| Kaupthinking |
[Sep. 4th, 2009|12:21 pm] |
I remember laughing my arse off when I read the last slide of a leaked kaupthing creditors report on wikileaks a while back, it simply said "thinking beyond" For a bank that imploded and almost took the country with it, it was a classic slogan.
However, even that pales in comparison to this:
Especially amusing because it appears to be real:
"I have it confirmed from reliable sources that this is indeed a real Kaupthing video.
It is not a fake as some have suggested. It looks a bit amateurish, but it is certainly for real.
It was first shown in October 2005 in the French city of Nice, at a meeting of the senior management team. The video has not been changed or edited from that meeting.
After the meeting in France the video was shown often at many internal meetings and events held by Kaupthing. This was not shown openly or aired on TV because Kaupthing had not paid any royalties, or had in fact any permission to use the music or the video footage and images that are shown. The bank took extra care not let this video leak out for this reason."
Via this Icelandic blog via John Hempton [HT Alphaville]
It's gems like that that really make your day. Kaupthinking ftw! |
|
|
| Burying the hatchet |
[Mar. 15th, 2009|12:02 am] |
In this case right between the shoulder blades...
In any meeting between the world's of financial news, and comedy, you would expect one to do pratfalls, and one to exude a certain gravitas, as befits the respective audiences. As you watch the following three segments of an interview, (one, two, three) remember that the comedian is on the right.
I was particularly impressed with the following statement from Jim Cramer, "I'm a guy trying to do an entertainment show about business" Though unlike every episode of the daily show, Cramer's "Mad Money" does not contain a disclaimer that his sources are not fact checked and his opinions are not fully thought through.
This thing is getting so much air play that if you type "Daily show" into google at present the Cramer interview is mentioned on the first page, even the FT are getting in on the act with a full report on the proceedings:
The clash between the two TV hosts overtook Apple’s new iPod and Barack Obama as one of the most talked-about subjects on Twitter on Thursday night, as debate about the media’s role in the crisis spilled over from Wall Street to the web.
“I had a dinner last night with some significant people in the business world. They all wanted to get home for 11 pm [when the Daily Show airs],” said Harris Diamond, chief executive of the constituency management group at Interpublic.
The expectation hanging over the interview was built up, in part, by CNBC’s sister channels, NBC and MSNBC, which invited Mr Cramer on during the week to dismiss Mr Stewart as “a comedian” and pound dough with Martha Stewart at the mention of his name.
The clash, coming after CNBC has enjoyed some of the highest ratings in its history, began when Rick Santelli, a CNBC presenter who gained prominence with a diatribe against the Obama administration’s mortgage plans, pulled out of a planned appearance on the Daily Show.
On Thursday night “it changed from comedy to news”, Mr Diamond said.
Finance was not a joke, Mr Stewart said."
Actually what he said was "It's not a fucking game." Amusingly enough the FT page above contains a CNBC statement, It's corporate bullshit, but the important takeaway here IMO is that CNBC felt it had to release a statement after one of it's commentators was publicly mauled on TV by a comedian. I suspect that Cramer offered himself up after it became clear that Stewart was not going to back down, because as the serious news organisation that CNBC claims to be, it cannot allow itself to be ridiculed indefinitely without responding, lest it suffer reputational damage:
CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news, providing real-time financial market coverage and business information to more than 340 million homes worldwide, including more than 95 million households in the United States and Canada.
[...]
The web site cnbc.com extends the CNBC mission to be first and accurate with the news, including presenting actionable information. It is the preeminent financial news source on the web
I've been saying publicly for ages that if you're watching CNBC you need to understand what you're being told. My hope here is that Stewart doesn't give up, and even if he does, that he has done enough reputational damage amongst the right demographic to seriously wound, or at least taint by association CNBC US and it's cheerleaders.
