in North Africa

A Gift to all the Lebanese Muslims"

A Hezbollah delegation is due to hold a meeting with anti-Syrian ruling majority Saad Hariri at the latter's home in Beirut in the coming 24 hours to try to mend fences between the two sides, a source close to Hezbollah said.

"The aim of the meeting is to invite Hariri to meet with the movement's Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah," said the source who requested anonymity.

Sources close to Hariri confirmed that a meeting was due to take place "soon" between Hariri and Nasrallah. It would be "a gift to all the Lebanese Muslims at the end of the holy month of Ramadan", is due to end by September 30.

Siniora: No plan to disarm Lebanon's Hezbollah

Lebanese Sunni majority leader and member of the parliament (MP) Saad Hariri said Sunday that he was open for reconciliation with the Hezbollah, if it does not weaken his allies, the March 14 forces, An-Nahar daily reported Monday. Hariri's remarks were made during an Iftar banquet at his residence in Beirut

Clowns force Crypto-Nazis to flee their own rally in Cologne

I kid you not. Even Fellini couldn't make this shit up!

A weekend gathering in Cologne of far-right European extremists ended in farce when the main rally was cancelled as the organisers fled for their own safety.

Pro-Cologne, a group counting some of Europe's most prominent hardliners in its ranks, had intended to campaign against the construction of Germany's largest mosque, due to be completed in 2010 in the Ehrenfeld district of the city.

The building has attracted controversy because of its size, aiming to cater for up to 4,000 worshippers under a dome 37m (121ft) high and two 55m minarets - although they are shorter than the twin 157m spires of the cathedral that dominates the skyline of Cologne.

Politicians invited to the protest included Filip Dewinter, head of the Belgian Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party, Andreas Mölzer, an MEP from the Austrian Freedom Party, and Mario Borghezio, an MEP in the Italian Northern League. Two members of the British National Party were also in town, including Richard Barnbrook, its sole member of the London Assembly.

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Jump n' the Saddle ~ The Curly Shuffle