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We’re trying to shed our ethnocentrism, and as a nod to our global readership, we’ve added a translation feature to the right.
Let us know how well it works–especially our good friends in Kiev and London.
Not sure if it is as cool as our visitor map. If not, it is a very close second.
So, in 35 languages, we wish all of our clients and readers a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009.
Approximately ten days ago, after his release from jail, we caught a brief glimpse of Bernie Madoff on the television news.
He was walking along the sidewalks of New York, presumably near his apartment, and he was surrounded by a swarm of news reporters and cameramen.
It seemed that someone accosted him–pushed him–but the episode didn’t last very long. We didn’t think much of it at the time and figured that it was a disgruntled neighbor who was also an investor in Mr. Madoff’s funds who had happened upon him… Read the rest
Update: We’ve added an excellent line from Peggy Noonan’s December 26th, weekly column, as it fits so perfectly with our theme.
We spent a recent noon-time distributing year-end, holiday, bonus checks to a group of care-givers and their managers.
It was very gratifying, especially since it wasn’t our money. We’re joking, of course. It would likely have been more gratifying had been our money, but while the lunch was for a small organization, it’s not that small.
Now, we know that it is quite easy… Read the rest
This past weekend–the last before Christmas–we saw a few reports criticizing the upcoming Congressional pay raises, including this one at FoxNews: Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups.
In that article, someone from a watchdog group noted that “Members of Congress don’t deserve one additional dime of taxpayer money…”
We’ll leave the issue of what Congressfolk deserve to others, including their maker. Our standard response when folks complain about the weather in Western PA–we think the sun appeared… Read the rest
We were at Williams-Sonoma this past weekend and saw a beautiful copper, KitchenAid mixer for $899.95. (Its twin is made of nickel, and we have no idea of how prices of that metal have changed, but we doubt that they have gone up since the summer.)
The nearly $900 seemed a bit expensive for a mixer; so, we joked with the clerk that KitchenAid must have bought their copper supply much earlier in the year when prices were three times as high and that it must be still trying to recoup its… Read the rest
We have two other posts today, Oil in the 30s: Merry Christmas, in which we opportunistically crow about our prowess at predicting oil prices, and The Harvard-Yale-CALPERS Cycling Club, in which we lament the lack of imagination among fund managers and the enormous harm caused by inexperience or ineptitude (got to throw-in the personal and institutional greed, too). We do that via an analogy.
Now, this post extends both of those because, here, we make a… Read the rest
A few weeks ago, Harvard announced that its endowment fund lost about $8,000,000,000 (since July 1).
This week, Yale announced that its endowment was down about 25% for the year. That’s about $5,900,000,000. (Their fiscal year started July 1.)
Likewise, according to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, CALPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has lost about one-quarter of its assets since July 1. That’s almost $60,000,000,000. Poof! To put it into perspective; that is A LOT of money.
On their housing investment, CALPERS… Read the rest
We very much like the ancient Greek story of Cassandra, and one could well imagine that for almost ten years, Harry Markopolos felt like a modern-day Cassandra.
We don’t know enough about Mr. Markopolos to know whether he wrote letters to the SEC about hundreds of other fund managers claiming that they also ran Ponzi schemes or were part of the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, were adducted by UFOs, or provided FDR with advanced knowledge of the bombing of Pearl Harbor or some combination of the four. If so, then it is quite… Read the rest