The strange thing is that it took a "comedian" (albeit one with a lethal research team) to cut to the chase, because CNBC definitely had it coming. |
|
|
| Aardvark! |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|09:34 am] |
An analyst on Bloomberg (Rob Carnell, ING wholesale bank) has just compared the retail sales figures just issued by the govt, (up 0.7% apparently) to an aardvark, "for all the good it'll do"
Ab Fab! :) |
|
|
| Frat boys seek to save house, economy. |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|09:19 am] |
I should probably be reading this But instead I find myself reading about a stimulus plan. You never know, it may just work!:
The sobering news cast a pall on the Theta House members. Most sat on their hands and stared glumly into space until they were rallied to action by a normally quiet, newly initiated figure known as Slingshot.
"Were we down when the dean threatened to revoke our charter unless we cleaned up our act?" Slingshot asked. "No! Were we down when the still in the basement exploded, knocked the house off its foundation, and nearly blinded Prescott? No! Are we going to let the complete collapse of the global economy get us down now?"
After a rousing chorus of "Hell no!" the misfit fraternity quickly concocted the scheme, with which it hopes to eliminate the sprawling and complex credit-default-swaps market, stabilize the dollar, and create the world's largest beer bong.
[..]
While Theta House is closely guarding the details of its laugh-a-minute economy-rebuilding scheme, Barrow admitted that it involves a 50-gallon drum of Crisco, the U.S. Senate, five Russian exchange students in bikinis, incentives designed to provoke a massive injection of capital from the private sector over the next three fiscal quarters, and a dead horse.
[HT Naked Capitalism] |
|
|
| It wasn't me :) |
[Feb. 15th, 2009|11:51 am] |
Hot on the heels of the news below that Microsoft is getting increasingly desperate to recoup some of it's investment in the expensive boondogle that is Vista. Comes the news that the former software giant, is being sued for predatory pricing & anti-competitive behaviour over charges to downgrade Vista to XP :)
Quoth Bloomberg:
Microsoft is trying to salvage Vista, which businesses and consumers panned after it went on sale in 2007. With the economy shrinking, companies are putting off new projects and technology purchases. Windows sales declined 8 percent last quarter, compared with Microsoft’s forecast for growth of as much as 10 percent.
Microsoft charged consumers $104 for the downgrade, and extended the offer to July, “likely due to the tremendous profits that Microsoft has reaped from its downgrade option,” according to the complaint.
It charges businesses considerably more in the UK. One of the managers at work spent a week pulling his hair out, being bounced from pillar to post to find out if this was even possible. Basically you have to buy "software assurance" for each license then you have to pay for the downgrade. Presumably to Windows Fundamentals. For legacy PC's apparently :)
Though I do find it odd that every Microsoft page I visited above contained an image of an assertive "ethnic" female. I don't doubt there are women in PC support, I've just not met many of them. :) |
|
|
| Buy Vista, Please! |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|09:38 pm] |
There is a delicious irony in the fact that MS are now suffering from their own FUD as regards Windows 7. The new Wunderkind that will will take away the taint of Vista.
This is of course presenting Microsoft with some problems as regards cash flow and fears about future upgrade cycles. So it's rushed out a new blog, aimed at the business user, hosted by the chatty Gavriella:
Hi, I’m Gavriella; welcome to the new Windows for your Business Blog.
Let me introduce myself: I’m a member of the Windows Product Management team and have been at Microsoft for 13 years...
So begins the wind up to the eventual pitch:
We recommend you use what you are running today to make the right decision for your business.
- If you are running Windows 2000 in your environment:
Migrate your Windows 2000 PCs to Windows Vista as soon as possible. Extended support for Windows 2000 ends Q2 2010, and as an commercial customer, you may soon find your business’s critical applications are unsupported.
- If you are in the process of planning or deploying Windows Vista:
Continue your Windows Vista SP1 deployment. If you’re really in the early stages or just starting on Windows Vista, plan to test and deploy Windows Vista SP2 (on target to RTM Q2 2009). Moving onto Windows Vista now will allow for an easier transition to Windows 7 in the future due to the high degree of compatibility.
- If you are on Windows XP now and are undecided about which OS to move to:
Make sure you taken into consideration the risk of skipping Windows Vista, which I am discussing below. And know that deploying Windows Vista now will make the future transition to Windows 7 easier.
