Crooks I – Bastards

Goldman Sachs Hires Barney Frank Staffer To Be Its Lobbyist

In a move that will no doubt delight the Goldman Sachs (GS) conspiracy crowd, the firm has hired a staffer from Barney Frank’s office to be their top lobbyist in DC. Tim Carney: Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank’s committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese’s first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.

Crooks II – Let em go BANKRUPT!

 Citi and BofA may need more capital after stress tests

U.S. regulators are talking to Citigroup Inc about its capital levels after stress testing the bank, people familiar with the matter said, while The Wall Street Journal reported that Bank of America Corp may need billions in new capital. The reports sent Bank of America and Citigroup shares down as much as 10 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively, and hit global stocks already shaken by fears about the spread of swine flu.

Crooks III – NO Sympathy

UPDATE: Aetna: Recession Helping Drive Up Medical Costs

Job loss in the recession, or fear of job loss, appears to be prompting many Aetna Inc. (AET) health plan members to accelerate their use of medical services, helping to push the insurer’s first-quarter commercial plan medical costs to higher-than-expected levels, company officials said Wednesday. While Aetna exceeded Wall Street earnings forecasts for the period, posted strong commercial enrollment expansion and maintained its full-year profit outlook, unexpectedly high commercial medical costs as a percentage of premium revenue, or medical cost ratio, raised concerns about pressure on margins in Aetna’s commercial risk health plans.

Damn

Economy Shrinks At 6.1 Percent Pace

The economy shrank at a worse-than-expected 6.1 percent pace at the start of this year as sharp cutbacks by businesses and the biggest drop in U.S. exports in 40 years overwhelmed a rebound in consumer spending. The Commerce Department’s report, released Wednesday, dashed hopes that the recession’s grip on the country loosened in the first quarter. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a 5 percent annualized decline. Instead, the economy ended up performing nearly as bad as it had in the final three months of last year when it logged the worst slide in a quarter-century, contracting at a 6.3 percent pace. Nervous consumers played a prominent role in that dismal showing as they ratcheted back spending in the face of rising unemployment, falling home values and shrinking nest eggs.

Afterthought – Let youtube know what you think

YouTube to stream Obama press conference

YouTube announced plans on Wednesday to provide a live stream of US President Barack Obama’s press conference, its first live news event, and urged viewers to send in a video response.

YouTube’s director of news and politics Steve Grove, in a posting on the company blog, said the video-sharing website would stream Obama’s “100 days” press conference live on youtube.com/whitehouse at 8:00 pm (0000 GMT).

“You can join in the conversation by making a video: How is the Obama administration doing, and what advice would you give the president moving forward?” Grove wrote.

“Upload your thoughts to YouTube and add them as a video response,” he said. “We’ll feature some of them on our news page tomorrow.”