Morning roundup: Facebook backfires, Madoff trustee gets rich

We’re committed to keeping you and your clients up-to-date with global industry news. Every morning, we offer articles from around the web. Here are some selections:

Facebook fail dashes Wall Street’s hopes

It was the one they were counting on. Wall Street hoped dearly the Facebook IPO would prove to be the medicine that would cure ordinary investors of their post-2008 stock shyness and bring them back to the markets.

Instead, pricing debacles, and technical issues surrounding the launch have reignited the fears the Street was hoping to salve. All this as it’s reveled technical glitches are delaying launch of new trading platform at Goldman Sachs.

Madoff trustee gets rich, while victims wait

It’s true a trustee has been appointed to track down funds to make victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme whole. But so far he’s only recovered $330 million for victims, while legal and other fees logged to date total $554 million. By 2014, the trustee estimates fee collections will total $1 billion.

Legal chief leaves RIM

With rumours of layoffs spurred by slipping BlackBerry sales and other factors, some key talent is already out the door at Waterloo-based Research in Motion. The firm said it lost $125 million in its last quarterly report.

How about a financial safety belt?

If you could make $4 million a year designing complex investment schemes, would you take a job paying a low-six-figure salary at a regulatory agency?

Of course you wouldn’t. And that’s a major flaw in our financial system. The people capable of spotting the kind of risky trading moves that bring down markets aren’t, and never will be, regulating the activity on those markets.

A potential solution – how about a financial safety board, made up of industry executives, regulators, and others with varied areas of expertise? Modeled after the highly successful National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aircraft accidents, such a body could bring practical field experience to keeping an eye on finance.

Enjoy your day, The Editors