- If you are on Windows XP now and are waiting for Windows 7:
Make sure you take into consideration the risks of skipping Windows Vista, and plan on starting an early evaluation of Windows 7 for your company using the beta that’s available now. Testing and remediating applications on Windows Vista will ease your Windows 7 deployment due to the high degree of compatibility.
OK, so you heard the woman, Microsoft needs your cash so crack open your wallet :) |
|
|
| Wont somebody think of the children! |
[Jan. 7th, 2009|10:48 pm] |
You know you're in a financial crisis, when even the porn industry is asking for a bail out, according to IMDB:
Porn moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis are appealing to the U.S. Congress to grant the adult entertainment industry a $5 billion (GBP3.3 billion) bail out - because it is suffering from the global economic meltdown just as much as others.
Hustler magazine entrepreneur Flynt claims adult DVD sales have plummeted in the last 12 months, with figures down 22 per cent from 2007.
Clearly a good man is hard to find :) |
|
|
| Due Diligence |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|02:07 pm] |
You really do have to admire the work of Bernie Madoff, (somewhat amusingly pronounced made-off) not only did he run the worlds oldest and biggest ponzi scheme, but the people investing in him were the elite, invite only, and they were told to keep it to themselves, a sure sign that there was something crooked going on, but his reputation was above reproach, and he had truly stellar returns, risk free and with zero volatility.
This was the blackest of "black boxes" but nobody who thought they were onto a good thing wanted to rock the boat or alert the Feds. The full scope of the fraud, alleged by Madoff to be $50bn is as yet unknown, but there can be no rescue because there is no money.
Subsequently, there will be no "write downs" since it's not notional profit the financial firms and individuals are losing, this will be a loss of capital, (the equivalent of having written a mortgage only to find there is no house upon repossession) which could get interesting. At least with LTCM there were trades that could be wound down at a profit. This is just an implosion of truly breathtaking proportion.
I only hope Roger Lowenstien or some other decent chronicler brings out a book in due course. I can always use a good laugh. |
|
|
| Man bites dog |
[Dec. 14th, 2008|08:22 pm] |
The great thing about Aljazeera is that it gives you a completely different world view. With just the push of a button I went from a hymn to the Medici's impact on renaissance art on the Beeb, to the political strife in Somalia; by way of the news that in one of his last acts in Iraq, at a press conference in front of a bunch of journalists, one of them, an Iraqi, took off his shoes and threw them at Bush while calling him a dog. The most powerful man in the world ducked and gave a bemused smirk, but I suspect that's only because he doesn't understand the significance.
Those with an eye to history however, will remember that the first things ordinary Iraqi's did when the Americans pulled down Saddam's statue was take off their shoes and hit the statues with them. Not to mention that calling somebody a dog is the worst possible insult in Arab culture. Many years ago, a lone student stood before a column of tanks armed only with two flags as the Western world watched transfixed at such a heroic act of bravura & resistance. I imagine the journalist is well on his way to the same fate in the parts of the world that watch Aljazeera instead of CNN. |
|
|
| Natural laws have no pity |
[Dec. 12th, 2008|08:51 pm] |
Credit cards are a zero sum game.
The Economist on the counter productve moves in tinkering with the credit card repayment system:
EVEN the best-intentioned policies can fall prey to the quirks of human behaviour, as a new study of credit-card repayment finds. In order to stop borrowers from being socked by an accumulation of unpaid interest whenever they fail to pay their bill, there are laws requiring credit-card companies to specify a minimum payment in each statement. But these may do more harm than good, suggests Neil Stewart, a psychologist at Warwick University.
[...]
Mr Stewart presented 413 people with mock credit-card bills of £435.76 (about $650) that were identical—except that only half mentioned a minimum payment of £5.42. Participants were asked how much they would pay.
Among those inclined to pay the bill in full, the presence of the minimum payment hardly made any difference. However, those who wanted to pay just part of it handed over 43% less on average when presented with a minimum payment. In the real world, this would roughly double interest charges. [link]
The FT on the perils awaiting The US consumer once the fed meets to enfoce changes needed to "protect" the consumer:
The Federal Reserve board will meet this week to finalise changes to rules governing the $970bn credit card business.
