Farewell JWM

So farewell
then
(yet again)
John W. Meriwether.

Old saws
abound
to describe
your fickle luck
and less-than
illustrustriousness.

Such as
"Fortune favors
the bold"
errr not
always.

"Thrice lucky"
perhaps?,
ummm.
not quite.

"The cream
rises to
the top?".
Evidently
not.

"There's a
sucker born
every day...",
ah, yes, that
will be your
catchphrase.


(with usual apologies to EJ Thribb and PrivateEye)

Anything But A Financier

Attention all media personnel:

Please cease referring to Alan Stanford as "a Financier". If your prose is feeling naked and you are looking for an appropriate job description might I suggest "Ponzista", "Contrapreneur", "Confidence Man", "Trickster", "Financial Huckster" "Snake-Oil Salesman", or "Pathological Liar", Barricuda, Bilker, Bunco, Cheater, Clip Artist, Crook, Deceiver, Fleecer, Flimflammer, Fraudster, Hoser, Hustler, Mountebank, Scam Artist, Scammer, Shark, Sharpie, Smoothie, Swindler, or Antiguan Anti-Christ. Should you feel these tags a tad premature (editorially-speaking), do not hesitate to preface it with "alledged", or for those willing to go out (but not too for out) on a limb, "likely".

Thank you,

"Cassandra"

The Reith Lectures: 2009

BBC's Reith Lectures are always both thought-provoking and illuminating. This year Harvard's Michael Sandel examined morality in a variety of venues - first markets, then politics, and, the third coming up, in science with respect to genetics. The first two of Dr Sandel's talks are well worth one's attention, as I am certain the final two will as well.

Needless to say, I am a big fan of the both the format and purpose. They are, at once dense yet approachable - attributes that in an ever-increasing world of complexity is useful for non-specialists to fathom the nuances of the deliberated subject. The BBC describes their history and purpose as follows:

The Reith Lectures were inaugurated in 1948 by the BBC to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John (later Lord) Reith, the corporation's first director-general.

John Reith maintained that broadcasting should be a public service which enriches the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. It is in this spirit that the BBC each year invites a leading figure to deliver a series of lectures on radio. The aim is to advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest.

The very first Reith lecturer was the philosopher, Bertrand Russell who spoke on "Authority and the Individual". Among his successors were Arnold Toynbee (The World and the West, 1952), Robert Oppenheimer (Science and the Common Understanding, 1953) and J.K. Galbraith (The New Industrial State, 1966). More recently, the Reith lectures have been delivered by the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks (The Persistence of Faith, 1990) and Dr Steve Jones (The Language of the Genes, 1991).

While some will argue that the internet and huge range of similar content now-available has made this redundant, but I'd argue that the exponential the Public Interest is still-served by the mediation and editorial policy of a trusted source. Yes one can still argue about who best serves this role, but I am pleased to benefit from the Beeb's filtering on our behalf. Hope you enjoy them...

Moving Blues

My family and I are moving. Across an ocean. Large upheavals for the entire lot of us. Leaving friends and an indolent but simply honest way of life will be challenging for children and parents alike. But this is no time for regret as the die has proverbially been cast. As a result, I've had little time to write - much to my chagrin - hence the spartan posting of late, as the practical details associated with sifting and sorting more than a decade-and-a-half of accumulated shite and entrenched life that seemingly must (and now as I edit this, has) found its way into boxes and crates before floating across the azure, and hopefully placid (lest the container slip off), sea.

