Shhh! Wall Street is spending again.

[seafan]

After all, it's just our money.



David Enrich and Susanne Craig at the Wall Street Journal report:


November 29, 2009

Conspicuous consumption is making a comeback on Wall Street. But no one wants to admit they're doing it.

As traders and investment bankers near the finish line of what looks like a boom year for pay, some are spending money like the financial crisis never happened. From $15,000-a-week Caribbean getaways to art auctions to $200,000 platinum wristwatches that automatically adjust for leap years, signs of the good life are returning.
"What we're seeing in the last four to eight weeks is a fairly substantial uptick" in demand for extravagant purchases as Wall Street employees grow more confident that the market's steep rebound so far in 2009 will soon bring them fat bonuses, says David Arnold, senior vice president at Robb Report, a magazine targeted at the super-wealthy.

Flight Options Inc., which sells 25-hour blocks of flight time on private planes starting at $97,000, says sales in the New York area are up sharply in the past month because of the market's resilience. "People are spending money again, and they're starting to travel consistent with their previous habits," says Jay Heublein, vice president of sales at the Richmond Heights, Ohio, company.
One of the most popular routes: the three-hour flight from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, just a short ride from Manhattan, to Palm Beach International Airport, near second-home hotspots for some successful traders and bankers.

.....

The $3.9 million median sales price for luxury Manhattan apartments in the third quarter was down 2.9% from a year earlier but up 6.7% from 2009's second quarter, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
The world's chief auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's International, brought in about $596 million combined from their semiannual sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art in New York earlier this month. In comparison, their spring sales in May fetched $409 million.
Extravagant spending won't help Wall Street clean up its reputation, especially since firms rescued by U.S. taxpayers are rebounding much faster than the rest of the country.

.....

"We're booking a number of holiday parties, but have been told to be very discreet about it," says Fred Seidler, who handles sales for Terminal 5, a trendy Manhattan concert venue that doubles as a party site. In December, the cavernous waterfront space is on track for as many as 15 corporate events, pushing sales toward a 60% increase from last year. He won't identify any clients.
A senior investment banker at a major Wall Street firm recently planned to impress clients with front-row World Series tickets. The company, a recipient of U.S. government aid, nixed the plans, citing potentially bad publicity. The investment banker wound up schmoozing his clients about 20 rows behind third base at Yankees Stadium.

"We have to be cognizant of the fact that we will be judged in the court of public opinion," Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit told a gathering of employees this month. Christmas parties normally paid for by Citigroup bankers and traders out of their own pockets are being canceled due to the hostile political environment this year.

.....

.....

Sandy Heller, an art adviser who buys for SAC Capital Advisors founder Steve Cohen, says he is taking Wall Street clients to next week's major art fair, Art Basel Miami Beach. "We're not going to Miami so we can buy everything with a credit card," Mr. Heller says, "but as far as a broad mood goes, my clients are feeling more positive."

.....

"In September and October, things started to light up, and November was a fantastic month for bookings," says Tom Smyth, owner of St. Barth Properties, which rents vacation homes on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. A three-bedroom home with an ocean view costs at least $15,000 a week.

Robb Report's December issue featured an offer for buy two silver Mercedes-Benz sports cars: a fully restored 1954 model known as "the Gullwing," for doors hinged at the car's roof, and its 2011 counterpart. With a $1 million price tag, the package sold in 36 hours to a man the magazine won't identify.

More than a dozen people are on a waiting list at London Jewelers, a Long Island retailer that caters to vacationing Wall Street types, for certain watches made by Switzerland's Patek Philippe SA that track the moon's phases and cost as much as $200,000.
Demand for luxury watches has been gradually rising for months, says Candy Udell, president of London Jewelers. By May, people who delayed big-ticket purchases for fear of looking ostentatious were venturing back into pricey boutiques. "They couldn't hold back any longer," she says.

"They couldn't hold back any longer."

[Fumesucker]

1. SUCKERS!!!!

They cried a sob story, got bailed out by the taxpayers and now are partying again..

TARP: Proposed on Sept 19, 2008, enacted Oct 3, 2008

And let me add: Thank Gawd It Passed.

[leftstreet]

2. THANK GOD IT PAS....

nevermind

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. And NO ONE WILL STOP THEM, EITHER!

:grr:

[seafan]

4. Link to the Yea votes on TARP: Once again, Bernie Sanders was betrayed by Harry Reid.

October 1, 2008


Along with the rest of us.



Hell will be crawling with these bastards.

[loudsue]

5. It's sure not "trickling down" in my part of the woods.

:argh: I'm sick of this shit.

[loudsue]

6. Dupe

:kick: