A Week Off
March 26, 2009
Well, I'm off to Oregon for a visit with my parents and some time at the coast in Seaside, so there probably won't be a column next week. Struggle by without me, if you can!
Well, I'm off to Oregon for a visit with my parents and some time at the coast in Seaside, so there probably won't be a column next week. Struggle by without me, if you can!
There was a LOT of economic news this week; so much that I posted in here.
The key issue is not controlling executive compensation. The solution to this side issue is making sure shareholders can vote on levels directly rather than leaving compensation to a management controlled board.
The key issue, as previously noted by PSACOT, is restoring trust and confidence by restoring Glass-Steagall, eliminating CDS's and CDO's, active and informed and unconflicted regulation, closing the insolvent banks now. If they are concerned about how to deal with Citigroup, buy the portion of the company not currently owned by the government for another $12B or so and deal with the entire company in the national interest. Split it up, split off the bank from the brokerage, over time obtain what is possible from the assets currently underwater or substantially below face value or acquisition cost. Do not moan about an inability to deal with Citi or the need for new laws to do it. Same with the other big banks.
Obama should immediately fire those responsible (starting with Geithner and Summers). Call in Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz for a meeting and give real serious consideration to installing a team at Treasury that will follow their advice.
Frank Rich op-ed in NYT 3/22/09 where one finds two classic lines:
Quoting a stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The (New York) Times:
"President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived."
"Summers is so tone-deaf that he makes Geithner seem like Bobby Kennedy."
key point intuitively obvious to the most casual observer:
". . . why has there been so little transparency and so much evasiveness so far? The answer, I fear, is that too many of the administration's officials are too marinated in the insiders' culture to police it, reform it or own up to their own past complicity with it."
Briefs
3 stars out of 5
I liked it. The New Yorker liked it. The San Francisco Chronicle hated it. I am talking about the Julia Roberts/Clive Owens genre bender Duplicity, which is a combined caper film and romantic comedy. It is truly as confusing as hell. The plot runs forwards, backwards and sideways. And there is something to be said for the Chronicle's criticism that writer/directory Tony Gilroy did not play fair with the audience, withholding critical information and writing an unsatisfying conclusion. I'm certainly not going to spoil the film. I will say this: I like entertainment that does not spoon feed the viewer. In fact, I'll never forget the time I accidentally tuned in half-way through an hour-long police procedural TV show, thinking I had just missed the first few minutes. I was ready to write a letter to the network praising the brave screenwriter who assumed we could pick up the plot as things went along, rather than explaining it to us as if we were fifth-graders. Only when the show ended "a half hour early" did I realize that the only thing that had happened was that I had missed the spoon feeding. If you liked the backwards story telling of Memento, the witty banter of any 40s screwball comedy and the incredibly confusing yet satisfying plot of any John le Carré novel, you'll enjoy Duplicity. Or, if you just get a charge out of watching Clive Owen and Julia Roberts.
Regular contributor Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe has a few words to say to Jackie Mason and others who use the (not so) fine old Yiddish word for African Americans.
Richard Dalton likes David Letterman's Farewell Tribute to Great Moments in Presidential Speeches
Daniel Dern passes on a story about a nasty memo from the new owners of the Wall Street Journal. Thank you, Rupert Murdoch!
Dan Grobstein File
Talking Business: The Problem With Flogging A.I.G.
By JOE NOCERA
The anger and drama over the bonuses at A.I.G. may be undermining efforts to shore up the economy.
Remember last week, when I wrote about being happy? It stemmed from a conversation with my wife, who had been at a seminar where it was discussed.
I just took a class in Positive Psych. at Cal. One of the keys to happiness is using your strengths. They recommended taking the free test on strengths at
authentichappiness.com - and even doing a "family tree" of strengths for all members of the family.The only constant is change, as I've often been reminded.