Down-sizing is a time-consuming though cathartic exercise. One gets lost in the endless photos, letters to or from friends, loved-ones now passed and old flames, pondering the whereabouts of old acquaintances whose address on a scrap of paper or business card has been used as a bookmark in a half-finished novel, or in ruminations upon mementos such the unusual brass desk calendar (something like this) with a fine 70-year old patina that turns to flip the two-sided cards within in order to change the prevailing day, (twice at the end of the month if it's a short one) ... one of the few tangible relics I possess from my grandfather, that made the cut on all prior moves, and will, again, this time. As I packed, I wondered of the origins and stories of these oddities and curios - the seemingly endless accumulated junk like the pair of E&Y mini-binoculars handed out at some function or another, never used, having consumed resources, the energy of asian labour, shippers diesel, the forwarders trans-shipments, multiple deliveries and manifests that brought it hither only to land (with one of it's siblings, no less) in a drawer, still-protected by its hermetical seal. Multiplied by five people, and untold drawers and shelves, now binomially at the crossroads between the increasingly pregnant rubbish bag, and membership in the growing tower of #42, #52, and #62 cartons, the exercise is arduous. Will the stuffed animals ever be re-cuddled, the re-match of "Clue", ever re-played, or the old cards and letters ever be re-read?!? Yet a few days later, with the boxes gone, I cannot tell you what became of most of them, such was the frenzy and blizzard of the removal. Now, I am profoundly unsettled. Not because of the impending move, but because I am not proud of the hoard. In fact, just the opposite. I am at once shocked and horrified by the obscenity of clothes, linen, PVC, toys, games, DVDs, CDs stuffed animals and all type of shiny, glazed colourful bric-a-brac that we human magpies collect (or, at least my family unit has collected). And yet, prior to this, I thought (or romantically imagined) we were parsimonious - at least compared to our peers. "Quality, not quantity". "No No No, you CANNOT have that - it's a waste...". The unending pleas to grandparents NOT to buy more junk. "Need little, want less", the wise catchphrase, over at Jesse's Cafe I hold out as a core value to demonstrate good non-acquisitive non-materialistic values. And yet, before me are boxes with too-many-multiples and sets of errrr ummm well, nearly everything, evidence I've failed in my attempts. Despite continual shedding of excess to friends, acquaintances, and the needy, the substantial purge of what will shortly be incinerated, and the sale of all the pedestrian furniture, devices that will not operate on 220v, what remains seems inconceivably vast, I feel empty, and ill as a result. I wish for that feeling when I first discovered DT Suzuki, identified with anicca and annata, and swore a now-broken oath that I'd never find myself where I presently am.

Analysing how this happened without my noticing, I begin to suspect that there is something allegorical in my predicament, both with respect to The Credit Bubble in general, and the erosion of America's fiscal position, and household balance sheets in particular. For just as I never set out with a plan to mindlessly consume and acquire, so too did America not consciously embark upon a credit-induced death-wish, nor the State and Her households conspire to burden themselves with untenably servicable quantities of debt. Incrementalism was the path. Manana, manana, manana was the mantra of denial that insured the difficult choice, the painful option, the road less travelled, was rarely contemplated let alone set out upon. Just as one doesn't become hugely obese by the pull of a rip-cord, the extension and multiplication of credit is not instanteously conjured. It is a slow-motion result cumulating from innumerable small decisions, each not life-threatening and reversible in themselves, but when conjoined, and embedded in feedback-loops, result in veritable disaster, be it fiscally, in one's waistline, or, in the accumulation of stuff. One's child desire's a brightly coloured plastic widget-thinger. One is tired, so one relents, makes the bargain with the devil and buys it - a respite from incessant demands, a bribe to keep the polity content. But intuitively, from wisdom and experience one knows it will rarely be played with thereafter, as are the multitudes of birthday presents, holiday gifts from family close and far. One knows the moment of weakness, far from currying favor or satiating demand, will only amplify it. One knows intuitively it's wrong and wasteful. But few are strong enough. Few people in the heat of that decisive moment - be it a mindless "toy" or an omnibus appropriations bill take into account cost vs. benefit analyses or an assessment of negative externalities. A plant, a book, a poem, a perennial bulb, a sketch, a charitable donation, all devalued in favor of PVC plastic bakelite injection molded synthetic rayon nylon stuff with imagination engagement values measured in the minutes or hours, but environmental half-lives measured in the centuries. Or deficit-spent consumption at the expense of investment. It is the same. How did we get here? Haven't more people noticed?

Does this stuff have value to anyone else? Would it find a market in its hovel of origin, outside of the salvage value from the materials from which is was constructed? Were they thinking of the gullible buyers, as I wonder about who made it? Decorative votive holders? Harvest motif napkin rings? Endless junk and clutter, some once useful, others never approached any reasonable utility. There is no secondary market value for most of it. Even the local charity ceased to accept clothes excepting those of a suitable pedigree. Beggars, it would seem, can, and are, choosy.

