The Quirky Post

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I fear the Greeks

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts).
Virgil, 1st century BC

A new crisis looms. Far worse than the 'Great Recession' that the world is only just beginning to emerge from (albeit slowly, and everything but certainly). What can be worse than big banks insatiably inflating themselves with debt, until finally popping like balloons on a birthday party gone wild?

Well, how about whole countries doing the same thing?

Until about six months ago, the sovereign debt departments of big banks, hedge funds and institutional investors must have been about the dullest places a hot, young rookie trader could think of.
A bunch of gray haired, risk averse, washed out analysts and traders, producing estimates about national bankruptcies of Western nations that were so boring, you'd have to snore at least two lines (maybe three) of good quality coke before even attempting to read them, so as to prevent you from hurting your head against your desk, suffering from acute, atypical somnia.

But then, a country best known for inventing democracy and ancient myths and legends, held its national elections. The newly elected government subsequently exposed one of this countries' more recent myths, namely the one that said it had a budget deficit of 6% -when in fact it was 12.7%.

Presumably, the new leader of this country -Let's call it Tsatzikisouflaki- did not want it to continue on the path it was on since the start of the Euro. (The path of lying and cheating that is)

Because, since 2000, Tsatzikisouflaki -first in its effort to join the Euro, later to borrow more money- has hid crucial financial data from Eurostat, hired Goldman Sachs to mask its debt through complex derivatives trades, and outright fooled both its fellow Euro zone member states and the financial world.

But prime Minister Papandreou did not want to keep this spiel going and confessed his country was not only laden with debt, but also running the kind of budget deficit that -had Tsatzikisouflaki been a person, would cause his credit cards to be cut in two.

So far so bad.

Papandreou has since taken far-reaching austerity measures, such as slashing pensions, freezing wages and cutting the number of government employees (in Tsatzikisouflaki, 1 out of every 4 employees works for the government). These measures, which have caused worker's unions to literally "declare war" on the government, will presumably bring the budget deficit below 3% within four years.

That's right, these extreme austerity measures will not even kill the budget deficit, they will only bring it within the allowed deficit zone, as specified in the Eurozone's 'Growth and Stability pact'.

Still, they are the kind of measures necessary to regain the trust of the financial markets, and to assure investors that Greece -oops, Tsatzikisouflaki of course- will not loan more than it can pay back, and thus will never default on any of its (many) loans.

But even though you can't really blame investors for asking for a hefty premium on lending their money to Tsatzikisouflaki instead of lending it to, say, Germany (currently the coupon spread between German and Greek bonds is around 300 basis points, or 3%) Prime Minister Papandreou is consistently trying to do so.

Perhaps it is his political ideology (Papandreou is the leader of the Greek socialist party), perhaps it's his damaged national pride, fact is that in the op-ed he wrote in today's NY Times , prime minister Papandreou blames the "opportunistic traders" for running up the spread between Greek bonds and German bonds, rather than his own countries' lazy, socialist fat cat, non-workers paradise mentality -not to mention its lying and cheating against both fellow Euro zone member states and the financial markets .

In recent weeks, Papandreou has stated many times he only wants Greece to be able to "borrow against the same rates" as other countries in the Eurozone. Indeed, wouldn't we all.

But you can't make people lend you money (well, maybe you can in some countries, but let's not get into that, let alone go there on holiday). If you borrow too much, people will want a higher premium when lending you even more. That IS opportunistic of these traders, and be thankful for it, because if they were full of principles, they might not lend you any money at all.

"Opportunistic traders?"

"Is there any other kind?"

Why Nokia should go back to rubber

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN you've lost your mojo? Do you try to get it back, or do you try to adjust to your new role? It's one of those questions quietly vexing those we once admired (but obviously don't anymore).

For those depopularized celebrities who happen to be reading this (because time is all they have) and who are opting to get back their mojo, I can only offer blood, sweat and tears. It's possible for sure, but not for the faint of heart. Rob Lowe has gotten it back -by playing in the West Wing. John Travolta has gotten it back -by playing in Get Shorty. But all the others -to the best of my memory- are lost in translation. Livening up private parties of the rich, opening rodeo's and Asian shopping malls; stuck in home shopping network limbo.

The same holds true for companies, of which there are many, many examples. Former darlings of the Dow Jones, with products and a reputation envied by their rivals. They had it all! Untill they didn't.

