$$$ Morgan Stanley’s $9,000,000,000.00 Check. [Andrew Ross Sorkin]

$$$ The Media Is Wrong About Goldman Sachs, AIG [The Atlantic]

$$$ Steel Wins Dismissal Of Icahn Bid To Block Restructuring [FINalternatives]

$$$ Felix Salmon and Henry Blodget Have a Fight, Make Up [Daily Intel]

Alright people. This is it. If the sight of Goldman Sachs employees voluntarily handling garbage doesn’t stop the hate, they’re going to have to go to DEFCON 1: blow job booth, manned by Blankfein.

The Salvation Army plans to serve 10,000 free dinners across the city this Thanksgiving — meals planned by a star chef, cooked by one of New York’s ritziest caterers and cleaned up by employees of one of Wall Street’s most vilified financial firms. The number of meals is 10 times as many as last year and come at a time when more and more Americans are struggling to put food on the table.

Three hundred employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wall Street’s richest firm, have volunteered for the holiday feast and will be tasked with taking out the garbage.

Partying it up at the Palm’s Hugh Hefner Sky Villa with ex-Tudor Jones trader Mark Fisher didn’t take away from Dr. J’s ability to make $15,000 in three hours, for a program that teaches disadvantage kids to someday have trading prowess like The King. If you missed the chance to donate some of your gains on drug stocks ($MRK or $PFE) today, no worries, there’s still time to help create the next mini-me Fast Money crew here.

And if for some reason if you still need more motivation to give (around $26k has been donated so far but we’re counting on you to make it more)- we’re told Paris Hilton is stopping by the event’s after-party and will sign any part of your body if you give. For those not currently in Vegas, Dr J will take the Paris body signature in your name and send you a photo.

*Checks can made to: Trader4Kids and sent to: 175 West Jackson Blvd, suite 200 Chicago, IL 60604

To: Morgan Stanley
From: John Goff
RE: Thanks a billion

OK, OK, thanks $951 million. It was really great to have you take this albatross off my hands a couple of years ago. The timing could not have been better for me. And now, after your outstanding stewardship, I’m pleased to retake the helm at Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. now. Two-and-a-half years sitting by the pool, counting your my $6.5 billion is enough.

My new partners at Barclays want to thank you as well. They’ve proven pretty savvy over the last couple of years, but even they couldn’t have imagined how well this would turn out for them. After all, they lent you $2 billion to buy a disaster. They never would have guessed they’d get to take over such a valuable real-estate portfolio just as the market begins to turn around.

So I was getting a haircut after lunch today (York Barbershop, 71st and Lex), and Oliver Stone & co. walked in to inspect the place. According to my barber, they’re shooting MNS there, presumably all day, on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. However, I overheard murmurs that it might be too cramped, in which case the Waldorf barbershop would be a contender. No word on how this affects Shia’s helmet hair.

Things have been pretty dark for Dick Bové ever since her man, the “brilliant” Ken Lewis was essentially forced out of his job. Other analysts, the colder, unfeeling ones probably wouldn’t have taken it so personally, but Lewis is Bové’s guy and she can’t help it, this hurts, bad (also, she’s just always been a sensitive and highly strung person). Sorry if that’s too much for you to handle but Ken Lewis meant a lot* to the Rochdale rising star. It felt good and empowering to lose it in a tear-stained note to clients, in which she put the words “No other banker in this country can equal Mr Lewis’s achievements and yet every banker wishes s/he could” out there but it didn’t change anyone’s mind and she’s just felt completely helpless for almost two months now. She knows she should be strong for KL but she just can’t. She’s lost weight, she’s gained weight, she’s gone on booze-fueled sex rampages wherein she’ll fuck the first thing in her line of vision, in an attempt to silence the pain but nothing’s helped.

This morning when she woke up underneath a pile of empty pints of Ben and Jerry’s after crying herself to sleep, she couldn’t even summon the strength to get out of bed. But then, something happened. In the other room, she heard Charlie Gasparino’s voice on CNBC, which she’d left on the night before. Lewis’s name was mentioned and, at first, figuring CG was just going to be talking shit about her man, Bové pulled the covers over her head. Then Chaz started saying something about how the board still hasn’t found a replacement and Divé shot out of bed. She ran into the other room wearing only the oversized tee-shirt bearing Lewis’s face she’d had made a few years ago. Biting her nails in fear that her ears were playing tricks on her, Mrs. Lewis (someday?) rewound the DVR. It was true! BAC still hasn’t come up with an ideal candidate willing to take the job. Feeling like her old self for the first time in a long time, she sat down to write. And write she did.

