Image: Richard Drew/AP

New York native Valentino Carlotti is back in the U.S. to head up Goldman Sachs’ new Institutional Client Group. The exec spent five years as president of the bank in Brazil. Now, in the latest installment of Black Enterprise‘s Cool Jobs series, Carlotti talks with the site about his new position, which is playing a major part in the company’s sales and trading division. That division brought in 57 percent of the bank’s first quarter revenue.

“My new role allows me to leverage my knowledge of how to navigate the entire firm, and the strong relationships developed across the firm with the product and functional skills I have built over my career,” he says in the interview.

While the number of African Americans on Wall Street is “small,” Carlotti says it’s definitely an industry worth pursuing. To learn more, visit BlackEnterprise.com.

honeygerman.com

In the world of entertainment, relationships just seem to go downhill left and right.  Some end with very clear reasoning and some we’re left pondering…why?!  Of course, no one owes the public any explanation but on this day, I declare that we need to know why the couples on the next pages couldn’t make it last!

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It’s not exactly a shocker that white men are at the top of the economic chain on Wall Street, but the fact that their average earnings are more than double that of black women makes me want to go occupy something.

Here’s the breakdown of average annual salaries according to the recent Progress and Pitfalls of Diversity on Wall Street report:

White men: $155K
White women: $100K
Black men: $90K
Black women: $60K

The numbers are based on the 2005 to 2009 American Communities Survey and show a 15% increase in earnings for white men compared to data from the 2000 federal census.

Hmph. Cheers to the 99%. Did you suspect white men were banking that much more than black women on Wall Street?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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The national Occupy Wall Street movement has been heating up again — resulting in about 50 arrests in Boston and plans for a Manhattan “Millionaires March” to the homes of capitalists. The Occupy Boston arrests occurred early Tuesday. Police say the protesters ignored warnings to move from a downtown greenway near the place where they’ve been camping for more than a week.

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Apparently there was a major protest this weekend, but unless you happened to be in the vicinity or walking past it, you probably haven’t heard much about it.

This past Saturday, anywhere between a few hundreds to as many as 5,000 protesters (depending on the source) flooded into Manhattan for Occupation Wall Street, a multi-day rally, which seeks to peacefully “occupy Wall Street” and expose the disloyal, incompetent, and corrupt special interests, which have permeated our economy and government.

Inspired by the massive public protests in Cairo and in Madrid, these protestors organized online, mostly through social networking sites, with a little help from the activist hacker group Anonymous.  For the past three days, the protestors slept in sleeping bags in a park near Wall Street at night and held demonstrations in the morning. Today will mark the fourth day of the “occupation” where hundreds still remain beating drums, waving signs and chanting slogans such as “Wall Street is our Street.” Yet the three major cable news networks have devoted little to no airtime on this developing story.

Of course, you can watch the protest live online or you can read all about the details in alternative newspapers and online news sites.  However, the mainstream media, which reports daily on the happenings inside of Wall Street have seemed to bypass all the action happening outside on the streets of the financial district.  I mean when the youth in Eygpt and Tunisia decided to stand up and say they had enough, our media was there with round the clock coverage. So what’s up with that?

Perhaps there is a logical explanation on why the mainstream press, particularly the 24 hour news stations have chosen to ignore the protest – especially at a time when animosity for the Wall Street has reached fever pitch. Maybe the numbers weren’t big enough to warrant coverage? However, similar and yet sparsely attended Tea Party rallies in Washington, D.C, which were held in support of federal spending cuts, were rewarded with generous media attention. Yet in the past few months dozens of protests against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, killer drones, no-cuts to government spending, police brutality and other progressive causes have been carried out and I didn’t see any of those rallies getting coverage.

It’s hard to imagine that the mainstream media has been intentionally ignoring progressive causes while giving attention to the rallies of the extreme right. But consider that when a broad coalition of black activist groups, which had been spearheaded by the Nation of Islam, took to the streets to protest the bombing of Libya and raise awareness of social ills domestically for the Millions in Harlem March in New York City, there was no media attention.

The same could be said for the Israeli Tent City protest, which has been happening since early August.  Tens of thousands of protestors have taken to the streets in Jerusalem, Haifa and a dozen other Israeli cities in what they are calling a Million Man March to protest that country’s rising cost of living. And yet as bombings by Hamas makes news day in and day out in western media outlets, what is pegged as the largest demonstration in Israeli history since the Lebanon protest can’t get any place on the TV screen here stateside.

Any suppression of news is considered censorship and by ignoring antiwar and other far-left protests, not only is the mainstream media missing important stories and failing to act as the watchdog for the 1^st through 3^rd Estates, it is also propagating agendas, particularly corporate, right and centrist political agendas, which seeks to suggest that there is no visible opposition to the U.S. wars and other international and domestic policy issues.  This is why it is so frustrating for those in the far left, progressive and even the black nationalist communities, who have to sit and listen as pundits and commentators spout off about the lack of appeal for their causes within the general public when the unpublicized and unreported reality suggest something totally different.

Charing Ball is the author of the blog People, Places & Things.

by Selam Aster

Financial institutions like Lehman Bros have become the symbols of the recession but it’s important to remember that it wasn’t just the employees and the corporations themselves which suffered, but all the other surrounding businesses and non-profit programs which were buffered by their contributions.

