November 24, 2009 –
If you can't fill a CEO position for months, maybe it's because you didn't want to fill it? Here is one idiot who thinks it's impossible to find a good employee for "just" a 7-digit salary. It bears mentioning that Bove's employment criterion for the successful job applicant is hardly too demanding: you must be able to match the performance of Ken Lewis, i.e. bankrupt BAC but not to the very end, because taxpayers won't allow you to complete that last step even though you've tried. [more]
November 22, 2009 –
Brezhnev speaks at the opening of the Olympic games: "O! O! O! O! O!". The speechwriter whispers into his ear: "Comrade Brezhnev, these are not "O"s, but the five Olympic rings. The text is below." [more]
November 21, 2009 –
The Economist magazine had an article about various options how to balance the 2014 budget. Normally such articles run like along the lines: "Option 1: tax charity organizations proving free soup to the hungry - Savings: $30M; Option 2: Allow Medicare to pay for involuntary euthanasia of certain groups of patients - savings: 50M". But this article was more reasonable than that, so I tried to find the missing $726 billion using the options available. [more]
November 20, 2009 –
Of course, patriotism should take priority over the inconvenient facts - or so some comments on my last posts imply. So, lest I be called a lackey of the American imperialists, I thought I'd do my best to give a balanced picture. I'd still report the nasty events, such as the raider attack on Hermitage Capital Management, but I'd also report any piece of good news that I can find. The problem is that I don't see as many good news as I'd like to - Mr. Putin makes it terribly hard to remain positive on Russia sometimes. But here you go, here's your piece of good news. It looks like downtown St. Petersburg will after all be spared from Gazprom's corn-on-the-cob. It's not official yet, but once the speaker of the parliament has spoken, you can be sure that his statement was agreed upon with His Imperial Majesty. The winners: long-suffering Gazprom shareholders, Russian government's budget, and every Russian and foreigner who thinks St. Petersburg is a beautiful town and would like it to remain that way. The loser: Gazprom's CEO who will not get a chance to buy himself a new multibillion-dollar office at taxpayers' expense. Not that I think this economy of funds will save OGZPY.PK from eventual bankruptcy. But at least the management will now have to look for some other way to siphon off these billions, and the tourists will still keep coming to Petersburg for the time being. 
http://gallery.hd.org/_tn/std/places-and-sights/_more2006/_more08/Russia-St-Petersburg-canal-brightly-coloured-building-facades-highres-1-CKB.jpg [more]
November 20, 2009 –
This thought has occurred to me frequently in the last few months. Right now, I'm not sure what the correct answer is. I can make an argument that S&P will go down but I can just as easily take the opposite side of the argument. One thing I'm sure of: it will have an effect one way or the other. Therefore I expect that volatility won't disappear and the market will remain an exciting place for the next few years. Just how exciting and in what particular way - that is the question. I want to collect OPOs - Other People's Opinions - first, and then maybe I'll give it some more thought and then formulate my conclusions. So here is my question to everyone: Chinese economy will collapse in the next few years. What will then happen to S&P? [more]
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