TPMMuckraker

The Daily Muck

Moe Tkacik May 14, 2009, 10:54 AM

A new cache of Treasury emails released by Judicial Watch reveals, inter alia, that Hank Paulson’s chief-of-staff was a guy named Jim Wilkinson who was nt only clueless — and this is, mind you, an entire month after the Lehman bailout — as to the names of the nation’s nine biggest financial institutions, he was clueless enough to put it in writing. But not so clueless that he didn’t understand that the administration’s decision to flow them a few hundred bil was a hit with the Dow Futures, bro! This guy makes Neel Kashkari look pretty awesome.

Also in the docs: Paulson used his “Texas Fed” strongman tactics with all nine big banks, couldn’t get ahold of McCain to brief him; JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon arrived 45 minutes early. [Judicial Watch]

We knew we’d find a way to link hemp-loving Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne to Jane Harman: they’ve both hired alleged pension scammer Hank Morris! [NYT]

You know how all the big TARP banks were whining about how executive compensation restrictions were causing them to hemorrhage talent and so forth? Turns out traders and bankers have been “surprisingly loyal” to their firms. [WSJ]

And that’s “surprising”… how exactly? [Bloomberg]

Did Ed Liddy really just tell Congress unwinding AIG FP at 100 cents on the dollar was Ben Bernanke’s idea? [Market-ticker]

Tom Sjoblom, the Stanford Financial lawyer who convinced the SEC that the pretty Laura Pendergest-Holt knew more about the business than anyone else at the company, has been “laying low” since he noisily quit the case in February. Because the SEC is planning to sue him too? [Business Week]