Now, I have shed [much of] my excess, filled my boxes, and sent them on their way in the container. Now, I am living in a minimalist purgatory for a couple of months until my [remaining] belongings arrive at their destination. I miss none of it. I feel liberated. If the container fell off of the ship, was waylaid by Somali pirates, or jack-knifed on the A7 enroute to delivery, I would shed no tears. I have my family, my health, a piano, some books, a trusty bicycle (which I've yet to figure out how to bring to its new home), and my running shoes. But this is potentially where the allegory stops. The last twelve months of de-leveraging at first glance, appeared to provide some strong introspective incentives. The upper boundary of aggregate credit appeared to have been reached, and the consequence of the mass-realization of this fact, combined with the cascading impact upon asset prices of system-wide reactions was too much to countenance. While I've satirically and bitterly mocked how we got there, as we were getting there, I do believe in the predicament at the moment, that stabilization of the patient was necessary. Just seven months ago, we had innumerable 'Ghost of Xmas Past' moments. "Never again" , "How could we have been so foolish?" "XYZ is the new normal", etc. Now, with asset prices on the mend, and feedback loop, well, feeding back in the prevailing direction, there is the belief that the worst is passed. Recovery is purportedly here (at least if viewed through the eyes of risk premia). Jimmy Stewart is already forgotten, as are the sleepless nights of what systemic obliteration might have meant. The promises of change and pleas of obedience to the deity of choice have been transgressed. Or at least so say the price action of the commodity complex and diversified inflation hedges.

This may true. But the crucial question, put most simply is: Has the denoument of the crisis passed, or is this merely the eye of the storm?? I am but an economist with a very small "e", however, as I wrote in favored post "If You Can't Tell Who The Sucker Is...", the question of what is likely to appear to be normal in hindsight is not (if this is The Big One as I believe it is) what is popularly perceived. "Peak Credit" has come and gone, and with it, the Era of Stupid Loans passed - for this generation anyway. In hindsight, we will wonder NOT why credit was crunched, but how the hallucinogenic wheat fungus that caused those with capital to, along with pixie dust conjured from it, to give it away to anyone and everyone who wanted it with such reckless abandon. So IF the era of Stupid Loans is finished, there will be no recovery. There will be precious little inflation, and it is likely deflation will persist.

I want to be bullish. I want asset prices to already be south of some long-term equilibrium, and be ready to rise. It would be less painful for The People. But with employment shocks still to ripple through the chain of dependencies, household balance sheets compromised, continued real-estate indigestion, our position between a fiscal rock & a hard place, and continued financial sector deleveraging, we collectively are the place that I've just been. We collectively are just beginning to sift through our shit - mentally sizing up what's important, what to take and what to leave. We are just beginning to realize that tough choices lie ahead - in all facets of life. We are just beginning to understand that these choices do not include 5-litre Cadillacs, absurdly over-applianced kitchens, or $5 iced-frappucino lattes. But, on the bight side - you won't miss most of it as much as you ex-ante believe you might...

Don't Break the Law When You're Breaking The Law

When I was in Aspen in April, Patrolman Joe sirened me to a stop as I came over the Bridge into town. "What's the rush Sir? - Is someone ill??" "Do you realize you were doing 37 in a 25 zone?" "Ummm ummm no sir, I KNOW it's a 25 in town and I crawl safely like everyone else there. I thought I'd slowed down. I didn't realize the zone began at the bridge... I have no excuse, as I was clearly guilty".

"License and registration Sir..." he demanded politely. "Are you going to be arrested?!? my son called from the back seat. My daughter had her head in her hands embarrassed by her groveling parent. My spouse gloating with "I told you so looks and tongue clicks". He ran my license. Didn't catch my outstanding offense from 1987 for non-payment of a non-applicable fine that I'd neglected to clean up. Back he came. "Now, IF I were going to give you a ticket it would be $140 and three points. Of course, you're not from here so I am sure you don't care about the points. All the same, it would be expensive. But, I can see you're well-intentioned, so I'm just going to give you a warning...Please drive safely in our town!

