Blog :: Spero Consulting

Taleb the Pundit?

Andy Spero | August 24, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

There is an interesting article in the Money & Investing Section of today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, entitled Taleb’s Pessimism Lures CIC.

In it, the reporter, Jenny Strasburg, writes about Nassim Nicholas Taleb and a hedge fund, Universa, with which he is associated.

We particularly like this quote she attributes to Mr. Taleb, “Stocks are not a robust investment (sic). Make sure you have a garden that bears fruit.”

We like it because we can’t tell whether Mr. Taleb is serious, or not. We’ll explain.

If you… Read the rest

Paying to Play in High School

Andy Spero | July 22, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

That’s the title of the front-page article in the sports section of today’s paper edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.¹

As it turns, the article is about budget shortfalls and participation fees, but when we saw the title, we thought it was about something much more disturbing and quite unethical.

While we like to quip that there is no better place to see the Fallen Nature of Man than Catholic school sports, that’s not quite true. We realize it is a bit of an overstatement when referencing the boorish, immature… Read the rest

Leave Shirley Sherrod Alone.

Andy Spero | July 21, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

We have deep sympathy for Shirley Sherrod, and the Kafkaesque predicament in which she finds herself.

The former regional USDA official was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture for seemingly racist comments that were clearly taken out-of-context and very much contradict the point of her anecdote.

The story she related was a confessional of her journey–of how she grew to treat fairly someone of a different race–of how she overcame her prejudices. In addition, she was describing events that happened in 1986, which is nearly one… Read the rest

The New ‘New Coke?’

Andy Spero | July 18, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Coke’s New Two-liter Bottle Design

Photo of new two-liter Coke bottle with narrow bottom Caffeine-free Diet Coke is a staple at SCI’s World Headquarters, and while we prefer it in cans, we often consume a two-liter bottle each day. So, we noticed that the shape of the bottle changed this week.¹ Notice the retro design with the narrow band a few inches up from the base in the photo to the left.

Our initial reaction is that the change is not for the good.

Clearly, the new design mimics the shape of the classic Coke ponies (7 oz.)… Read the rest

Information? Knowledge? and Wisdom?

Andy Spero | July 18, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Which One (or more) Is (are) Missing?

Peggy Noonan has an excellent column in this weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal: Youth Has Outlived Its Usefulness.

In it, she laments the lack of wise old men (and women) in positions of power or near those in powerful positions.

That’s something that we have written about by asking “where have the grownups gone?” (See the first second and third fourth results; we forgot to consider this post now appears at the top of the search results.) In those posts we lamented the

… Read the rest

Can Anyone in Congress Value a Derivative?

Andy Spero | July 14, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Any Derivative?

When we have the time, we’ll write more about the Dodd-Frank bill. As many of our readers know, the bill is meant to further regulate financial and derivative transactions and institutions in the USA, but as we sit here trying to do our work, one over-riding thought keeps nagging at us (enough to stop what we’re doing and write this short post).

While we agree with certain provisions in the bill, e.g., the proposed ban on proprietary trading at guaranteed and subsidized institutions, it is important to… Read the rest

Interest Rate Swaps and Stupidity, II

Andy Spero | July 12, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

What Could Go Wrong? Visit the Emergency Room.

Last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal had another article about how some organizations “lost” money on interest-rate swap contracts.

The fact that someone–one of the two parties involved–lost money should come as no surprise. Unless rates evolve along very specific paths, someone–either the customer or the bank–is going to lose money on an interest rate swap.

Last week’s article, entitled Wrong-Way Financial Bets Have Hit Hard in the paper or Hospitals’ Wall Street Wounds on-line, tells how hospitals lost money on… Read the rest

Bureaucracy and Its Handmaiden: Voicemail

Andy Spero | July 11, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

State Government, Inertia, and Your Tax Dollars

A friend of ours has spent much of his adult life interacting with state government appointees, bureaucrats, and a few good men and women in their employ and association. He tries to help those in need with state resources, when possible.

On Friday, he mentioned that due to a fiscal-year-end financial crisis/dispute, he made twenty calls to various state employees during the holiday-shortened four-day work week.

None of his calls were answered, nor did he get a response from any of the messages… Read the rest

WWJP (Where Would Jesus Park?)

Andy Spero | July 11, 2010 | 0 Comment(s) |

Impasto painting of St. Alphonsus Parish, Wexford, PA Back on March 29, we wrote At the Right Place, which detailed many of the parking violations we saw at a Lenten Penance service at our Parish, St. Alphonsus, in Wexford, PA. Included in the violations were numerous cars parked in clearly marked fire lanes, three cars surrounding and violating the same fire hydrant–it’s at the end of a narrow grassy island and there was a car on each side–and other cars parked where they shouldn’t have been–in parts of the narrow driveways that are clearly not parking… Read the rest