Postcards

Jamie Dimon's full disclosure

by Patricia Sellers

It's an important next couple of days for JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

The company reports earnings tomorrow morning.

And on Thursday morning, we'll see how far the $100 billion bank--yes, that's how big, in terms of annual revenues, JPMorgan has grown through the financial crisis--has surged up the Fortune 500.

I know. But I can't tell you. Watch for the Fortune 500's release at 7:30 a.m. Thursday.

So, it's a good moment to MORE

Meredith Whitney says unemployment will rise again

by Patricia Sellers

So, retail sales are up. Unemployment is down. And the Dow is near 11,000.

That doesn't mean that all is right with the world.

So says Meredith Whitney.

The analyst who brought down the bank stocks in 2007--by shining the light on their capital shortfalls--came by Fortune's offices Wednesday afternoon to explain why she's still a bear. I asked her: Will unemployment, now at 9.7%, likely go back up? "I think MORE

Lehman's ex-CFO Callan on short seller Einhorn

by Patricia Sellers

The latest on the probes into Lehman Brothers (BCS): Fox Business Network's Charlie Gasparino reports that the House Financial Services Committee is weighing the idea of calling short seller David Einhorn as a public witness or to a private meeting to talk about accounting gimmickry that led to Lehman's bankruptcy. I reached Einhorn's spokesman, who declines to comment.

Whether or not Einhorn, who was Lehman's biggest and loudest MORE

Women execs rising, moving, struggling

by Patricia Sellers

I'm back from Brazil. Looking forward to filling you in on my whirlwind adventure, where I saw a booming middle-class and lots of opportunity.

But right now, a catch-up on well-known women who moved up and down and over while I was away. Christiane Amanpour's leap to ABC News is big. For perspective, last year at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in New York, Amanpour gave a tribute MORE

Lehman ex-CFO Callan under new scrutiny

by Patricia Sellers

"The fall of a Wall Street highflier," in the latest issue of Fortune, portrays Erin Callan as a star banker at Lehman Brothers who is catapulted to CFO, finds herself in a maelstrom, and flames out--all the while maintaining a fierce determination to perform for her bosses.

Ever since Lehman (BCS) died in September 2008, one key question has been: Was Callan so eager to please CEO Dick MORE

Lehman ex-CFO Erin Callan: She's back!

"Whatever happened to Erin Callan?" has been a Wall Street mystery ever since early last year, when she walked out of her post-Lehman place of employment, Credit Suisse (CS). Callan cut off contact with practically everyone she knew. Rumors abounded about her fate.

I found her. Well, at least I found out what the former CFO of Lehman Brothers (BCS) is doing now. (It's fascinating and not exactly tragic.) To learn MORE

John Mack and Hank Paulson cast their movie

by Patricia Sellers

John Mack interviewed Hank Paulson at New York University's Stern School last evening. The Morgan Stanley (MS) chairman, who recently turned over the CEO reins, told me that he wanted to push some emotional buttons in the former U.S. Treasury Secretary and onetime CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS).

And he did. The two talked about the hairiest, scariest moments of the global financial crisis. Mack credited Paulson with keeping MORE

Hank Paulson's next big gig

I delved into On the Brink last evening. That's the new memoir by Hank Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary, about trying to save the world--or at least the global financial system--when Bear Stearns (JPM) and Lehman  Brothers (BCS) and AIG (AIG) were collapsing around him.

The hell, the fear, the physical illness he felt are long past. When I spoke with Paulson on Friday, he seemed mightily relieved about that--and that MORE

Are we ready for good-time CEOs?

by Patricia Sellers

Have we really hit bottom? Sandra Horbach, who heads the consumer and retail group at private equity giant Carlyle Group, says we have.

Horbach and I chatted on stage this morning at the Women's Alternative Investment Summit down on Wall Street. "Trailblazers Discuss the State of the Market," the organizers called our session, suggesting that we both have survived cycles and seen a lot. Yes, we have. Horbach, MORE

Drexel CEO Fred Joseph, R.I.P.

"Investment banking is funny. You do one transaction, then you do another of the same type and then a third. Maybe then you've got a business. Do ten, and it is a business."

- Fred Joseph, former CEO of Drexel Burnham Lambert, who died of multiple myeloma, at 72 on Friday. Given the junk-bond boss's status in the Business Hall of Shame, you might think Joseph would earn a harshly critical MORE