Widely hailed by consumer groups as urgently needed reforms to protect borrowers, the changes could lead to the banking industry losing more than $10bn in annual interest payments, says a study by the law firm Morrison & Foerster.
This could prompt credit card lenders to raise prices and tighten lending standards, reducing the availability of credit for US consumers. [link]
the UK govt just tightened rules too, governing the notice required to consumers about interest rate rises. I expect that will result in far more people getting letters than would otherwise have been the case.
Like I said, credit cards are a zero sum game. |
|
|
| Sign 'O the times |
[Nov. 30th, 2008|01:52 pm] |
Just occasionally fintag is brilliant:
Taking out debt is still just too easy. Saving money is near impossible.
He's not wrong... |
|
|
| The last post |
[Oct. 17th, 2008|08:16 pm] |
A hedge fund manager steps out. Hell of a way to go:
"Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.
Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.” I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."
You'll find the rest here, it's well worth a read, I wish him well.
I also notice I was not wrong about the cheerleading muppet, (IMO) that used to do the early morning interviews on Bloomberg UK. He's just turned up in the US Studio, to do a market report along with the pretty boy cheerleader, clearly the network heads want all the "good news" stateside. That's just fine with me, I've never taken them seriously anyway, and I won't have to suffer the biased reporting in the morning. So if he stays stateside it is indeed, good news. |
|
|
| accademic discourse |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|06:20 pm] |
In the unlikely event anyone wonders what happened to the economics, lets just say that I view much more discussion as accademic. Whether or not the US congress passes the bailout bill, (or whatever the hell they're calling it this week) and I have to admit I have my doubts. I think the outcome is going to be the same. I think the crisis of confidence that was affecting "wall street" has now spread to the high street/main street. That being the case, almost anything done from this point on will not engender confidence where needed. Indeed, the fact that politicians are floundering on both sides of the Atlantic, and the central bankers appear to have withdrawn from the field of battle, would suggest to me that while not all hope is lost, and things will, at some point, "get better" as the bard would say:
"Now is the winter of our discontent..."
I remember reading a Matt Howarth comic long ago, (his hatching lines are to die for) I can't remember whether is was Savage Henry or the Post Brothers. But I remember One of the Brothers, Russ, I think, (possibly Ron too) Boche, Conrad Schnitzler and possibly the Elder God Cthulu, doing a house invasion up on a hill. "tearing shit up" killing people, and blowing out a side of the house. Just so they had a grandstand seat to watch the reactor they rigged down in the valley below go "Boom!"
If nothing else, 10 years of absent minded study, and 18 months of graft, have at least armed me with the same view. I always figured this was appropriate music for such times:
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
Ive been around for a long, long year
Stole many a mans soul and faith
And I was round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
If I have to tell you Who it's by you've not been keeping up :) |
|
|
| God have mercy |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|06:17 pm] |
Words cannot begin to describe how utterly wrong this is.
They don't make them like that anymore, (and probably for good reason) The comments are good too. |
|
|
| The road less traveled |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|08:43 pm] |
Of the many things I could say I will instead repeat two things that amused me today, namely:
US oil independence will most likely be achieved through poverty.
98% of the population is asleep. The other 2% are staring around in complete amazement, abject terror, or both. |
|
|
| Drinking the Kool Aid |
[Aug. 20th, 2008|06:48 pm] |
The thing that finally did it for me as far as CNBC (US) went was a "round table" of sorts, chaired by the "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo, who rounded on some hapless fund manager, and used her "friend" Ron Insana, an ex CNBC Anchor turned Hedge fund manager, as a straight man. Ripping off one derisory quip after another as she lectured the guy, saying "Right Ron?" when the need for backup arose.
To me, it was the nail in the coffin for the pretense of objective journalism. It said in no uncertain terms, that "If you're upbeat, you get to have have an opinion, if you've got nothing good to say about the markets, then you don't" This was a few years ago. I stopped watching CNBC US shortly after. So it was that I smiled when I read this in the International Herald Tribune, under the headline:
A TV reporter gambles, and loses, on running a hedge fund
In the end, the rock was simply too heavy for Insana to keep pushing uphill. On Aug. 8, he sent a letter to investors explaining why he was closing shop.
