♦ Stock futures were down on Wednesday morning as investors focused on the challenges facing President-elect Obama. Yesterday's gain, however, was the largest Election Day rally in 24 years. [Reuters, NYT]
♦ The former chief risk officer at Bear Stearns is now a senior official at the Fed where he's part of the division that supervises U.S. banks. [DB]
♦ US companies cut 157,000 jobs in October. [Bloomberg]
♦ Horror of horrors: The average Goldman partner may take home a bonus of $1 million or less this year. [FT]
♦ One of Goldman's flagship hedge funds, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, has lost close to $1 billion since January. [FT]
♦ UBS posted a third-quarter profit, but it still laid off 700 U.S.-based employees last week. [CNNMoney, NYP]
The Observer has a round-up of some of the New York-based FOB's (or Friends of Barack) who are expected to have a major voice in Washington if the Democratic nominee wins the election next week. Who, exactly? Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, and Richard Holbrooke should all have a place at the table, assuming any of them are interested. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon will almost certainly have Barack's ear, as will New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, who is believed to be a contender for Treasury Secretary. Some of the lesser-know figures who will be on speed dial: Citi exec Michael Froman; Jamie Rubin (the son of Bob); Jeh Johnson, an attorney at Paul, Weiss; Josh Steiner, a private equity pro who works with Steve Rattner; former Lazard exec Josh Gotbaum; law professor Seth Harris, financier Orin Kramer; Robert Wolf, the CEO of UBS Americas, and Preeta Bansal, a partner at Skadden, Arps. [NYO]
These three women were all once married to prominent local politicians. Know who they are? Answers after the jump.
Attention, natives of Puebla residing illegally in Bergen County: Lou Dobbs may be running for Governor of New Jersey! CNN's most unrepentent xenophobe is mulling a gubernatorial bid, the Newark Star-Ledger reports today. Dobbs, whom a few like-minded immigrant-haters unsucessfully tried to persuade to run for president this year, is said to be considering a run against Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine, who is now saddled with a 52% disapproval rating. The normally voluble commentator isn't commenting on the rumors, but many state Republicans want nothing to do with the idea. One local GOP operative, David Norcross, calls the prospect of Dobbs in the Governor's Mansion "dreadful." In the unlikely scenario Lou does run and win, Gov. Dobbs may not go so far as to personally escort New Jersey's illegals out of the state, but you can rest assured he won't be offering them driver's licenses anytime soon.
Banker-turned-politician Jon Corzine is the former Governor of New Jersey who decamped to ill-fated MF Global Inc. in 2010.
Did Jon Corzine ditch the aide who survived his near-fatal wreck with him because he was getting "too close" to the "tall and attractive" 25-year-old? Page Six conveys rumors and innuendos that the New Jersey governor's 62-year-old girlfriend was apparently suspicious of the relationship. (And our favorite rumor: that the aide was sitting with Corzine in the back seat during the crash.) Our take: The guy has more money than God, he's the most powerful state executive in the country, and he's dating some broad who's two years older than him? Public service really is a thankless task. [NYP]
What do you get the employee who survives a brutal high-speed accident with you? Well, New Jersey governor Jon Corzine may be retaining the same driver who was behind the wheel during his vicious crack-up back in April, as the AP says—but he won't retain the traveling companions. We hear Samantha Gordon, the Huma to his Hillary, his mid-20s body woman who emerged largely unscathed from the crash, has been reassigned from her job. In the crash, Corzine was supposedly in the front seat, and not wearing a seatbelt, unlike his primary aide Ms. Gordon, who, though also not wearing a seat belt, was in the back seat alone. Ms. Gordon did not return a phone call this afternoon. Sounds like a rough deal to us.
It's taken a while, but we've somehow shed our embarrassment about having grown up in the Jersey suburbs. (Our therapy included a combination of Springsteen and "The Sopranos.") So it was with some amusement, and a good deal of interest, that we read today's Cindy Adams love-in with Carla Katz. Katz is the head of the Garden State's Communication Workers union; more importantly, she used to bang the governor. She tells Cindy that, contrary to speculation, she's got "nothing on" seatbelt-averse Jon Corzine, who apparently proposed to her but then backed out when it became clear that he could leave the boredom of the Senate behind for the top job in Trenton. While Cindy chooses not to air the rumor that former New Jersey Senator and ethical weasel Bob Torricelli set Corzine up with Katz for the express purpose of getting something on the Goldman Sachs millionaire, she does give Carla the chance to explain herself.
Today's Times has a story on the reaction to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's recent injuries. Apparently, Garden Staters are concerned for their governor, but also resentful because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. How are the palpably angry Jerseyans feeling besides angry?
