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Was Thompson's time in the private sector a conflict of interests?

Like most politicians, Bill Thompson is no stranger to the phrase "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." In 2009, then-Voice columnist Tom Robbins explored the connection between a $150 billion pension fund and Thompson's mayoral campaign against Bloomberg. As comptroller, Thompson used his position to help powerful friends in need, gaining in return, as his finances showed at the time, massive donations to snag the City Hall spot. Of course, Thompson lost to Bloomberg by 4 percentage points that November but, now, four years later, it seems as if his new mayoral campaign faces yet another potential conflict of interest.

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In January of 2011, President Obama selected New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in his State of the Union address to lead a banking crime busters force. The creation of the team came on behalf of the Democrat's disenfranchised liberal base, a sect frustrated with the lack of criminal consequences for the recession's architects. But, given that Wall Street, the epicenter of the 2008 financial storm, lies in Schneiderman's backyard justified the choice for him as its leader.

Since then, he's been on a serious streak with his legal weaponry; he's brought lawsuits against J.P. Morgan-Chase, he's gone after Credit Suisse for conning investors before the crisis and he's served subpoenas to the private equity firms of Romney lore. And yesterday, he continued that roll with news of Manhattan courts' next target: a lawsuit issued at Bank of America and Wells Fargo for circumventing a National Mortgage Settlement from last year.

It's the first time an Attorney General has brought a lawsuit under the settlement and it looks like it could be the largest action taken thus far by the Wall Street inspector.

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Reshma Saudani and Jack Dorsey at her Manhattan campaign launch.

Reshma Saujani, 37, and a quintet of journalists are tucked inside the green room at swanky Village cabaret, (Le) Poisson Rouge. Every so often a staffer or groomed coif of the NYC tech glitterati will poke around the door, but Ms. Saujani has staked out five minutes--not easy after stepping offstage with Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter.

"I'm a man of few characters, so I'm going to keep this very, very brief," Dorsey told the packed crowd earlier at Saujani's Manhattan campaign launch for public advocate Monday night. "We need more strong women leaders in this country. We need more revolutionaries. That is Reshma."

The daughter of Indian refugees who fled the regime of Idi Amin in Uganda, Saujani earned advanced degrees at Harvard and Yale, then moved to New York City with $200,000 in student loan debt. She interned at the White House during the Clinton administration, went on to work for Hillary's campaign, litigated for Wall Street, paid off those loans, and sent money home. She ran for Congress in 2009 (the first South Asian woman to do so) in New York's 14th district, and was then appointed to the position of Deputy Public Advocate. There, she created the DREAM fellowship to give undocumented immigrant students a shot at higher education.

She's not afraid of the F-word, either.

"Would you consider yourself a feminist?"

"Absolutely," Saujani tells the Voice backstage, with zero hesitation.

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No better time than a Wednesday to hear a headline we're unfortunately (yet willingly) accustomed to.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced yesterday that the collective pool of Wall Street bonus rewards is now up to $20 billion, showing a 8 percent rise in extra paychecks to the denizens of Downtown. And, to affirm this feeling of modern anxiety to lower-class lonely hearts, statistics point to a 10 percent drop (translation: 20,000 jobs) in the overall Wall Street job market due to companies' recent inclination to downsize.

In other words, there's much more money going around... just for less people.

Keep in mind that the average salary for a Wall Street worker is $362,900 - an amount that is somehow larger than what it was before 2008's financial implosion and, of course, five times larger than what most Joe Schmoes make. These numbers are from 2011, too; if the bonuses are any indication, the still-unavailable numbers from 2012 probably say what we're all helplessly thinking: maybe business school was the way to go.

Stay strong out there on this drenched Hump Day.

[jsurico15@gmail.com/@JSuricz]

If you're gonna clamp down on Wall Street, it's probably best that you choose someone who's been doing it for years.

In 1993, Mary Jo White became the first woman to ever become a Manhattan attorney at the federal level. During her nine-year tenure in the Southern New York district, she went after New Wall Street, drug traffickers (she led the prosecution of John Gotti) and, most notably, those behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Even though, at this time, the federal government was busy deregulating the financial services industry, White had a key role in enforcing the law on complex securities - many of which would eventually come full circle in the 2008 crisis.

So, it makes sense why, yesterday, President Obama chose her to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission; a group whose job (or, at least, what they're supposed to do) is making sure Wall Street plays by the rules. She'll be taking the reigns over from interim head Elise Walter. And what's most interesting about this selection is that it's the first time a prosecutor will be in charge of the agency.

But that might have its downsides...

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At the beginning of October, we reported on the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities' Group's first target, J.P. Morgan Chase. Started by President Obama and led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the task force seeks to reprimand the culprits behind 2008's financial implosion. Aside from the enormous SEC settlement with Goldman Sachs, it's the most comprehensive action taken towards getting to the bottom of Wall Street's actions leading up to what we now know as The Great Bubble. 

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Whether you're a part of the 47 Percent, the 99 Percent, the 1 Percent or some other slogan-driven demographic, this news should not surprise you: Wall Street is making a ton of money. Actually, it had its 5th best start of all time, doubling its profits from last year. In 2012 alone, the securities industry has a projected net profit of about $15 billion by the end of this year and it's already made $10.5 billion or so; in 2011, this number was around $7 billion or so, partly due to the economic turbulence in continental Europe.More »

Last January, President Obama announced in his State of the Union Address that a joint effort between state and federal authorities would aim to bring Wall Street's ass to court for civil fraud violations. Although the frustrated liberal base wanted jail time for the 2008 financial crisis, this legal move sought to collect fines from some of downtown Manhattan's top dogs. And to lead this bank justice team? None other than Governor Andrew Cuomo's successor, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.More »

Not satisfied with merely swindling ordinary Americans out of their money in the stock market, some of New York's Wall Street types also find it necessary to cheat their way through business school as well.

The New York Post reports that a "culture of cheating" is so pervasive at Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business, and concern about the issue is so nonexistent, that four former students have resorted to suing the school instead of attempting to go through university channels to address the problem.

The students (accountants Stacy Morton and Omo Isenalumhe, financier Daniel Carr, and studio manager Yana Nibelitsky) said that graduate students openly cheated on tests by looking at other people's papers, and professors would sometimes hand out answers during exams.

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Last night, DealBook posted the story of what happens when a bunch of high powered financial types get together to party. Thursday marked the "annual black tie dinner and induction ceremony" for Kappa Beta Phi (yes, like Phi Beta Kappa, only not), an invite-only, group for master of the universe-types like the former chairman of Bear Stearns and the chairman of the American International Group, which costs $475 a year in dues. The dinner took place at the St. Regis Hotel, and before reading on just note that members were warned: "what happens at the St. Regis stays at the St. Regis."

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