"Our current level of assets under management, coupled with the extraordinarily difficult capital-raising environment, make it imprudent for Insana Capital Partners to continue business operations," he wrote. He said he planned to take a job with his friend Cohen at SAC. Insana declined to comment for this column.
In truth, there are thousands of Insanas desperately trying to raise money from nondescript little offices around the United States. Some of them raised $10 million, some raised $100 million or more. And, as money has gotten tighter, and the bloom has come off the hedge fund rose, some have raised none at all.
Although the big boys get most of the ink, Insana's is a far more common story - and far more representative of what is happening in the land of hedge funds today.
Insana probably should have seen it coming. In 2002, he wrote a book called, "Trendwatching: Don't Be Fooled by the Next Investment Fad, Mania, or Bubble." Oops.
Oops indeed. :) |
|
|
| old tricks |
[Aug. 11th, 2008|05:44 pm] |
Microsoft tried to make nice to the geeks and coders at OSCON this year, everyone wondered why. After years of spurning Linux why they were suddenly so friendly? What did they want? Consensus seemed to gravitate towards the idea that they were just desperate for programmers and wanted to gain some mind share. Needless to say that after years of FUD, nobody took them seriously.
Now it would appear despite anti-trust judgments and who knows what else, they're still up to their, old tricks and as usual, playing dirty ably abetted by Intel.
It seems like they're looking to "embrace and extend" once more, in this case Adobe/Macromedia flash, even as they tried to kill the One Laptop per child project:
Microsoft, makers of most of the computer software in the world, tried to kill it with words, and Intel, maker of most computer chips, tried to kill it with dirty tricks. Of course, they don’t admit to being attempted murderers. And when I introduce you to Intel’s lovely spokesperson, Agnes Kwan, you’ll realise how far their denials go. But the truth is the two mightiest high-tech companies in the world looked on Negroponte’s philanthropic scheme and decided it had to die.
So while the economist is reporting Microsoft's attempt to put lipstick on the pig that is Vista. It makes me really happy to point to this and laugh:
Researchers who have read the paper that Dowd and Sotirov wrote on the techniques say their work is a major breakthrough and there is little that Microsoft can do to address the problems. The attacks themselves are not based on any new vulnerabilities in IE or Vista, but instead take advantage of Vista's fundamental architecture and the ways in which Microsoft chose to protect it.
"The genius of this is that it's completely reusable," said Dino Dai Zovi, a well-known security researcher and author. "They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That's completely game over.
Internet Explorer is chronically insecure at the best of times, on Vista however, it's lethal. The sooner somebody puts the old dog out of it's misery the better.
"I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning." |
|
|
| Just occasionally.. |
[Jul. 26th, 2008|12:19 pm] |
The BBC excels itself, and so tickles the country's funny bone that it must be broadcast to a wider audience, (something the Brits are happy to do themselves) so without further ado:
US man charged for shooting mower
A 56-year-old man from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his lawn mower in his garden because it would not start.
[...]
Witnesses told police that he appeared to have been drinking.
[...]
A local retailer said that Mr Walendowski might now have difficulty getting his lawn mower repaired.
"Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," said Dick Wagner, of Wagner's Garden Mart in Milwaukee.
Sheer comic genius, and on the front page too. |
|
|
| Problems, what problems? |
[Jul. 15th, 2008|09:34 pm] |
After Fanny & Freddy drop another 25% each today, you knew they were going to try something stupid like this. It didn't work for the UK government, I doubt it will work for the US Govt. but it does give you some sense of the panic that the current administration must be feeling.
In a post entitled America suspends capitalism (we kid you not) Alphaville links to a Wall Street Journal article about the new rules to protect financial companies that may soon fail, staring with Fanny & Freddy:
WASHINGTON--The Securities and Exchange Commission announced an emergency action aimed at reducing short-selling aimed at Wall Street brokerage firms as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and will immediately begin considering new rules to extend new requirements to the rest of the market.
SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said the SEC would institute an emergency order requiring any traders to pre-borrow stock before shorting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Still, the chairman of the FDIC was today telling anyone who'd listen that the banks are OK, and their deposits were safe. Good to know... |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
praxis22's journal
amused