Connie Loizos

I almost, almost feel sorry for Bernie Madoff, who apparently still has enough resources that he was able to hire, over the weekend, Herb Hoelter, the prison consultant to financiers Mike Milken, Ivan Boesky, former Sotheby’s chairman Al Taubman, and disgraced NFL player Michael Vick. Hoelter has managed to work a few miracles in his […]

According to our colleagues at Reuters, money manager Invesco and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross have just committed $1 billion to buy some of the so-called toxic bank loans and securities that are part of the government's new Public-Private Investment Program.

According to Hewitt Associates, European CFOs are making more money than their American peers. How much more? Twenty-five percent. Hewitt estimates that the median pay package for the finance heads of the biggest companies is, on average, worth $4.1 million per year, while CFOs of whatever is left of American blue chip companies make an average of $3.1 million. Hewitt points out another interesting distinction in its recently released report on CFO pay: in the U.S. CFOs tend to earn about half of what CEOs do. In Europe, that gap is far narrower; the median CFO makes almost 60 percent of what their CEOs are paid.

While I was sitting in a San Francisco courtroom this morning (jury duty), federal prosecutors in a New York courtroom announced that they’re going after the assets of Ruth Madoff, including a $7 million New York penthouse, an expansive Palm Beach residence, an oceanfront house on Old Montauk Highway in the Hamptons, and a home in Cap d’Antibes, in the South of […]

Ken Hill is someone whose acquaintance you really don't want to meet. If Hill shows up on your doorstep, or your hangar, it means that your airplane is about to fly away -- with Hill at the controls. He's an airplane repo man, and according to this interesting New York Times profile in this weekend's paper, he's looking at his busiest year yet. Last year, he says in brought in 50 aircraft, from Piper trainers to Gulfstream jets to his clients, banks that specialize in aircraft loans. This year, "it could be 100," he says.

"KKR Eyes Dead Billionnaire's Phoenix Group-Source" That comes from our Reuters news colleagues, who needed just seven words to make KKR sound like a firm full of soulless vultures. Story after the jump...

During a radio show appearance this morning, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg had this to say about a tax increase on the highest-earning Americans that will take effect in 2011: “We can tax the rich, except that, if you haven’t looked at the stock market lately, they aren’t making any money. “They’re not making that money,” […]

He’s no Madoff or Stanford, but comely actor Sean Connery may have bilked one of his close associates out of millions of dollars, too. Or not. According to the Daily Mail, next week, the Palais de Justice is summoning Connery to Geneva to address allegations that he swindled the family of Jean Rene, a once-close friend who borrowed money from Connery in the 1970s -- at a whopping 1000 percent interest rate.

I see I’m late in noticing this, but in case you missed it, too, Stanford University, that esteemed institution, is now teaching parents about Facebook, in order “to help kids reach their full potential.” (That’s not promising parents too much, is it?) B.J. Fogg, who founded the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford and is now an […]

This is interesting. It was just posted by John Hanke, the director of Google Earth and Maps: "As you read this, I am at the beautiful California Academy of Sciences, announcing the launch of the newest version of Google Earth. This launch is particularly special to me because it marks the moment when Google Earth becomes much more complete — it now has an ocean. Didn't Google Earth always have an ocean? Technically, yes, well, sort of. We have always