Thanks For Nothing, OPEC The $10 oil debacle of the '90s suddenly doesn’t seem like such a distant memory. You'd think that OPEC would learn from its mistakes, but after having failed to prevent July's spike to $147 a barrel, OPEC isn't rushing to remedy the situation after oil fell below $50 last week. OPEC's "informal consultation" this weekend in Cairo ended in (what else?) inaction, with Saudi Arabia as the ringleader in resisting calls for further production cuts led by Iran and Venezuela. Tudor Withdrawals Halted After sustaining 5 percent losses so far this year, Paul Tudor Jones's Tudor Investment Corp is suspending redemptions from its BVI Global Fund while it tries to split the fund into two pieces: one fund for the good stuff, and one for the toxic sludge. No, you do not get to choose which your money goes into. Everything Old Is New Again: Equities Trading Edition It wasn't so long ago that the simple buying and selling of stocks seemed oh-so-Twentieth-Century, but after billions in losses on complex investments, those "high risk, high reward" proprietary trades are looking a lot less attractive these days. Now, banks' old-fashioned equities businesses are starting to come back into play. Sumner Surrenders Midway Stake The credit crunch has not been kind to Sumner Redstone, and today marks the Viacom Chairman's latest sacrifice in the name of shoring up National Amusements: the media mogul has sold his controlling stake in Midway Games. National Amusements has about $1.6 billion in debt, half of which will have to be repaid by year-end. Latvia's Creative Response To Financial Panic Other governments might be blowing billions on fancy bailout schemes, but Latvia has a much cheaper way of suppressing panic: target the troublemakers. Latvia's Security Police has taken to detaining downbeat economists like Dmitrijs Smirnovs for "unpatriotic" criticism of Latvia's financial system. If this sounds not a little bit familiar, Latvians reassure us that the practice isn’t anything like that of a certain Soviet security agency: after all, the press is still free! Penthouse: West Side Story A former Merrill trader turns his attention to home renovation.