When the U.S. Was Big: The Ticker

For the U.S., 1950 was a far more perilous moment than the present. The world was still digging its way out of the most expansive and destructive war in human history. The U.S. confronted a powerful and provocative foe sworn to its destruction and armed with fast-growing nuclear capabilities. The USSR eagerly probed the globe– Greece, Austria, Iran, Turkey, Germany, Korea – for weak points in a western alliance organized and guaranteed solely by U.S. resolve.

Berkshire Says BofA Dividends Will Be Taxed at 14.175% Rate

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) said dividends on its $5 billion in preferred shares of Bank of America Corp. (BAC) will be taxed at a 14.175 percent rate because the securities will be held in insurance units.

Jain Fails to Repeat Deutsche Bank Debt Success With Equity

Deutsche Bank AG head of corporate and investment banking Anshu Jain.

Anshu Jain, the head of Deutsche Bank AG (DBK)’s investment-banking division, earned a promotion to co- chief executive officer of Germany’s biggest bank last month by cementing its status as a debt-trading powerhouse.

Wall Street Trader Hires Chopper to Flee Floods

People walk along a washed out section of Route 12 on Aug. 29, 2011 in Berlin,

With the bridges out in Pittsfield, Vermont, and its 400 residents marooned, Wall Street trader Scott Redler took matters into his own hands: He hired a helicopter and was back home in New Jersey yesterday afternoon.

Exchanges to Shed Sandbags as Irene Passes

U.S. flags fly outside the New York Stock Exchange after a large flag that hangs over the columns was removed in New York.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Citigroup Inc. (C), whose offices in New York’s evacuation zone for Hurricane Irene escaped major damage, are among Wall Street banks that will resume business today as exchanges open. Employees still face a gauntlet getting there.

Big Banks Bet Crude Oil Prices Would Fall in 2008 Run-Up, Leaked Data Show

The records of oil futures and derivatives trades in the first half of 2008 were compiled by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and made public Aug. 19 by Senator Bernie Sanders.

Just before crude oil hit its record high in mid-2008, 15 of the world’s largest banks were betting that prices would fall, according to private trading data released by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

The net positions of the banks undermine arguments made by Sanders that speculative trades on Wall Street drove oil prices in 2008, said Craig Pirrong, director of the Global Energy Management Institute at the University of Houston. Retail gasoline reached a record $4.08 a gallon on July 7, 2008, and oil peaked at $147.27 a barrel on July 11 that year.

‘Rockefeller Country’ Real-Estate Values in Maine Making the Rich Richer

The Rockefellers, the Morgans and the Astors, the most powerful Gilded Age families, knew how to pick real estate. The worth of the properties they once owned on Mount Desert Island in Maine has soared during the national real estate bust.

Americans watched their home values tumble an average of 29 percent from the start of the real estate collapse in 2006, according to the Federal Reserve. Mount Desert estates owned by the descendants of oil and industrial barons gained by almost the same amount, according to local records.

While the recession erased more than 8 million jobs and brought the home-construction industry to a grinding halt, billionaire Mitchell Rales bought a $5.5 million estate and tore it down to build a $25 million mansion on Mount Desert in Maine, the U.S. state with the highest proportion of vacation homes, according to new figures from the 2010 U.S. census.

“The upper end has survived the crash better than most,” said Gary Fountain, a broker at Mount Desert Island Real Estate in Bar Harbor. “There are still plenty of Learjets parked at the Bar Harbor airport every weekend.”