Michael Gracie

We have seen a flurry of telecomm deals in the past few weeks. SBC gets AT&T for the enterprise book, and MCI finds a suitor in Verizon (hopefully ending their saga once and for all). But does it matter?

The markets feelings on the situation swing between exuberant to non-existent, depending on whether the deal was a foregone conclusion (see Forbes.com: Stocks Narrowly Mixed on Verizon-MCI Deal), or what after-effects the signed contract will bring (SBC to Cut 13,000 Jobs After Buying AT&T).

Again, what benefits are we going to see? I suspect there will be some alternating pleasures and pains.
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A Guardian Unlimited report yesterday declared Citigroup embroiled in bond selling scandal. According to the report, a couple of traders on the other side of the pond purportedly exchanged a memo where they conspired amongst themselves to make some money. Can you believe it? Securities traders planning to make money. As far as I can see, the only stupid thing they did was talk about it too much before they actually did it.
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