FINANCE
• Credit crunch, what credit crunch? Goldman’s record profits, which involved somehow shorting the mortgage market, have left a bonus pool of $17 billion, even larger than last year’s record. [WSJ, DealBreaker]
• The surge in the markets aside, the Fed rate-cut had one immediate bad effect: The Canadian dollar, a.k.a. the Loonie, pulled even with U.S. greenbacks for the first time since 1976. The euro also pushed past $1.40, another record. [NYP]
• It’s tough out there for a billionaire: While sixty-four New Yorkers made Forbes’s list of the 400 richest Americans, eighty-two Americans failed to make it with their paltry billion dollars. [AP]
MEDIA
• Joanne Lipman went on a little S.I. Newhouse–approved hunting expedition and poached Jacob Lewis, managing editor of The New Yorker, to take over as second in command at Portfolio. [NYP]
• Ted Turner took another potshot at rival mogul Rupert Murdoch, referring to the Iraq fiasco as “Rupert’s war.” [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• Former Pakistani Prime Minister, and likely future PM, signs book deal with HarperCollins. No, that’s not confusing. [NYP]
LAW
• As expected, Melvyn Weiss was indicted in the long running Milberg Weiss investigation. Another name partner, Steven Schulman, helped make the indictment possible, while old friend Bill Lerach pleaded guilty but declined to rat out his colleagues. [NYT]
• One reason Sullivan & Cromwell is restricting their new bonus-pool to senior associates: “If you raise salaries across the board, junior associates will leave faster because they will have paid off their loans sooner.” [Law Blog/WSJ]
• Forget associates, how are those New York legal bonuses looking for partners this year? [Above the Law]
FASHION
• Breaking news! Stefano Pilati is…staying put at YSL. The designer signed a multi-year deal with Gucci group. [FWD]
• Legano, Italy, is renaming part of the city after the late designer Gianfranco Ferré. [British Vogue]
• Thakoon’s pairing up again, this time with eco-line People Tree, launching in the U.K.[Fashionista]
