His mother, Gu Kailai, has been detained on suspicion of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood, while his father, Bo Xilai, has been stripped of his Communist Party Politburo seat and placed under investigation for disciplinary violations. Last month, Bo Guagua issued a statement expressing concern for his parents and denied reports about his lifestyle, saying he had never driven a Ferrari, for example. The scandal surrounding his family unfolded in early February after Wang Lijun, the police chief of Chongqing in southwest China, entered the US Consulate in nearby Chengdu. According to British officials, he made allegations while in the consulate about the suspicious death of Briton Neil Heywood, a close associate of Mrs Gu. Bo Xilai was the party boss of Chongqing at the ... Continue reading →

Showing Goldman how Twitter works… Posted by Joseph Cotterill on May 24 16:10. Trouble getting this stuff through compliance…? Just the one tweet so far from Goldman Sachs on its own shareholder meeting. Fortunately the FT’s US Financial correspondent (and former Alphavillain) Tracy Alloway is there and has been getting the juicy stuff. So excuse us while we go all hypermeedja. Enjoy (read from the bottom up): Related link:Goldman’s repo “optimizer” – FT Alphaville This entry was posted by Joseph Cotterill on Thursday, May 24th, 2012 at 16:10 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with goldman sachs, navel-gazing, twitter, US banks. Edit this entry. Continue reading →

By Emily Flitter NEW YORK | Mon May 21, 2012 2:43pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - China can now bypass Wall Street when buying U.S. government debt and go straight to the U.S. Treasury, in what is the Treasury's first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government, according to documents viewed by Reuters. The relationship means the People's Bank of China buys U.S. debt using a different method than any other central bank in the world.The other central banks, including the Bank of Japan, which has a large appetite for Treasuries, place orders for U.S. debt with major Wall Street banks designated by the government as primary dealers. Those dealers then bid on their behalf at Treasury auctions.China, which holds $1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, still ... Continue reading →