Preliminary Analytics | 11.11.09

• Be fair to Bernanke – Steve Rattner, former car czar, makes the case for the Beard. [WP]
• New Jersey Losing $22,000-a-Day With Swap for Bonds Never Sold – The Garden State owes the Bank of Montreal $23.5 million: “The sum, about the same as the salaries for 113 teachers over three years, will allow it to avoid a $50 million penalty for canceling the contract, which was tied to planned sales of school-construction bonds.” [Bloomberg]
• Chávez Spurs Bank Fears – The next big mess? ‘It’s going to blow…It’s just a matter of time.’ [WSJ]
• Petters Plans Appeal of $3.5B Fraud Conviction – “Efforts to recover money to compensate victims will likely net only pennies on the dollar, and prosecutors have not ruled out new charges against others.” [AP via NYT]
• The PCAOB Wants an Increase in Its Allowance – JDA, always wanting to be helpful, has some suggestions for the PCAOB. [JDA]

• BofA Seeks to Repay a Portion of Bailout – “Repaying this would mean BofA would no longer be considered an ‘exceptional’ aid recipient — a designation that has put it under a microscope by Congress and regulators, with its pay packages subject to review by the federal ‘pay czar'”. Ken Lewis isn’t going to take it anymore. [WSJ]
• Madoff Liquidator May ‘Claw Back’ Charities’ Fake Profits – ‘Picard has an obligation to the bankruptcy estate to collect all the assets he can find and in theory he has to treat everyone the same way.’ Most thankless job ever. [Bloomberg]
• Warning Signs: I Started Looking And The Bubble Burst… – Deloitte. Start listening. [RTA]
• Icahn Pares Yahoo Stake With Sale of 12.7M Shares – Deal is done. Might as well work on GTFO. [NYT]
• Corporate failures forecast to rise – “Insolvency specialists are forecasting a second wave of corporate restructurings to break in September as bankers and investors face problem investments.” [FT]
• IRS to Mine Payment Data on Mortgages – “The Treasury inspector general said in a Monday report that tens of thousands of homeowners who paid more than $20,000 in mortgage interest in 2005 either didn’t file a tax return or reported income that appears insufficient to cover their mortgage interest and basic living expenses.” GASP. Someone living beyond their means? [WSJ]

• Fed Chief Edges Closer to Using Rates to Pop Bubbles – However, don’t even think that the low interest rates were the cause of the housing bubble, that was due lax regulation, thankyouverymuch. [WSJ]
• Auditors Missing in the Financial Crisis — Readers Offer their Thoughts – “It’s not just that the Big Four tetrapoly fail the essential tests of insurability, although they do – because of sector concentration, unpredictability of losses and inability to quantify exposures. It’s also that if any such ‘super-audits’ actually existed, the auditors would surely be performing them already.” [Re: Balance]
• Tax Person of the Year – How Charlie Rangel was even a nominee, we’ll never know. [TaxProf Blog]
• Family Business Challenge: Attitude of Entitlement – “Someday all this will be yours” could have unintended consequences, like the kids screw up your life’s work. [The Exuberant Accountant]
• Small Biz Exemptions from IFRS? – A la SOx. [The Summa]
• Dubai’s “superscraper” makes history in hard times – After a couple of delays Burj Dubai is finally opening today and despite all the trubs in the Dubai lately, “experts” are saying that all 1,100 units are sold. [Reuters]