“Mr. Lewis was a key architect in the creation and management of Bank of America. He knows this company better than anyone else and he knows how to operate it,” Bove wrote in a research note issued early Friday morning. “At this point in the company’s history, this is the type of leader needed. Convincing him to return would be the biggest morale builder that management could get.”

Charlie Gasparino reports that the Bank of America board “really, really” wants to finally pick someone to take the job of boozing it up at happy hour and then returning to the office and saying “How ‘bout we do Merrill this time? That’ll be fun.” According to Gasparino, BAC is in a rush to get it done because they’re “sick of all the controversy surrounding the selection” and also maybe perhaps because Ken Lewis is out of there in like 5 weeks, so it would be nice if they could figure this out before then. A source of Chaz claims they’re going to try and do so this Sunday, though given that the board still pretty much as no idea who they want (or who’s desperate enough to take the gig) it will likely be a long night. For reasons lost on us, they’re still yet to get in touch with John Thain, who remains ready and willing.

Somebody is finally doing something about those corrupt, self-serving companies that we all rely on to tell us just how risky this stupid bond is. Ohio is suing the ratings agencies.

With the Feds spitting the bit on regulating an industry that never saw a mortgage-backed security or collateralized debt obligation it didn’t want to give a triple-A rating and that showed the most remarkable propensity for figuring things out right after the credit markets imploded, Richard Cordray, attorney general of the Buckeye State, is following the Andy Cuomo’s lead and attacking Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s.

A few weeks ago I told you to mark your calendars for the social event of the year. At the time I said it was the SAC Capital Giant Balloon Inflation Party. I lied. The balloon blowing is still going on (this Saturday in fact) but it is not the extravaganza you need to drop all previously made plans for. Do you know what’s going to happen on December 8th? I don’t think you do otherwise you’d be working yourselves into a frenzy along with me. I’m not even sure you’re fully prepared for what I’m about to lay on your asses and you probably never will be so I’m just going to say it now: STEVE COHEN MAGIC NIGHT. And when I say “STEVE COHEN MAGIC NIGHT” I mean it in two ways. First, Steve Cohen, the magician. Second, Steve Cohen, the man who makes the world a more magical place by simply existing. That’s right—doubly penetrated by magical SC’s.

Hot on the heels of the first mortgage-backed securities deal in several decades, the initial public offering market has begun to stir after its period of economic crisis-induced dormancy.

First to the post is British asset manager Gartmore Group, which said it will list on the London Stock Exchange next month. The reported £500 million stock sale will be used to cut debt, but also to allow its private equity masters, Hellman & Friedman, to finally earn a damned profit three-and-a-half years after financing Gartmore’s management buyout.

Naked short-selling has been blamed for many a market evil in recent years. Not so much any good.

Well, here’s one in the controversial practice’s corner: South Korea may allow institutional investors to short-sell bonds in an effort to boost liquidity in its nascent fixed-income market. Now, it isn’t the short-selling, per se, that will boost liquidity, but the move could win Seoul a coveted place in Citigroup’s World Government Bond Index. And then, just try to keep the money from rolling in.

If you’re coming to New Canaan, CT on Sunday to hear Charlie Gasparino discuss The Sellout you might need to bring your boxing gloves.

The other day on Chicago-based radio show StocksandJocks, co-hosted by CNBC contributor Dr. J Najarian, a listener asked Gas-Bag if he was ready to handle a confrontational room of ex-Bear and Lehman traders who might want to throw down fisticuffs. Considering many of these guys are still unemployed, stuck with McMansion mortgages, and with ample time on their hands - we thought that was a valid concern. (Sam Molinaro, former Bear Stearns CFO, is a New Canaan resident.)

The show’s other host Tom ‘the Chief’ Haugh asked Chaz, “Are you ready for a scene or a verbal confrontation? How do you think Cannanists will receive you?”

Gasparino responded, “Well you know, they can do whatever they want. What, you don’t think I’ve never had a personal confrontation from peeps on Wall Street? For some reason personal confrontations don’t scare me that much…you know.. I know how to handle myself.”

“I’m not a punching bag I don’t take their [shit]. I remind them it was their company’s management that screwed up and I just reported it. I didn’t engage in your risk taking practices. If you think I have anything to do with your implosion then you’re nuts,” Gasparino. said.