Two months later, they pulled over another hedgie (report here). Perhaps the arresting Officer was invested in the driver's Fund since since the offending Driver of the Green Land Rover was clearly not as lucky as your's truly. I still remember the sagely advice of a local villain where I grew up (obviously unheeded by the driver below): "Don't Break the Law When You're Breaking The Law..."

(hat-tip CB!!)

So Farewell Then...

So farewell
then
Pequot Capital
Management
Hedge
Fund.

You told
investors
you
channel-checked
more accurately
than
anyone...

...counted cars
in a
fab's lot
at 9pm
to stay ahead
of the
herd.

And you didn't
dispel flattering
rumours
your Wharton interns
were dumpster-diving.
on your
behalf.

But it seems
your research
edge was
less-than
salubriously
on the edge.

Quite aptly,
'Pequot'
translates as:
"Men of
the Swamp"

Perhaps there
is more
justice in
the second liquidation
of the Pequot
than in
the first.

(With apologies to PrivateEye and EJ Thribb and posthumous ackowledgement to Greg Newton)

Trojan Horse Becomes Trojan Rabbit

Porsche's perfect Trojan Horse corner and attempted takeover of VW is, according to Bloomberg (and others), rapidly in danger of becoming a less-perfectly concocted "Trojan Rabbit". Had Mr Wedeking perhaps spoken with the Hunt Brothers, they would have learned that getting the price up is only half of it (and the easy half). Cashing out in full, and banking the plunder, as the Hunt's would have told them, is a bit more tricky.

I must admit that I am actually a bit sad to see it come unravelled (not having had a short in VW) since there was brilliance in shafting may of the self-professed smartest guys in the world (?!?!?) by suckering them in with a trail of seemingly free bank notes, before giving them the P&L wedgie of their lives and hanging them-up in public view by their short and curlies. But it appears that The Street may have the last laugh.

Caned!

This would be funny if it weren't so sad...

Perfect Revelation

In my post, The Perfection of Quantitative Easing, I ruminated upon the linguistic perfection of the phrase, wondering aloud who might have conjured such a wonder. The answer has revealed itself in this kind note below that was too illuminating to leave buried in the comments section of the post...

Richard Werner said...
I believe I am the originator of the phrase 'Quantitative easing'. The original Japanese expression is 'ryoteki kinyu kanwa' or 'ryoteki kanwa' for short. Both are, literally translated, 'quantitative easing'. Thank you Cassandra for your most wonderful description of the English translation.

I used the expression prominently in my articles in the Japanese press in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 (Nikkei, Japanese Economist, Toyo Keizai, Japanese Newsweek, etc.) to suggest the necessary and sufficient policy response to end the recession (I had predicted the Japanese banking collapse in 1991; in print see Discussion Paper 129, Oxford Institute of Economics and Statistics). I had already argued then that interest rate reductions, even to zero, won't help. What was needed was to stimulate the economy through the quantity, not the price of money - correctly done. I wanted to avoid expressions such as the figurative 'printing money' and the common 'expanding the money supply', not only because they would unnecessarily alarm Japanese lay readers, but also because these are traditional monetarist prescriptions, which I argued would not work (as the monetarists argued for an expansion of bank reserves). At the time I was chief economist at Jardine Fleming Securities (Asia) Ltd. and Assistant Professor at Tokyo's Sophia University and known as the BoJ's fiercest critic. The Bank of Japan adopted my expression in 2001 as its official policy. The BoJ used exactly my Japanese phrase, and in its English-language press statement literally translated it.

However, and this is a predictable irony of central bank behaviour, they used it is a cover, because they did not adopt true quantitative easing, and instead implemented simple monetarist expansion of bank reserves. As I had predicted, this could not work. Next year Japan will basically be in its 20th year of recession. One further comment: In my English-language articles and interviews that I gave I used the expressions 'credit expansion', 'liquidity expansion' or 'credit creation' (the latter being the most accurate description) instead of 'ryoteki kanwa', as the audience in the financial markets would then understand me more or less correctly. Anyway, shame I'm not getting license fees each time a central bank talks about 'QE'.
Professor Richard A. Werner, D.Phil. (Oxon), Chair in International Banking, Director of the Center for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development, School of Management, University of Southampton. werner@soton.ac.uk
9:00 AM, May 14, 2009

Time of Your Life

It's a contemplative self-proclaimed "No-Finance Monday". As such, I will encourage you to enjoy one of my fav's with me. It's quite an archetypical theme, so I would be surprised if it doesn't touch most people, at even just a little.

