According to the examiner’s report, a little bit of both.

Has it come to this? The victims of financial scams by the likes of Bernard Madoff (Bernard Madoff news) and Allen Stanford (Allen Stanford news) are so numerous that they constitute a political force to be reckoned with. Victims have organized and have begun a lobbying effort to make it easier for them to recover stolen funds. They will certainly bring a lot of passion to the issue.

Now, before you get huffy and think: 'Big time baseball player touching boobs he's not supposed to,' just take a breather.

Even as the restaurant chain has climbed to new 18-month highs, it is the put trading that stands out in today's option activity.

The Treasury announced Wednesday that it has received net proceeds of $15.4 million from the sale of warrants it obtained as part of its investment in Washington Federal Inc. (WFSL) through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) during the height of the financial crisis. In May 2009, WFSL repaid the entire $200 million of bailout money it had received from the government.

This week, reinsurers such as Everest Re Group Ltd. (RE) and PartnerRe Ltd. (PRE) have provided their preliminary loss estimates from the earthquake in Chile and the European windstorm Xynthia.

The Daily Princetonian is running a very exciting 3-part series on “careers in investment banking and consulting.” The first article ran earlier this week. The topic was bull shit. Specifically the bull shit lies college students tell to make them feel better about their life choices.

Binya Appelbaum has the latest news on the shape of the consumer financial protection legislation which is likely to come out of the Senate:

Payday lenders, pawnbrokers, car dealers and other companies that make loans but do not hold bank charters would be shielded from the scrutiny of a proposed federal consumer protection regulator under the terms of a tentative compromise between senators who are attempting to craft a bipartisan bill.

A fascinating story via AP, which shows how difficult it is to simply read headline data and make a judgement. We see this happen every morning, when assessments of data are made within seconds of a headline crossing the screen, and billions in market capitalization are adjusted accordingly.

We've been lamenting the iffy state of fund raising for hedge funds and private equity firms as of late (private equity news). For private equity firms anyway, the other side of the shop, the deal-making side, is facing more uncertainty as well. Earlier this year, the industry was downright giddy about the prospects for more exits and more deals. But it's not really happening. The IPO market has been disappointing, which has muted the once high-flying expectations.