Last week, one such company showed how it had chosen to handle the loss of its mojo. The Nokia ad printed in Time's last issue of 2009 showed Nokia's new E72 phone (very much trying to look like a BlackBerry) accompanied by the text: "The new Nokia E72 is here. Let's axe the BlackBerry Tax."

Anyone who's ever taken any basic marketing course of any kind -be it a free e-book or a semester at Harvard Business School- knows this is about the worst possible way to advertise a product. Mentioning your competitor and its product by name -basically putting it on a pedestal- and then going negative.

It's like the ex-boyfriend who -dressed as new boyfriend- shows up drunk at a party, climbs up on the stage, grabs the mic and starts dissing the new boyfriend, ending with: "Seriously, I look just like him, only even better." (I've seen somebody do this for real once and I seriously wonder if the guy ever recovered from it)

Nokia, like so many fat (or are they just big-boned?) companies before it, had grown lazy and complacent, just fine and dandy with the way things were. Thank god for capitalism though, which eternally dangles a big carrot in front of the still hungry, ambitious entrepreneurs, spurring invention and innovation, so consumers don't have to depend on lazy fat cats like Nokia, General Motors and Microsoft.

So, after the former producer of rubber products (Nokia was formerly known as Finnish Rubber Works) has finally realized smart phones are here to stay -about a gozillion years after BlackBerry introduced its very first smart phone and almost three years after Apple introduced the iPhone- does Nokia present the E72 (which looks like a BlackBerry).

Now, it would be cruel to leave them dangling in the wind like this, so here's a solution to make Nokia cool again. After the recent failure of the climate conference in Copenhagen, logic dictates that the chances of massively rising sea levels due to global warming have grown considerably. So maybe, just maybe, it's not too late for Nokia to go back to their rubber business, and start building rubber boats.

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More on Category Starbucks Stories:

Buddhist monk running on empty

The most beautiful Starbucks in Paris

Kramerica up close and personal

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There will be change

THE OTHER DAY, browsing my bookcase for no particular reason, I came across 'America's New Democracy' (by Fiorina, Peterson and Voss). Reading through a couple of pages I was surprised to find it so outdated, even though my version (1st edition) was published only seven years ago, in 2002. I started thinking, have so many things really changed over the last couple of years that discarding a basic (though thorough) textbook about American political institutions is merited, solely on the ground of being outdated?

Briefly beaming back to 2002:

President George Bush is in power for less than two years and has high approval ratings, caused in no small part by 09/11, which happened a little over a year ago.
Vice President Dick Cheney is generally considered to be nothing more than an old neocon (instead of the man who gladly sacrificed civil rights and constitutional democracy in exchange for some flawed intelligence about six bearded, pizza eating Arabs in Lackawanna, Buffalo).
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein -beardless- is still in power.
Facebook does not yet exist. In fact, it will take founder Mark Zuckerberg another year before he even comes up with the idea itself and builds Facebook's predecessor, Facemash.
Nokia rules the world, because a phone is just a phone.
Apple has only very recently ventured outside the (computer)box, with the launch of the iPod, in 2001.

Now, of course you can run these little comparisons for other decades as well, and yes, there were also big differences between the beginning and the end of the 1980's and 90's. But when was the last time the core values of our system were being scrutinized the way they are now? Having given up civil rights (and comfortable flying) in exchange for a vague sense of security. Having bailed out banks, without demanding anything from them in return, in order to prevent the same thing from happening 5 years from now. Trying to transform our dependence on foreign oil into a green economy. Trying to prevent the greenback from really drowning, keeping it happily floating just above the surface. Trying to prevent another country from getting the bomb, even though we've had it for 60 years already.

Beyond a certain point, technology starts increasing exponentially, because technology itself begets new technology, which in turn begets new technology, and so on and so forth.

Perhaps the same holds true for political awareness and international relations. That beyond a certain point, they start developing exponentially as well. Citizens who start demanding more and direct voting power -not just every once in four years. Countries that start demanding cooperation and civilized behaviour from other countries, not just towards them but also towards their own citizens. Perhaps humanity has -only very recently- entered the pressure cooker of exponential change.