Financial Psalm 16

Financial Psalm 16

16:1 Preserve me, Gold, for in you do I take refuge.

16:2 My portfolio, you have saveth, and it sayeth: “You are my Saviour.

Apart from you, I have no good thing.”

16:3 As for the silver and oil which is in the earth,

they are also excellent ones in whom is my delight.

16:4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied who diversifyeth into other assets.

Their offerings of bonds I will not accept,

nor hold such paper on my lists.

16:5 Gold well-assayed is my preference and made-eth my cup. 

You made my lot secure.

16:6 Your prices have risen making pleasant our faces.

Yes, our offspring will have a good inheritance.

16:6.1 Beware the false prophet, paper gold, promising false profits.

16:7 Blessed be Chris Wood, who resembleth Jesus, and has given me wise counsel.

My heart instructs me to stay long during the right seasons.

16:8 I have set Gold always before other assets. Because It is is heavy in my right hand, and shall not be moved from its Swiss vault without  countersigned instructions.

16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my relative purchasing power rejoices.

My portfolio shall also dwelleth in safety so long as Bernanke ruleth.

16:10 For you, Gold will not leaveth my portfolio in Zimbabwe, or Weimar

neither will you allow my portfolio to become holey due to political corruption, or crony capitalism.

16:11 You, Gold, will show me the path of wealth preservation during times of inflationary woe and political uncertainty.

In your presence, I feel the joy of your security.

So that my hand can exchangeth you for pleasures forevermore.

(with apologies to Private Eye)

Reg FD: I am not a goldbug and still believe it has one more big puke before the rocket-ride (not the "gee, I printed a price and stayed there for 5 mins puke)

The People of Great Britain are Better Off Today...

The People (and Government) of Great Britain have, for the last century-and-a-half been notoriously tolerant. From Karl Marx to the Mad North London Mullah with a prosthetic hook, Abu Hamza, from Glenn Hoddle to Simon Cowell, they let a whole lot pass upon their shores that other people simply wouldn't countenance, (and if they did, certainly would not do so for as long). And true to my political orientation, I think Britain, and the British people are not the worse-off for their open-mindedness and forbearance. So I am reasonably certain that, if I were consistent, I rightly should feel Britain has suffered some meaningful loss over Home Secretary Smith's slapping an entry ban on Michael Wiener, a.k.a. Michael Savage.



Yet, I don't. Paradoxically, despite my predisposition towards free speech, and general tolerance of most weird, eccentric, iconoclastic, ludicrous, subversive, even lunatic ideas, I am quite confident that Britain is better without the inciting bigotry and facist, racist, homophobic, hyperbolic rantings of Mr Savage-Wiener. Mrs.Smith's solution was simple and clinical. Probably not optimal, but effective. And so in one small way, (FTSE short-squeeze andincreasing risk appetites asides) the people of Great Britain are better off today than they were but a few days ago, save the elimination of Mr Savage-Wiener 's entertainment-value of which they will now be deprived.

Financial Gitmo

I am a survivor of the Japanese bear market. Twelve (or twenty - depending on your school of thought) long years of it. Call it "Financial Gitmo". The lessons of this incarceration were varied, and the experience invaluable - indelibly etched upon my brain for ease of retrieval when required in the future. Like now. One such lesson was that once the initial violent trauma of the market waterboarding dissipated, the mind-fucking treachery and psychologically-painful water-torture begins. Not unliike being forced to watch the same lame episode of "Kudlow & Cramer" or being subjected to a Mossad interrogation (at least according to recountings of the tens of thousands of Palestinians so graphically subjected).

