Sunday, January 2, 2011
Howard Davidowitz on Life, the Universe, and Everything
Well, not everything but almost. Great interview on Bloomberg TV.
The German New Year's Rocky Horror Picture Show
Cool article in Slate about Dinner for One, an obscure 11-minute British comedy which is a staple of Germany's New Year's Eve celebration:
In 1962, German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld stumbled on Dinner for One in Blackpool's seaside circuit. Frankenfeld was so charmed that he invited actors Freddie Frinton and May Warden to perform the sketch on his live TV show Guten Abend, Peter Frankenfeld. The now-classic black-and-white recording dates from a 1963 live performance in Hamburg's Theater am Besenbinderhof. (So deep runs the love for this broadcast that last year Frankfurter Rundschau interviewed a woman whose piercing laugh from the sidelines has achieved its own cult status.) Audiences clamored for repeats, and the skit fit nicely as a time-filler between larger broadcasts, so the German network Norddeutscher Rundfunk and its affiliates ran the snippet repeatedly in the 1960s, even reaching audiences behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. The skit settled into its current New Year's Eve slot in 1972.
In 1962, German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld stumbled on Dinner for One in Blackpool's seaside circuit. Frankenfeld was so charmed that he invited actors Freddie Frinton and May Warden to perform the sketch on his live TV show Guten Abend, Peter Frankenfeld. The now-classic black-and-white recording dates from a 1963 live performance in Hamburg's Theater am Besenbinderhof. (So deep runs the love for this broadcast that last year Frankfurter Rundschau interviewed a woman whose piercing laugh from the sidelines has achieved its own cult status.) Audiences clamored for repeats, and the skit fit nicely as a time-filler between larger broadcasts, so the German network Norddeutscher Rundfunk and its affiliates ran the snippet repeatedly in the 1960s, even reaching audiences behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. The skit settled into its current New Year's Eve slot in 1972.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Excellent Titanic Content
Nice post by Charles Hugh Smith, from the Of Two Minds blog via Zero Hedge. Money graphs:
The Titanic offers us a timeless analogy for denial and a frantic, too-late acceptance of grim reality. Had the doomed ship's leadership actively accepted the challenge to save as many lives as possible, then lifeboats would not have been sent off half-full. The sea was calm; boats could have been safely loaded beyond their designed capacity, and crude life-rafts might have been lashed together. As poor a solution as a lashed-together assemblage of buoyant materials would have been welcomed as a better alternative than certain death.
The Titanic offers us a timeless analogy for denial and a frantic, too-late acceptance of grim reality. Had the doomed ship's leadership actively accepted the challenge to save as many lives as possible, then lifeboats would not have been sent off half-full. The sea was calm; boats could have been safely loaded beyond their designed capacity, and crude life-rafts might have been lashed together. As poor a solution as a lashed-together assemblage of buoyant materials would have been welcomed as a better alternative than certain death.
But instead, the "plan" was to maintain a veneer of normalcy: the band played on, even as the bow sank lower into the unforgiving icy water.
Fed chairman Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geitner, President Obama and Congress are all ordering the band to play spritely tunes of rising holiday spending, endless borrowing, and the carefully crafted propaganda of Fed manipulation, statistical legerdemain and happy-talk about how the Monster will be gone when we open our eyes.
Since we are feeding the Monster with our very denial and derangements, then that is impossible. The longer we keep our eyes closed, hoping we can avoid any meaningful change, any meaningful adaptation and any meaningful sacrifice, the more fearsome and powerful the Monster becomes.
If we insist--childlike, petulant, resentful of reality--on keeping our eyes closed in 2011, then we are dooming ourselves to facing a much fiercer and more powerful Monster in 2012. We can't escape the confrontation, and the longer we put it off, hiding under our bed, wishing it all away, the more likely our panicky collapse when reality forces our eyes open.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Greatest Letter Ever on NFL Letterhead
Originally posted in the Cleveland Scene, "Northeast Ohio's Alternative Newsweekly." Click to enlarge (if you must). First, a letter from an irate fan:
Followed by the response:
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Better Late Than Never...
Excellent PDF article about the housing bubble from December 17, 2007 written by Mark Pittman. Must read!