The writers of America's New Democracy were very hopeful about America's democratic processes and institutions at the time of writing. Not having read the 5th edition, I can't tell if they still are. But since one of the core theses of the book is the idea that American democracy is stronger now (meaning 2002) than it was before, I suspect they're just as upbeat about it today as they were back then. After all, the book was written around the time George Bush won the Presidency because a Republican Supreme Court decided against a recount of the Florida votes.

Gold over Love

LAST WEEK, FAMOUS INVESTOR Warren Buffet, when asked why his investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway had still so much cash ($20 billion) on hand, after just having bought an entire railroad company, gave the inevitable Scrooge McDuck answer: " I like cash."
No doubt one of the main reasons for Mr. Buffet's fondness of cash is that you can dive around in it like a porpoise, burrow through it like a gopher, toss it up and let it hit you on the head. Still, many investors, traders and governments have lately been falling in love -anew- with another financial evergreen: Gold.

To some, man's love for gold is the ultimate proof of his stupidity. After all, you can't eat it, drink it or burn it. The value is entirely based on its kitschy, shiny color and relative rarity.
To others, our love for gold (I admit, I like it too) is -on the contrary- proof of true civilization and the capability to think in abstracts (since it requires a lot of imagination and civilization to accept the concept that a bar of gold is worth more than a healthy cow).

Be it stupid or smart, one financial fact is undeniable: the price of gold is on the rise. And it doesn't take a financial wizard to know the reason why, either. Traditionally, whenever things are bad, we turn to gold, like we have been doing for thousands of years. And clearly, last year's clearing of a global financial meltdown by the skin of our teeth, the ensuing crash of the markets and the start of the Great Recession, already merit the prediction of an impressive gold rally.

But there's something else. The US dollar.

The greenback was weak even before the financial crisis started. In fact, some analysts argue that if it weren't for the fall of Lehman brothers, the dollar would already have been put on the list of endangered currencies. While that remains a 'what if' for ever, you won't need much leeway getting the point across that the fundamental position of the dollar is weaker today than it was in the summer of 2008.

The economic position of the U.S. in comparison to the global community has weakened.
The U.S. budget deficit has exploded, with no end in sight.
Traditional buyers of U.S. treasuries are increasingly switching to….gold

Last month, London department store Harrods started selling gold coins and bars, including the 'real deal' Fort Knox type of gold bar, weighing 12.5 kilogram (home delivery included with the purchase of two bars or more). According to the Geneva based gold refiner who supplies Harrods, the bars weighing 100 ounces or less are especially popular. 'Portable wealth', two words igniting warm, fuzzy feelings in people of all ages, sexes, races and ideologies. And after the recent crackdown on tax havens and tax evaders, those words must burn even brighter for many Haves. Said Mr. Oberli, employee of a Swiss gold refiner, putting the feeling of many in words, while picking up a 100 gram gold bar: "It's like a $3,000 Swiss chocolate. I like these very much."

We too Mr. Oberli. We too. Even though you can't very well dive around or burrow through it, much less toss it up and let it hit you on the head.

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That Wall

IN NOVEMBER 1989, weeks -days even- after the Berlin Wall had fallen, my brother went on a week long excursion to Berlin with his history class. Senior year, 18 years old, traveling from Holland to Berlin, Germany, where it was all happening. The Germans, who never partied, never did anything spontaneous, who always maintained law and order, suddenly found themselves throwing the party of the decade, without having organized as much as a bar and a band.

People took to the streets, bringing beer and champagne, laughed, talked, hugged total strangers. Flower Power in Germany, all in the middle of a particularly rugged autumn. So, chaos, party, action and a fun demolition to boot. And while I had to watch it on television with my parents, my brother was actually there. Not sure if I've ever been more jealous about something.

I also remember President Reagan, giving a speech some two years earlier in (then still) West-Berlin, in front of the Brandenburger Tor, saying "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" It's probably one of the most defining one liners of Reagan's Presidency. Standing there all brave and determined (well, in a senior citizen kind of way), challenging that most reasonable of all Soviet leaders. I never thought much of it back then, but lately I've started seeing it in a different light.

Of course it was an actor's line, and one like no other President could have delivered the way actor Ronald could. In the days leading up to the speech, aides advised Reagan to scrap it from the speech, because it might jeopardize his - otherwise promising- relationship with Mr. Gorbachev. But how could he have ever even considered it? It would be the line of his life, spoken right there in front of the Berlin Wall, that San Andreas fault of world politics.