Deeply oversold markets can rally for all manner of reasons: simple sellers' fatigue; government intervention, whether directly in markets (PKO anyone?) or indirectly through moral suasion, jawboning, or policy response, inciting the feedback loop to short-covering, which, causing higher prices fuels positive momentum and the optimism that the worst is maybe, possibly, hopefully over. The Strategist weatherwanes (like Abbey Cohen or Alex Kimmont) chortle which way the wind is blowing rather than where it will blow tomorrow. Professionals get squeezed-in to further penalize their (and their customer's) less than prescient capitulation at or near the prior lows. These episodes typically last longer than most bears can tolerate, both in time, though more acutely in P&L. They decry the move and point to fundamentals (and they are of course right, though it matters not). They conjure conspiracy and highlight manipulation (and may be right) but it gets no traction for the bullish side has more constituents than the bears. Their confidence wanes with their P&L, each higher intermediate-term low pushing them one step to closer to covering. The trend-followers have long-since bailed - even the longer-term programmes are turning bullish. Markets do, after-all, lead, don't they? Finally, like the interrogated, the short is broken and confession to anything and everything is achieved. And like a false confession, this capitulation is a hollow victory for the bulls and the market, since it is likely to be an intermediate-term top - NOT an early whistle-stop along the New Prosperity Line, particularly where The De-leveraging is The Big One.

So hearing Mobius, Cohen, and other pundits speak of bull-markets and greenshoots is predictable. But I reckon that Mssrs Schilling,and Roubini, will in time - once again - more likely be correct insofar as I believe continued recession and mild deflation will predominate longer than optimists (and inflationists)- and in particularly longs, can bear once the shorts have sufficiently covered and the intermediate term optimism rolls over with the continued bleak news flow. Then, the trend-followers will mechanically bail, and reverse positions, prescient programmes and specs, too, will re-establish their shorts, until finally the squeezed-in will, once again get squeezed-out, and those amongst us with weak constitutions will be forced to hide the pills and sharp objects to avoid .... tragedy.

The Interview (With Thaler)

BBC's Lyse Doucette does just an OK job grilling Dr Richard Thaler on this week's The Interview . She's admittedly a bit out of her depth (Tom Keene would have been more provocative and teased more out of him). Despite this, it is worth a listen regardless of his plugs for his book, and apparent soreness for being under-recognized in Kahnemann's & Tversky's Novel award.

Tempting Offer?!?

I am not scatalogically-preoccupied. But on Page 53 of this week's Economist magazine - the European edition at least - is an advertisement for Bocconi SDA's Master's in Fine Food and Beverage with a picture of what appears, at first-sight to be a large Parisian sidewalk pile of excrement with the caption "Come and see how tasty a Masters in Management could be." Ummmm, thanks, but no.

With our current predicament fueled by such Masters, I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight (though my appetite, upon seeing and recounting it, now, to you, has decidedly been lost) and timing. Of course - for The Few Master's themselves, flush with their spoils and nouveau-elevated tastes that increasingly only they can afford - will undoubtedly recognize the mess-pile as a rare and valued Truffle, sure as their covetous and parochially selfish eyes can recognize a Vintage Krug on a purveyor's shelf at 30 meters (or more!). But one would be forgiven for wondering whether Bocconi's PR Agency boys and/or girls were looking for a little payback while working out their pink-slip notice period(s) recently handed to them as a result of the fallout of The Masters' financial follies.

Lest you think me unfair to said Masters (for the would-be's of this Bocconi course are arguably harmless), I will happily point out that I do not single them out, for the pavements are veritably littered with piles of crap, from the legislative capitals where lawmakers have whored themselves like street-harlots, while even those that didn't were too timid, ignorant, or fearful of electoral backlash to interrogate the foundations and wisdom of unlimited credit sans regulation or prudential tether, to suburbia and the American heartlands desperation to believe in tooth-faeiries, Santa Claus, Goldilocks, and pixie-dust as panaceas for unsustainable consumption over production, and at the collective level, unsustainable fiscal expenditure relative revenue.

Farewell Greg Newton

I learned today via Felix Salmon, and FT Alphaville's Paul Murphy of the sudden and very sad passing of Greg Newton, the former Metal Bulletin and MAR-guru, and prescient satirist of Naked Shorts. As Felix highlighted, Greg was not only one of the earliest must-read on-line commentators but he was probably the originator of the genre of on-line Financial Satire, a platform he employed to great effect in the lampooning of contrapreneurs, scamsters, hubris and simple outright financial stupidity - more often than not BEFORE its discovery by authorities, investors and mainstream financial journalists .

