AIG

I hate to join the pile-on against Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm that everybody loves to hate.  But items like this make me want to pull out my hair in frustration.

    The Financial Times reports tonight that Goldman has apparently won part of the mandate to manage the initial public offering of AIG's Asian life insurance unit -- AIA -- in Hong Kong.  The offering is expected to be for $10 billion or more, and Goldman will be one of seven investment banks to sell it.

     As far as I know, Goldman didn't do anything improper to get this deal.  It's a big IPO, Goldman is a top player in the league tables and this is one of its core competencies. 

     But still.   Goldman Sachs, more than any other firm on Wall Street, has managed to profit on almost every angle of the biggest single trainwreck (AIG) in the biggest financial crisis this country has ever seen.

Could the Democratic debacle in Massachusetts derail Ben Bernanke’s Senate confirmation to a second four-year term as Fed chairman?

I wouldn’t bet on it, but I didn't think the Dems would lose Teddy Kennedy's senate seat either.   And  there is strong smell of panic among Democrats and a growing push to assuage popular fury on the right and the left.

With the Huffpost cheering them on, two more Democrats announced that they would vote against Bernanke.   Barbara Boxer of California and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin added their names to the official NO column. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, announced more than a month ago he would not only oppose Bernanke but put a hold on the vote.   By the end of the day on Friday, a spokesman for Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was saying Reid didn’t know if he could round up 60 votes to clear a filibuster and hadn’t himself decided whether to support him.