Japan: Too Big to Fail or Bail
Interesting piece in Salon about how Japan has defied pessimists for 20 years:
But at least so far, the consensus is that this dire scenario won't, can't, happen. Indeed, it's often said that you aren't a real macro trader (someone who bets on global trends) until you've gotten burned shorting (i.e., betting against) Japan. "You'll find 10,000 people saying I'm an idiot and that people have been saying this, and been wrong, for 15 years, and kid, shut up," laughs my source. The Bank of Japan says the economy is improving; analysts say the government has lots of options, including raising the value-added tax or having the banking system put even more assets into government bonds. (Already, the Bank of Japan is engaged in its own form of "quantitative easing," or purchasing government bonds, which, just as in the United States, is supposed to help the economy recover.) Japan's relatively healthy corporate sector could take over from households in investing its surplus cash into government bonds. "Everyone acknowledges the long term seriousness of Japan's fiscal position," writes Grice. "But people seem almost fatigued with the idea that a country which has defied bond market logic for so long now is ever going to change."
But at least so far, the consensus is that this dire scenario won't, can't, happen. Indeed, it's often said that you aren't a real macro trader (someone who bets on global trends) until you've gotten burned shorting (i.e., betting against) Japan. "You'll find 10,000 people saying I'm an idiot and that people have been saying this, and been wrong, for 15 years, and kid, shut up," laughs my source. The Bank of Japan says the economy is improving; analysts say the government has lots of options, including raising the value-added tax or having the banking system put even more assets into government bonds. (Already, the Bank of Japan is engaged in its own form of "quantitative easing," or purchasing government bonds, which, just as in the United States, is supposed to help the economy recover.) Japan's relatively healthy corporate sector could take over from households in investing its surplus cash into government bonds. "Everyone acknowledges the long term seriousness of Japan's fiscal position," writes Grice. "But people seem almost fatigued with the idea that a country which has defied bond market logic for so long now is ever going to change."
The World's Most Hated Man
No, not Osama Bin Laden, but Ben Sherwood, former executive producer at Good Morning America, and the newly-appointed president of ABC News. His new employees hate him so much that they made a we-really-hate-you-video about him and leaked it to Gawker. Ben has apparently always been hated by most people he comes in contact with, as evidenced by a 1988 article by Andrew Sullivan (yes, that Andrew Sullivan) for Spy magazine:
But as the Times hinted, Ben's enthusiasm had provoked some teasing from classmates. 'It was a common bond among my classmates at Harvard, hating Ben Sherwood," notes one of his more affectionate former friends. "Ben is one of the most hated people alive," agrees Clark Freshman, a Harvard classmate and, as a Marshall scholar, a fellow Oxonian. "It's bizarre. People actually make an effort to dislike him." Others put it more gently: 'When you think Ben Sherwood, you think funny stories, you think asshole, you think 'Thank God I'm not him,' " says a friend.
Then there's this 2004 e-mail trail, also from Gawker, in which Ben works on his holiday message to his employees at Good Morning America with the help of his wife, resulting in much hilarity.
But as the Times hinted, Ben's enthusiasm had provoked some teasing from classmates. 'It was a common bond among my classmates at Harvard, hating Ben Sherwood," notes one of his more affectionate former friends. "Ben is one of the most hated people alive," agrees Clark Freshman, a Harvard classmate and, as a Marshall scholar, a fellow Oxonian. "It's bizarre. People actually make an effort to dislike him." Others put it more gently: 'When you think Ben Sherwood, you think funny stories, you think asshole, you think 'Thank God I'm not him,' " says a friend.
Then there's this 2004 e-mail trail, also from Gawker, in which Ben works on his holiday message to his employees at Good Morning America with the help of his wife, resulting in much hilarity.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Monday, June 15, 2009
How Screwed is Your Town?
Interesting piece from McClatchy shows when employment in different parts of the country is expected to recover. Looks piss-poor for SoCal!
Sell Sell Sell!
From Reuters:
Technical analyst Robert Prechter on Monday said he sees the United States losing its top AAA credit rating by the end of 2010, as he stuck by a deeply bearish outlook on the U.S. economy and stock market.
Technical analyst Robert Prechter on Monday said he sees the United States losing its top AAA credit rating by the end of 2010, as he stuck by a deeply bearish outlook on the U.S. economy and stock market.
Prechter, known for predicting the 1987 stock market crash, joins a growing coterie of market heavyweights in forecasting the United States will lose its top credit rating as the government issues trillions of dollars in debt to fund efforts to bail out the economy.
Fears about the long-term vulnerability of the prized U.S. credit rating came to the fore after Standard & Poor's in May lowered its outlook on Britain, threatening the UK's top AAA rating. That move raised fears that the United States could face a similar risk, with the hefty amounts of government debt issued in both countries to pay for financial rescues causing budget deficits to swell.
Prechter, speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York, said he sees investors' confidence in an economic rebound fading, a trend that will drag the S&P 500 stock index .SPX well below the March 6 intraday low of 666.79 by the end of this year or early next.
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