Vultures take to the Squawk Box

John Kanas is Chairman and CEO with Bank United. Oliver Sarkozy, brother of Nicolas Sarkozy, is on the board of Bank United and Managing Director of the Carlyle Group, buying troubled financial institutions around the world. When financial players toss around figures, numbers seem to enter the realm of the imaginary. Indeed, we live in a world devised around many fictions where livelihoods become statistic rather than actual tangible reality.

While "urgent action is needed" in the global economy today, you'll not find any of the profiteers offering genuine solutions other than that of extended borrowing and further bail-outs. Those making such pleas are generally on the ground protesting while being ridiculed for expressing their opinions. And as long as the rich are still able to siphon off the lowest tiers (where wealth is created) it's business as usual, at least until the rigged game is finally revealed for what it is.

Video here: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000051803

What's John Kanas up to? (May 2010)

By Steve Cocheo, executive editor, scocheo@sbpub.com

The former CEO of North Fork Bank and his private equity partners is converting Florida’s BankUnited, a failed S&L, into “North Fork South,” using the same aggressive tactics he used in New York.

John Kanas and a group of private equity players—with help from FDIC—work to remake Florida’s failed BankUnited using the North Fork Bank playbook

John Kanas isn’t one for apologies. He brings a New Yorker’s direct attitude and action to the Florida banking market. His $11.1 billion-assets BankUnited, since its recapitalization after closure, has made a very public effort to snatch up bankers from other organizations who can help the reborn savings institution build and transform its business. When told that a Florida community banker accused BankUnited of “lack of decorum,” Kanas smiles, raises his hand, and says, “Guilty.”

“Look,” says Kanas. “Banking is changing. For many years the relations between bankers have been collegial, fraternal. Times are different today. Our job is go find the best possible employees we can, and put them to work managing our capital base, and turning their work into successful results. Unfortunately for some of our competitors, some of our people used to work for them. And we have been aggressive going after them.”

Kanas has never been shy in this regard. He built North Fork Bancorporation into a major New York-area player and the sixteenth-largest bank in the country from a community bank in rural Long Island. He accomplished that, in part, by courting commercial lending “rainmakers.”

BankUnited actually ran ads in 2009 urging Florida bankers who wanted to enjoy their work again to fill out a coupon in the ad to resign, and come to join Kanas.

Continued here: http://www.ababj.com/profiles/what-s-john-kanas-up-to-may-2010.html

Politicians backlash at the thought of doing anything for a change

The Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou , was forced to retract a call for a referendum to deal with its massive looming debt crisis. It's not that the attempt would have amounted to very much, actually (aside from giving the people of Greece a chance to direct their own fate)--it's the simple thought of having to do anything at all that has troubled world leaders, and the possibility of Greece exiting the Euro Zone. The European leaders are clinging to notions of keeping the EU as one, just the same as American leaders wish to keep the "too big to fail" banks from failing. While the small local banks are allowed to fail, it is the large corporate banks at the center of the mess that are reaping the rewards and have received the lion's share of aid from the tax-payers, most of which will never be paid back.

Greece is at the front lines of the greater economic crisis, while the United States is not far behind (with riots, tire burning, and increased police crack-downs likely to come). But as long as the great illusion is perpetuated, things will be stretched out a little further, perhaps until sometime in 2012 or 2013. It's difficult to say for sure--it was actually a wonder the house of cards didn't fall back in 2008 (faith is obviously a very strong force). We've become complacent living in the present and recent past, confident that nothing will change despite our unsustainable lifestyles.

From the looks of it, we can expect the Occupy Movement to stick around a little while longer, and possibly even rebound more strongly after winter, if for no other reason than the dynamic must change but those at the top are in place to resist change.

Finance

BREAKING NEWS:

This just in: everyone is full of crap. Yeah, and so what? Human nature is centered around the basic premise that GREED IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT, BABY! Hallelujah! Tune out, go see another Hollywood film, and shut your mouth.

Now moving on along...

Financial Sense - It starts in the Work Place

Financial sense should dictate all action at home and in the work-place. And in every miscreant there is a good manager in training. Thankfully, we put all our trust in false idols and the cult of personality to foster cultural education and training. If one is gregarious, there are any number of groups designed to facilitate the furtherance of oppression and guilt outside of the church (separation of church and state). Go look them up! The economy is not in trouble, like many well-intending individuals would have you believe, in fact it is quite the opposite: there are many decently paid women today with staplers as heads that can not get enough clerical work. There are the elderly who are unemployed, so they offer themselves up as door-stoppers in busy office spaces, and likely are paid very well I might add. All work is meant to bore you into complacency and then, ultimately, death--a basic truth that shall not be taken for granted. But it is those who rise above that of the common employee, who, reaching the apogee of their perceived orbits, stop to ask the question: but how can I rise even higher? And the answer is always to either hire another manager or create a new rule for the work-place. When it comes to working with stubborn employees, it can be a little trying on the patience. Just how does one pull lemons from a bull, you might ask? (Answer: directly through its ass). Termination is usually a step of last resort, but if a life must be ended--so be it--think of it as creating more job opportunities for the unemployed and lazy classes.

And that is your financial sense for today.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

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