Greg was very supportive of Cassandra Does Tokyo from the outset as we shared a joy of satire, irony, expatriation from the lands of our birth, and a similarly skeptical view of markets and human nature. More impressive however, was that he courageously tackled important contentious issues and people head-on, despite threats of libel and legal action, without the bashful anonymous guerrilla sniping I've shamefully adopted. His bullshit detection skills were of the highest order, coupled with an unparalleled no-nonsense wit and punchy literary-style that always brought a smile to my face, typically accompanied by audible laughter, as I am certain it did to all readers, except perhaps those that he skewered.

But most important from where I sit, Greg Newton was a warm, kind, and thoughtful man, evidenced by the time and attention that he devoted to our correspondence and the issues he championed in Naked Shorts without recompense. I know I, too, will sorely miss him, and the world will be worse-off without his critical eyes.

Death Nell

If there is any doubt that the high-end of conspicuous consumption is stinging, just come and visit Aspen or Snowmass. Local Pitkin county radio this morning was discussing the closure of several well-known high-end retail stores - not for the season, but permanently. The reason cited: many of their clients, they said, had were reeling from being "Bernied". The slopes are eerily quiet. Kids who'd we' had booked into group lessons were nearly private. Chatting with a local high-end builder, he was quick to tell me that he has no backlog with current work ending in July. Yes he said he's been through three of these before and something has always come up. But this time, the something has yet to materialize.

Most ridiculous is the real estate porn infusing local glossy mags, still sporting prices beyond the realm of the absurd. Despite the confidence of local cognoscenti made wealthy from peddling slopeside or barren building lots with a view, this shoe has yet to drop, sure as Danny Bonaduce had freckles and a numbingly expensive cocaine habit, it will drop with a resounding THUD! If one needs any evidence on top of the increasing number of building sites abandoned by homeowners made skittish or insolvent, they need only look to the headline news today of the abandonment of Little Nell's Snowmass project due to inability to sell forward OR find adequate financing. Not surprising perhaps at a mind-numbing $3,000 per square foot. This leaves a rotting carcass in the center of Snowmass - an eyesore to other local residents who've recently overpaid, or worse, put a deposit on a project that will likely fall into receivership.

Like many a bull-market project and their champions, Little Nell and their partners undoubtedly committed the cardinal investment sin of extrapolating forward, that which should never have been - at least not if one is dependent (or will be dependent) upon munificent external finance at some time before completion, or the stupidity of strangers. Such fallibility is nevertheless human, and before this cycle is over, they will not be alone in having assumed they could borrow required sums to complete, and subsequently shift astronomically over-priced leisure housing to the yet-to-be-identified even more stupid would-be purchaser. But requiring more scrutiny perhaps is the description of the project itself ("luxury", "five-star", "exclusive", "gourmet", "world-class"), for such adjectives appear increasingly suspect, with their redemption more elusive than anytime in living memory.

Pause for Thought

I have very few problems with the authorities attempts to triage the patient (using Dr Roubini's analogy). I do of course have some more restrained opinions with respect to the nuances, but nothing (as a critic) that hasn't been more articulately or exhaustively covered by those more intelligent and cogent than I.

But as a trader/investor I will admit to being a little bit skittish at the thought of the P&L consequences of posting a trillion dollar purchase of US Govt Bonds, here...and now ...at these prices and yields. For if "price" IS any indication of market distress, and forward-looking expected return is (acknowledging the exception of a decade-and-a-half of JGB yields with a 1-single-digit handle) related to value, then by deductive analogy, one might posit that Treasury Bonds are not the part of the patient that requires such attention in the emergency room.

Yes, I understand it is a tool, in a larger policy context. And that there are perceived positive externalities (like causing long rates to artificially hover at lower levels than they might otherwise thermodynamically tend). But given the length and breadth of distress in the markets, and it would seem, on financial institution (and household!) balance sheets, if one were to post trillion-dollar tickets, there are far more attractive opportunities elsewhere.

