Woo-hoo- I weigh less than Oprah...but I'm still not a strong black woman

So we finally saw our hot neighbor again Monday night. He is back from wherever he was and he had a woman with him. We both got all catty saying he could do better than her and she couldn't possibly fulfil his needs the way a man could, lol.

I got a text yesterday morning from RK; he got let go from my old employer. He was pretty senior as he started there a year after me and has been there the entire time surviving 3 mergers. It goes to show that no one on the Street is safe at this point in time and I don't think my side of the Street will be done with cuts until the end of Q1. The husband told me he heard his old employer was announcing more cuts by the end of this week.

I also read that the former CEO of BSC said the Wall Street model is dead now that his firm and LEH are gone and GS and MS turned into banks. I would have to disagree. It reminds me of Reagan's comment concerning the Democratic party and to paraphrase, Wall Street didn't leace them, they left Wall Street. I imagine in the next decade we will see new investment banks created and started to fulfill what BSC, GS, LEH and MS used to do. Along those lines I read where two senior SSG guys left GS. Gee I wonder what they are thinking of doing?

I read yesterday that Oprah weighs 200 pounds. It was all over YHOO. Seriously, that falls into the category about President-Elect Obama and his smoking habit- who gives a shit!!!?? We have much more important things to worry about.

So President-Elect Obama's old seat in the Senate from Illinois was put up for sale on eBay by the governor. Well not really but he might as well have done that after reading some of his tape recorded comments from the indictment. BP, the kid who used to work with me and I'd classify as a staunch Republican, and I were discussing if P-E Obama gets mired in this and I said I doubt it very much, he is too smart for that and after the Rezko incident I have to believe the Harvey Keitel type cleaners went through his closet and straightened it out. If he does we may witness an Electoral College fiasco. Remember, we vote for Electors not candidates. If I recall my American Political Systems course from freshman year correctly the person with the next most electoral votes would become President. That would be none other than Senator McCain.

Last night we had dinner with Ragnar and his bf Umberto. I was psyched because we had Indian for dinner. Indian wreaks havoc with the husband's innards so we don't have it all that often. We then went back to Hoboken and went to the local gays in the village night. We had not been there in about three months so it was good to go and catch up with some friends in town. On the ferry ride home the husband asked me why Jay Leno was all over CNBC. I said I had no idea and don't care as I am not a fan of his.

There was one piece of data out yesterday that turned my head and got me worried. The 1M T-bill auction was done and is yielding 0.005%- that is truly stunning. Basically investors are willing to get paid nothing by the government to lend them money! Why wouldn't you just hold cash under your mattress? Are there no animal spirits left? IT also illustrates the huge dichotomy between the credit markets and equity markets that is still out there. It will have to be rationalized at some point and my guess is equities will come down in line with credit as we all know credit guys are smarter.

A Dean & DeLucca opened up this week in my building. I know the first week of a new restaurant is always a horror show but they are still 0 for 2 as of now. I went in there Monday to get lunch. They were so disorganized and unprepared. I walked out after waiting 19 minutes, went across the street and saw a large number of people who had the same idea. Yesterday I stopped in for my afternoon caffeine fix. I got to the front of the line and asked for a large iced coffee. Sorry no iced coffee (even though it is on the menu) and maybe they'll have iced coffee today...