Random Thoughts on the Financial Crisis
Will Hank Paulsen change the federal reserve web-site and place tombstones of deals they have completed this year to mimic other investment banks? Will he and the ex-Goldman crew make the leaderboards for M&A activity after this year has been completed?
Semi-seriously, now that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are banks and are in desperate need of stable deposit bases rather than short term loans that can be stopped and started each day, will one of them acquire Paypal? eBay’s stock is miserable and Paypal is perhaps on track to become the single most important business line of the company. And it doesn’t have dodgy mortgages on the balance sheet.
Will private equity workers still complain about getting taxed on their fees now that the government has shown such willingness to bailout bad bets? Or will the delicious taste of hypocrisy reign supreme once more?
Now that there are no investment banks and wall street is dead, will the industry’s best migrate to the safer confines of hedge funds/asset management? If so, will the name Wall St die and be replaced by the town of Greenwich?
Ooooh, now there’s an idea.