I listened to the final podcast of NPR's mid-day news program, Day To Day, and its series of "good bye" essays. They remind me of the people, jobs and careers I've said goodbye to over the years. Eventually, we say goodbye to everything. If we're lucky, its at a time of our choosing, clean, friendly, and as abrupt as we're comfortable with. If we're not lucky (and usually we're not), the activity, relationship, person or organization simply ceases to exist, quickly if we prefer that it end slowly, slowly if we prefer it to end quickly.
I've had a black thumb in this regard. My first four adult jobs were at the Oregon Journal, the Associated Press, United Press International and Bank of America. The Journal is gone, and the BofA lives on in name only--it is no longer the San Francisco-based bank of A.P. Gianinni for which I worked. UPI is no longer a real wire service. I miss all of them. There were great institutions, launched in the early years of the 20th Century that didn't live to see the 21st in any recognizable form. Much younger was CMP, the journalism company which employed me for two decades. It, too, has disappeared, along with nearly every magazine, newspaper and web site to which I contributed.
One of the saddest things about good-byes is that we don't get much say about them. THE saddest thing about a goodbye is when you don't know it's a goodbye. That's mostly the way it is with people--rarely do we know we're seeing someone for the last time. In the best case, you'd said most of what you needed to say and the person knew how you felt. In the worst case, there were unexpressed sentiments that stick in your throat forever. My own experience in this area has led me to make certain that the people I care about know how I feel. I remind them, frequently. Some of them would say too frequently, but I don't like to take chances. I don't ever want someone I love or respect to die without knowing how I feel about them.
Some of my good-byes saddened me, some made me happy. All of them changed me, some for the better, some for the worse. I hope to live long enough to say many more, until the good-byes said to me mark the end of the process.
The AIG Bonuses are a Sideshow
in
plain English - slight family language alert) piece on the whole
financial/economic situation: The Big Takeover:The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
AIG knew it would have to reveal the counterparties. So they chummed the water with the bonuses story for the NYT front page on Sunday (a paltry $165M) and then released the counterparty story which revealed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson making Goldman Sachs (just coincidentally the company he ran until leaving to work at raid the Treasury) the global leader in taxpayer gifts funneled through AIG ($12.6B, that's about 72 times greater than total AIG bonuses). Most of the evening coverage on Monday, March 16, focused on the bonuses and not Henry's gift to Goldman Sachs of $12.9B of your money.
The "retention" gifts do not work - 11 of the donees (each of whom received more than $1,000,000 and one of whom received $4,600,000) have left the company (note Andy's comment on the job the lawyers did).
If they are paying this kind of money there should have been a provision either that the gift was returnable if the donee left before the end of the retention period or that it would be paid at the end of the retention period. Unless, of course, everyone had a reasonable expectation of bankruptcy or losses in which case the donees would want to get the money as soon as possible.
Q: What's the difference between an AIG Financial Products executive and a mobster?
A: The mobster carries a gun.
AIG in perspective: A bulldog just ripped off your face, and you’re whining about a parking ticket!
Craig Reynolds isn't coming back with Technobriefs any time soon, but he found some good links this week:
My conservative friend Chuck Carroll has some ideas on banking he's proposed to the president.
A friend writes...
Dan Grobstein File
A report from the field:
Last night I went to "A Tribute to John Updike" at the NY Public Library presented by Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker. The link on the NYPL.org/live website no longer has it under upcoming programs and it hasn't moved to past programs yet. His editors and friends and brother all spoke about him or read from his works.
ZZ Packer, the author of "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" told of meeting him in the green room while waiting to go on the Today Show. Two interesting bits:
They were being made up and she saw him there and thought that he looks like a pumpkin from all the makeup. Should she tell him? He's John Updike after all. She went up to him and said "I'm ZZ Packer." He said "Hello, I'm orange."
When she was being interviewed by Katie Couric, she was asked what magazines and newspapers she read. That question didn't really resonate with her until she heard Couric ask the exact same question of Sarah Palin.
Dan (and others) on multitasking:
Your typical Republican can't. But Obama can.
The Republicans say that the president should concentrate on the economy and not do anything else. Obama says that Lincoln did lots of stuff during the Civil War besides prosecuting the war. JFK did civil rights and started the moon program.
Matt Yglesias says: