Given enough effort – the whole 10,000 hours thing – most people can perform most tasks fairly competently. Excellence? Well, that’s a bit different. Here is Paul Krugman showing Amity Shlaes how many places there are to run: [W]ith short-term interest rates near zero, there’s no reason to think that lower wages for all workers [...]
Archive for November, 2008
Expert v. Pretty Good
Posted in Finance, Meltdown on November 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Finally
Posted in Foreigners, War on Terror on November 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Somewhere along the way it seemed it would never end: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7756068.stm And, in some sense, it might not have – there were nine attacks, but not enough militants seem to have been killed. My guess is there is a reasonable chance some of them melted back into the Bombay chaos. I am not sure whether [...]
Crisis=Opportunity
Posted in Energy Policy, Finance, Meltdown, Middle East on November 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
This guy kind of sounds like a jerk. Hopefully people will listen to him (he has more credibility than I do): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/opinion/28roach.html Leaves out the one tax the government should be imposing to fund the various bailout/stimulus needs: $2/gallon gasoline tax. It would provide $280bn/year on current gasoline use, enough to pay off much of [...]
Citigroup
Posted in Finance, Meltdown on November 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »
What a shock: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20081123a.htm For what it’s worth, $7bn of preferred stock paying 8% (not sure if it’s PIK or cash, and really not sure it matters) is an awfully modest fee for guaranteeing the worst $306bn of assets Citi can find, especially since the loan itself is only at 300bps and will, by design, [...]
1.50 Cable
Posted in Finance, Foreigners, Meltdown on November 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Interesting article: http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2008/11/could-the-uk-face-a-sterling-crisis-or-are-we-in-one-already/#more-363
Hedge Funds
Posted in Finance, Meltdown on November 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
November hasn’t been that much better than October – at what point do we start to see major shutdowns? Almost any levered fund has to be near the event horizon, and many of their individual investors, who took on personal debt to buy into more of them, have to be completely tapped out. I am [...]
Chinese Democracy
Posted in Music on November 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Can’t believe the album beat the real thing. I was sure there would be free elections in Beijing before Axl ever got his act together… http://deadspin.com/5090525/chinese-democracy-15-years-down-five-days-to-go
Disgraceful
Posted in Joe Lieberman on November 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Why on earth would the Democrats leave him in position? I really cannot understand this – if only to prove a point, why not toss him from all committees? He isn’t going to become a Republican – that would be tantamount to retiring in four years. Every congressman in CT is a Democrat, and only [...]
AIG
Posted in Finance, Meltdown on November 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Every time you think Paulson has been about as corrupt as can be, he goes and does something even more amazing. Perhaps the most amazing part of the last two months is that he has somehow improved his reputation while doing stuff like this: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/15/225049/76/376/661701 I was a bit distracted by the election and while [...]
GS
Posted in Finance, Meltdown on November 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Investment question – at what price do you buy Goldman stock? I suppose the general investment theory would be not to buy something you cannot understand, and GS has a lot of specific problems: Huge CDS exposure to AIG and everyone else Conversion to bank holding company structure (with no deposit base), which dramatically reduces [...]