And so he did.

Did saying it really change the world? Did it really 'tear down The Wall'? It's tempting to think so, and many still do. How it emboldened the East-German people to fiercer resistance and louder voices of dissent. One argument sustaining this, is the apparent hope of today's Iranian protesters, to receive the same sort of support from President Obama in their struggle for freedom. At recent anti-government rallies, many of them could be heard chanting: "Obama, Obama — either you’re with them or you’re with us". They realize they can't expect much more than verbal support, but it would still be more than they've gotten so far.

To be sure, after you unravel all the bullshit, there really isn't much difference between Communism and Islamism. Both ideologies use supposedly supreme principles, leaders and rituals to suppress people into obedience, and worse.
And though I know it's early days, I can't resist thinking about the one liner that will define President Obama's Presidency. Will it be "Yes we can!" (but we never did). Or something more like: "Mr Ahmadinejad, tear down this dictatorship!"

My brother did bring me back something from his school trip to Berlin in November 1989. It was a small piece from That Wall. I still have it.

A strange year for Democracy

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, it will be exactly 1 year since Democracy celebrated one of its more promising victories, when the United States elected as its President a black man who campaigned on positive change.
This year, so it seems, democracy hardly has reason to party at all (if not mourn over lost opportunities). Altough, much of it may prove to be in the eye of the beholder, changing perspective over time, with history soldiering on.

In June, for the first time since -well, ever- democracy started openly shaking its tail in Iran. Though elections are held regularly there, the Islamist powers that be always make sure nothing too distressing ever results from them. Like you have the (infamous) communist democratic model -offering the choice between one candidate- there is also the Islamist democratic model -offer the choice between several candidates who are exactly the same.

But this year, something odd happened, when a previously normal (that is: islamist, highly conservative, defender of the Great Revolution and all that) kind of candidate, gained momentum as the preferred candidate of many of the young -slightly more modern- Iranians, because rumor had it that Mr.Mousavi was not wholeheartedly against women participating in public life, seemed to have a less destructive eye on the development of secular education and did not like adulterous women being stoned to death. Suddenly, Mr.Mousavi was crowned -both inside and outside the country- as the Obama of the Middle East, a hero of change.
When incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still won the election, widespread fraud was suspected and uncovered, whereupon the Islamic Republic of Iran showed its true face, clubbed some of the more vigorous protesters to death and imprisoned dozens of others. 0-1 for Democracy.

Another novice to freedom of choice, Afghanistan, also held its elections in the Summer of 2009. Or held, 'started' might be a more suitable description, since the process took until today to fully unfold, and then only because the last remaining opponent withdrew from the race.
What happened? Well, a couple of weeks after the first round, Hamid Karzai was elected winner of the whole thing, because he had so many votes a second round wasn't even necessary. Turned out though that the elections had been riddled with fraud ( a little disappointing after you've defied Taliban suicide attacks and thumbcutting reprisals to cast your vote in the first place) and a second round was necessary after all.

But today, opponent Abdullah Abdullah withdrew, stating that not enough guarantees had been made to prevent the same widespread fraud in the second round. 0-2 for Democracy.

And last but so not least, the E.U. Presidency. In less than two weeks -barring extremely anti-climactic events- the European Union will chose its first permanent chairman of the European Counsel, an office popularly known as that of 'European President.' Candidates range from former U.K Prime Minister Tony Blair to incumbent Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende.
And to make it absolutely, 100 percent certain no voter fraud is even possible with the election of the European President, no election will be held at all. That's right, the Lisbon Treaty on which the European Presidency is based, in its effort to make the EU less complicated and more democratic, has -in its infinite wisdom- provided for the creation of a European Leader who will have ZERO electoral mandate. Instead, the 27 leaders of the European Union will make the choice for the people. I'd say that's 0-3 for Democracy.

So, which of these three Presidents will be chosen democratically first? Being a European, it shames me to admit, that I really don't know.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I fear the Greeks

Monday, January 4, 2010

Why Nokia should go back to rubber

Thursday, November 12, 2009

There will be change

Monday, November 9, 2009

Gold over Love

Thursday, November 5, 2009

That Wall

Monday, November 2, 2009

A strange year for Democracy

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