Ellisblog Awards!

Best Blog: Kedrosky.

Best Financial Collapse Site: Clusterstock.

NFL MVP: Peyton Manning. No question.

Best Obama Appointment: Robert Gates.

Best Performance Under Pressure: David Petraeus.

Best Vote Getter (against the tide): Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

Best Columnist: George Will.

Best Sports Columnist: Bob Ryan.

Best Golfer: Tiger Woods.

Best TV Show: Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Best New TV Show Host: Elvis Costello.

Most Remarkable Companies: Walmart, Apple, Costco, Google, ExxonMobil, Amazon.

Best Radio Talk Show Host: Mike Francesa.

Best CEO: Indra Nooyi.

Best Political Blog: Mickey Kaus.

Best Magazine You Never Read: Businessweek.

Best Movie I Saw This Year: The Cider House Rules.

Best Coffee: Porto Rico.

Best Hockey Player: Alexander Ovechkin.

Best Airline: Virgin America.

Best Explainer: Paddy Hirsch.

Best Movie Actress: Kate Winslett.

Best Hamburger: Louie's Lunch.

Best Mobile Technology: Blackberry.

Best Automobile Maker: Toyota.

Best Golf Column: John Paul Newport.

Best Financial Analysts: Meredith Whitney, Noriel Roubini.

Best Network: ESPN.

Best TV News Show: Charlie Rose.

Best Spy Novel: A Most Wanted Man.

Best TV Star: Tina Fey.

Best Airport: Denver.

Best Radio News: BBC World Service.

Best Rock Star Aside From Bono: The One and Only.

Best Chinese: Tse Yang.

Best Bagel: H and H Bagels

Best Fast Food: Cosi.

Best Wireless Network: Verizon.

Best Digital Camera Innovation: Flip Digital.

Best Political News Aggregator: Real Clear Politics.

Best Great Basic Camera: Nikon D-60.

Best Irons: Mizuno M-32s.

Best TVs: Samsung.

Best News: Lower Oil Prices.

Best News Story: Obama's Election.

WaMu!

“It was the Wild West,” said Steven M. Knobel, a founder of an appraisal company, Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson, that did business with WaMu until 2007. “If you were alive, they would give you a loan. Actually, I think if you were dead, they would still give you a loan.”

The New York Times has a lengthy report on the nation's most incredible bank, which collapsed this fall under an avalanche of loans that the bank extended to customers it knew could not pay.

Valerie Jarrett

Wasn't the big push to have Valerie Jarrett replace President-elect Obama in the US Senate really all about Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod not wanting her in the White House?  Isn't the white advisors/black advisors one of the unspoken fault lines of influence in the soon-to-be Obama White House?  

I think so!  

Blago ("who has the football?" -- the "football" being his hairbrush) had the opportunity of a lifetime to expand his influence by carrying out their wishes, but he was so blinded by greed and stupidity that he blew it.  Governor David Patterson (D-NY) won't make the same mistake. He's all over the papers saying that he won't be railroaded into appointing Caroline Kennedy.  He will eventually appoint CarolineKennedy, as the Obama team would like, but he will bank that favor and leverage it down the road.

The Decimation of Private Equity

The Boston Consulting Group has a forecast for the private equity business.  And it isn't pretty.  (via Clusterstock).

Bernie Madoff's Epitaph.

“It is not possible for him to atone for all the damage he did,” the rabbi said, “and I don’t even think that there is a punishment that is commensurate with the crime, for the wreckage of lives that he’s left behind. The only thing he could do, for the rest of his life, is work for redemption that he would never achieve.”   -- from today's New York Times.

More Fuel on the Wall Street Backlash Fire

American taxpayers have loaned literally hundreds of billions of dollars to banking institutions all across the country.  You might think that those banking institutions would feel obligated to account for how they are deploying those hundreds of billions of dollars.

As Jim Cramer used to say:  WRONG!  They're not telling and its none of your damn business.   Literally.

Per the AP:  "We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of,  'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

Bonus Babies

You can't make this stuff up.  You just can't.  It's gasoline on the fire of populist backlash against Permanent Washington's Bailout Agenda.  This backlash is fast becoming the most important movement in American politics.