Marketplace Scratch Pad

Morning Reading

Scott Jagow Nov 11, 2009

Good morning. Plenty of rousing stuff to start the day:

A banker’s view of loan modifications (Mandelman Matters)

Banking: Not everyone gets a bonus (Businessweek)

The President’s economic team should know better (Investors.com)

Goldman Sachs abandons kittens (The Villager)

Before we get to the multibillion-dollar stuff, we’d first like to apologize that the firm has not yet paid a few thousand dollars of vet bills for the five kittens born in its headquarters building nearing completion in Battery Park City. In August, after our sister publication Downtown Express reported the kittens’ discovery, Goldman offered to pay the bills and encourage its employees to adopt the “BlackBerries.”

It may be just a matter of Goldman waiting to get the vet invoices — we can’t imagine they’d stiff kittens while writing out bonus checks worth $23 billion — but the cats still need adoptive homes.

Why are Bloomberg headlines so hard to read? (The Economist) Amen:

A few weeks ago, I was baffled by the following. “Sleep-at-night Money Lost in Lehman Lesson Missing $63 Billion”. But that was topped by two of today’s efforts: “Geithner Saying Be Like Bullish Buffett Can’t Make J P Morgan Boost Lending” and “Japan Tops China Buying Treasuries as Lost Decade Survivors Debunking Pond”.

Tweet your weight daily (LA Times) Good. Grief.

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