8 Days That Shook the Financial World

(NEWSER) - Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the nation's last two major independent investment banks, have gotten permission to become bank holding companies, the Federal Reserve said tonight. A fundamental rearrangement of Wall Street, the move will allow them to create commercial banks, which would bolster their resources, while inviting increased regulation. It reflects the Fed's determination not to let Goldman and Morgan Stanley fail, the New York Times notes. More»

Geithner, Paulson face grilling over 'backdoor bailouts' for AIG clients

(NEWSER) - Two Federal Reserve governors expressed their unease about the Fed's rejection of a plan to force big banks to return $30 billion in cash they received from AIG before its bailout in late 2008. The officials warned that the decision to let the banks, including Goldman Sachs, keep the collateral they paid AIG on credit insurance contracts might be "a gift" to the firms, according to documents obtained by the New York Times. More»

Drop-off in corporate giving leaves groups scrambling

(NEWSER) - Charities used to getting much of their money from major corporations and private foundations are feeling the economic downturn, the Wall Street Journal reports. Bill Gates’ foundation plans to give fewer grants next year, and other large donors are honoring existing pledges but refusing to make new ones. “You can’t give what you haven’t got,” said AIG’s former CEO, a major donor. More»

Tough times prompt some soul searching, but titans confident they'll regain Wall St. primacy

(NEWSER) - With Wall Street in free fall, many of its elite I-bankers are seeing the status quo turned upside-down, Vanessa Grigoriadis writes in New York. Once at the top of the heap, working for companies that praised them as smartest people out there, some are fighting to survive on the Street, while others have reversed course, taking jobs with—gasp!—the government. More»

Wall Street chieftains were well rewarded for risks they took in 2003-07

(NEWSER) - More than $3 billion was paid to the chief executives of the five biggest financial firms on Wall Street in the run-up to the credit crisis, Bloomberg reports. While supervising bad mortgage-related credit bets that eventually brought the financial system to its knees, Merrill Lynch’s Stanley O’Neal took in $172 million in 2003-07, while Bear Stearns’ James Cayne took in $161 million. More»