Umm al-Fahm

I have TARP Tiredness; AIG-Overload; PPIP-Exhaustion; TALF & TSLF -weariness; and Bonus-Outrage Burnout, not to mention a bout of Pozni-Lassitude. It will undoubtedly fade with the goodness of time, but in the meanwhile, with nearly every critic, blogger, strategist, economist and commentator all over it, any musings I might have, seem more or less irrelevant at best, and a waste of time at worst.

Yet, such outrageousness is not monopolized by financial forces as evidenced by zealots marching in Umm al-Fahm, who are depicted (rather poorly and without aesthetic formation) in the adjacent photo capture taken yesterday:

And while attempting restraint in stirring the hornet's nest, I will suggest that pictures DO very often speak louder than words, the former image conjuring my memories of those most assininely-Patriotic-of-folk, The Orangemen, in all of their Portadown-glory as more elegantly,but just as ridiculously captured here. Need one say more...?!?!

Don't Dish it Out If You Can't Take It

The wind was blowing 30 knots, whipping ice-crystals into exposed orifii. In the near white-out, looking down from perch on the lift I was able to make out a lone young female boarder who'd missed her drop and now had a most long and heinous traverse. She was putting on a brave face, and through the howling of the wind, and in-between her apparent tears and sniffles I could hear her repeating the mantra "Boarders don't cry...boarders don't cry...boarders don't cry...."

Similarly, there is more than a little irony in today's FT report, highlighted by Gwen Robinson at FT-Alphaville (Tokyo) that numerous Hedge Funds are planning to sue Porsche over the sports-car manufacturer's perfectly-executed Hunt-like squeeze of VW shares that snookered hedge funds and traders, large and small, the all world-over. Now before I am accused of mimicking Private Eye's Glenda Slagg, let me say that I don't believe Porsche's actions were particularly noble, and were at best in the murky grey nether-regions of financial legality. Having said that, despite my career as a professional arb, I do (from a purely technical standpoint) admire Porsche's patient setting of the trap before springing it's blitzkrieg with Rommel-like precision over-running any and all VW shorts misfortunate in their timing, leverage or position-sizing.

I should indentify and empathize with the squeezed for I often root for the underdog and have always played The Game by the rules, and dislike when dishonesty and malfeasance triumphs (even temporarily), gaming the system, arguably at the expense of more virtuous or long-term investors (or HFMs own investors). I realize this sounds sanctimonious, but I too have been at the game long enough to have been on the other side - occasionally too early like the VW shorts - of virtually every type of shenanigan ever plotted. conjured, or imagined. And a meaningfully large percentage of these have been nudged, cheered, lead, architected, sculpted, orchestrated, and cajoled, by hedge funds - quite likely the very same ones now suing Porsche. Whether the predation of shorts, trading on material non-public information, tape-painting, end-of-day/week/month/quarter/year window-dressing, stop-fishing, front-running, option-leans, illegal short-sales, collusion with other like-minded similarly-interested investors, using OTCs or other paper-smoke-and-mirrors, options to avoid SEC filings, sponsoring bogus research, buying early release of research, worming clinical-trial results, cornering stocks, ambushing and killing entire hedge funds, front-running new-issues, death-spiraling Reg-d issues, mutual-fund timing, all these are just the run-of-the-mill man-made (often hedge-fund made) market-hazards one must contend with.

Yet, despite the aforementioned, the cautious and skeptical contrarian (if I be an example) can successfully overcome them. Diversification, prudent position sizing, keen observance of the structure of crowded trades, conservative leverage, understanding as precisely as possible when and why something is not doing what one expects or forecasts it to do, who (or whom) is responsible for a position NOT doing what one expects all can contribute to preventing the horror of being checkmated whether by an HF or a would-be Porsche. Lose a pawn? Sure! Maybe even sacrifice a knight. But live on, and learn. So, if I, an honest plier of the trade can withstand the humiliation of having my stock called back after some unscrupulous fund has ramped-and-lent and ramped-and-lent, or suckered into buying a dip in-front of an earnings torpedo, and still live to fight another day, because it is the nature of The Game, then surely those playing The Game with greater abandon adhering to fewer rules should take their lumps like men, and admit that from time-to-time Alekhine will somewhat epicly have them for lunch.