It hasn't been all that long since Bernie Madoff was hauled off to prison and the family name remains as tainted as it was when the fraud was uncovered a year ago. But that isn't deterring Andrew Madoff and his brother Mark from looking into potential career opportunities in finance. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mark recently reached out to two contacts to see if he'd be able to find another job on Wall Street and indicated he'd be interested in working on a trading desk or in trading technology. Andrew Madoff is looking for a gig, too.

Last week, Bloomberg News columnist Alice Schroeder suggested that panicky Goldman Sachs bankers were "loading up on firearms" in the event a "populist uprising" broke out. But that's not the case, you'll be relieved to hear:

For a capital manager who's lost $6 billion in assets, Pete Thiel has an awfully rosy worldview: The Facebook investor is calling baby boomers the "dumbest generation" and, we hear, infuriating co-workers by calling for patience at his foundering fund.

When Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was exposed last December, most people were horrified by the massive fraud. Other people, however, took a little bit of inspiration from Madoff's exploits.

Dick Fuld is ready to restore his good name! The former CEO of Lehman Brothers and current Wall Street punching bag set up a new company a few months ago called Matrix Advisers, and now sources tell the Post that Fuld plans to use focus his energies at the firm on raising capital for small businesses. It's not quite as straightforward as simply apologizing and publicly acknowledging that mistakes were made. But why take the easy route? [NYP]

Goldman Sachs has been taking lots of heat from shareholders, pundits, and politicians in recent weeks. Now even Goldman employees are furious with the firm. The bank recently spent $15 million on two murals for its new downtown office tower—one by Franz Ackermann and another by Julie Mehretu—but employees don't particularly like either of them, and it's "all anyone who walks in can talk about." [Business Insider]

Remember those protests outside AIG last fall? Those angry hearings in Washington? The bus trips to visit the suburban homes of AIG executives. The populist anger has subsided a good deal since then (even if the bill to bail out the firm has gone up), which is probably why five AIG executives are now threatening to quit the company if their pay is cut by Washington. [WSJ]

The FBI is investigating possible insider trading at hedge fund SAC Capital, but the most outrageous thing to emerge from the case are allegations of how a perverse SAC manager tried to literally turn a trader into his literal bitch.

Hedge fund kingpin and mega-art collector Steve Cohen should be chilling out at Art Basel Miami right about now, eyeing the overpriced artwork he plans to add to the ridiculous $700 million collection that sits inside his ridiculous Greenwich compound. But it's unlikely the billionaire hedge funder is having a very good day. The painfully embarrassing lawsuit filed by a former employee of Cohen's SAC Capital in 2008—which involves, among other things, sexual harassment, sodomy, female hormones, and forced cross-dressing—has finally been unsealed for all to see. And it's quite a doozy, needless to say. [Dealbreaker]

Former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld has been out of sight for months now. (He's been spending much of his time holed up at his house in Idaho.) His problems, howver, continue, it seems. Over the past year, he's unloaded part of his art collection, sold off his apartment on Park Avenue, and given up his memberships at several high-priced country clubs. And yet he's now a bit behind on the $212,000 property tax bill for his house in Florida— the one, as we first reported, that he flipped to his wife for next to nothing last November. [TDB]

Wall Street is feeling flush, clearly. Yesterday afternoon, a "resurgent" Bank of America announced that it plans to repay the $45 billion in government aid it received during the darkest days of the financial crisis last fall. And while you might expect that Goldman Sachs to be on the defensive given all the negative press that's come its way in recent weeks, it's behaving in quite the opposite fashion according to the Wall Street Journal, which reports the bank has been meeting with its investors recently to convince them why its employees are totally entitled to record bonuses this year. And then there's Deutsche Bank:

Do be careful before chastising any senior Goldman Sachs execs you happen to come across. Alice Schroeder of Bloomberg News reports beleaguered bankers at the firm have been loading up on firearms recently and "are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank." En garde! [Bloomberg; photo: VF.com]

Goldman Sachs bankers are going to be out buying new Porsches and weekend homes in East Hampton just as soon as they collect their record year-end bonuses. But that's not what the rest of us are going to be getting this holiday season, at least according to Goldman Sachs. The firm's retail analysts say that most Americans—the ones that aren't getting seven-figure sums in a few weeks—should expect to see lots of crummy sweaters under the tree this Christmas. Thanks for rubbing it in, guys. [WSJ/Marketbeat]

It was once thing when politicians and members of the media were haranguing Goldman Sachs over its plans to pay out massive year-end bonuses. But now shareholders are getting into the act, too, a move that shows "how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors who typically shy away from debates over Wall Street pay." Naturally, these giant mutual funds aren't speaking up on principle. (They'd like to benefit a bit more from the firm's record earnings.) And whether they really plan to do anything about it is up in the air. But there's an indication that all the PR troubles that the firm has faced this week—and this may go down as the worst week in the firm's history from a public relations standpoint—are about to vanish instantly.

Citigroup has announced that it's raising salaries for several top execs at the partially government-owned bank. Fortunately, the list does not include Vikram Pandit, Citi's incompetent CEO. He'll continue to collect $1 a year for his services, which is still probably a dollar too much. [AP]

Ten days ago, John Reed apologized for his role in creating Citigroup. Now Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein is apologizing for anything Goldman did to precipitate the financial crisis: "We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret," Blankfein said at a conference today. "We apologize." Then he stunned the crowd by announcing that Goldman would be turning over its fourth quarter profits to feed America's neediest, which would still leave the firm with about $16 billion to pay out year-end bonuses. Just kidding! He's not that sorry! [Bloomberg]

There's good news, bad news, more bad news and more good news for Goldman Sachs today. Let's review, shall we?

Goldman Sachs is on track to turn in its most profitable year ever, and the bank's near collapse last fall—along with the financial system as a whole—is quickly becoming a distant memory for Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein. So why is he giving less money to charity than he did before the downturn?

Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, the former Bear Stearns execs charged with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud in connection with the collapse of the two hedge funds they managed, were acquitted on all counts in federal court this afternoon. So much for the "first major test of a U.S. effort to obtain convictions tied to the subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent recession"! [Reuters]

Looking for a job on Wall Street? Great news! Two weeks after JPMorgan revealed plans to hire an additional 1,000 brokers (a move that was quickly followed by the announcement that JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon's dad was joining his son's firm) comes word that the bank is going on another hiring binge.