New York Times highlights the plight of Operation Hope, the non-profit that provides resources such as financial literacy programs and home buying programs for low-income communities. Its financing has dropped 20 percent since 2009, leading it to shut down a counseling center in Boston and lay off 14 employees. The organization started by Los Angeles banker John Hope Bryant in 1992 utilizes “15,000 employees from banks and other corporations to teach financial literacy programs in inner-city schools and offer credit counseling to adults.”Although banks are recovering from the worst part of the recession, the fact that there are less banks results in less funding.

The New York Times cites that only $3 million of the $10 million promised by Lehman Bros in 2007 made it to the school. Besides decreased funding, banks have also opted to create in-house branded initiatives to promote themselves rather than donate to external institutions. Examples include Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and the Morgan Stanley Global Alliance for Children’s Health.

Wall Street is the main resource for organizations which work to promote financial health. Although Operation Hope won’t have to worry too much, as they’re one of the most endeared financial literacy institutions in the country, many others can only hope that the rebound of Wall Street will translate to continued investment in its non-profit initiatives.

(Amsterdam News) — One day at the beauty shop, Jennifer Edwards was reading the Wall Street Journal’s stock page when a beautician said, “I’ve always wanted to know how to read stocks.” Without hesitation, Edwards taught the beautician how in five minutes.  On a mission to bring Wall Street to Harlem, Edwards wants to educate the Black community about investments, stocks and financial planning.  Edwards is bringing one of the first investment firms to Harlem: Global Portfolio Management Ltd. She is CEO of the company and is a registered investment advisor, managing assets for individuals and intuitions throughout the world.  She holds Series 7, 63 and 66 certificates along with a health, life and disability insurance license, and her company was approved in May by the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, after spending years on Wall Street, she is ready to bring her work back to her uptown roots.

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By J. Smith

Gary Foster, a black man and former vice president at Citigroup, is being accused of embezzling $18.4 million from the Wall Street giant. It was a one man heist that involved a series of secret money transfers, that resulted in his surrender at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday night, directly off of a flight from Bangkok.

“According to a criminal complaint, Foster’s department financed loans and processed wire transfers within Citigroup. From May 2009 through to the end of last year, Foster siphoned funds from various Citigroup accounts, placed them in the bank’s cash account and then wired the money into his private account at another bank in New York,” The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

After helping himself to the company cash, he quit as VP of the treasury finance department in January before making a run for it. He had been travelling in southeast Asia when he heard that he’d been caught. He was released Monday on a $700,000 bond after appearing in federal court. Foster is now facing bank fraud charges that carry a maximum penalty of 30 years, the Herald reports.

At least this guy had the decency to quit while he was ahead, instead of being hauled out of his office for an even bigger spectacle. Either way, he obviously didn’t steal enough money to make sure he wouldn’t get caught.

(Wall Street Journal) — Federal regulators are blaming Wall Street’s biggest firms for the collapse of five institutions at the heart of the nation’s credit-union industry and are seeking to recoup tens of billions of dollars in losses on securities that doomed the five.  In one of the broadest accusations that Wall Street helped cripple financial institutions during the crisis, the National Credit Union Administration, or NCUA, has threatened to sue several investment banks unless they refund over $50 billion of mortgage-backed securities sold to the five institutions, called wholesale credit unions.

The NCUA is accusing Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit, Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. of misrepresenting the risks of the bonds to wholesale credit unions, which loaded up on the bonds in their role of investing on behalf of retail credit unions, according to people familiar with the situation.  Regulators seized the five wholesale credit unions in 2009 and 2010, inheriting a pile of battered bonds now worth only about $25 billion, or half of their face value.  The wholesale credit unions, also known as corporate credit unions, are at the heart of the nation’s credit-union system. They not only invest customer deposits but also provide services such as check clearing for nearly 8,000 “retail” credit unions—member-owned cooperatives that act somewhat like banks for firefighters, teachers and other workers who have something in common.

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By J. Smith

I see the banks just won’t quit until they’re officially public enemy number one. What do they want, a title or something? “Most Assaulting Industry in America,” maybe? Because of Congress’ ban on debit card interchange fees shortly after the bailouts, banks are understandably salty over losing the $16 billion they usually collect annually from charging retailers a fee each time a customer uses a debit card.

But of course, the banks aren’t going to passively lose money. JPMorgan Chase is considering capping debit card transactions at either $50 or $100, CNN reports. Yes, as usual, the customer has to pay up whenever the banks lose a dollar. In an emailed statement to CNN from Bank of America, “by increasing the cost of their everyday debit card transactions, limiting their payment choices and impacting industry innovation,” customers will feel the pain when Bank of America enacts its own measures to recoup costs from the slash in those swipe fees.

Some banks are even considering making customers buy debit cards instead of issuing them to new for free. “Chase is already testing $3 monthly fees on debit cards and $15 fees on checking accounts in certain states. Additionally, the bank announced in November that it has stopped issuing debit reward cards,” says the CNN article. Great, now we can be charged for having money.

The revenue banks get from interchange fees help offset money lost from fraudluent transactions.

Read more: Debit Card Spending Limit? Banks Consider a $50 cap