Compensation Machine

Analysis of the latest earnings reports confi rms what most believed: Wall Street thrives on bubbles, but not otherwise. In fact, it seems that Wall Street engineers bubbles to redistribute wealth the way no one de fines wealth redistribution, for "it's essentially a compensation machine." On the other hand, scratching below the ethical surface, this, once again, reveals a deeply rooted short-term view. Indeed, given that more and more compensation is tied to their company's stock, bankers would be in better shape in the long run if they reallocated part of their compensation to earnings as David Weidner suggests. Robert Reich has recently argued

The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that's barely moving.

Giving up some compensation for their company's bottom line would be the fi nancial sector's version of that argument. But of course I can't fathom what currency Robert Reich has on Wall St., and long-term thinking doesn't fare much better. Indeed, Wall Street seems the epitome of short-termism. Think about High- Frequency Trading, which operates at the scale of microseconds. If we were all fashioned, we would style this as myopia. But perhaps Wall Street has embraced the awareness of impermanence, the past and the future do not exist, only the present does (barely!), live and profi t in the present (from those who live and lose in the past or the future)!

King Size

Hearing of Glen Beck & Co.'s march on Washington reminded me of one of the loftiest ad in recent memory "I work for JP Morgan" (check an extant specimen at http://wn.com/I_work_for_JP_Morgan). Glen needed to put a politically correct face on his attacks to the current administration. We shall see whether he will walk all that lofty talk. For now, I still follow the money and think that Frida Powers from Philadelphia, who participated in the countervailing rally, said it all: "They wanna take back what we have gained"

silver lining in an ash cloud

Striving to find a silver lining in Eyjafjallajökull's ash cloud, The New York Times editorialized how the consequent grounding of European air traffic forcefully reminds us "of our interconnected world" and how "our lives are still at the su erance of nature." Let me go one small step further (this borderline platitude) and remark that Eyjafjallajökull is arguably the first volcano that took it upon itself, suitably aided by unusual wind patterns, to directly curtail human-driven climate change. Unable to hold the candle to cataclysmic predecessors of yore, such as Krakatoa (1883), Tambora (1815), or the nearby Laki (1783), thereby cooling global climes with colossal emissions of sulfur, this subglacial volcano is halting a preeminent human factor in climate change: air traffic. If the 3-day closing of US airspace in the aftermath of 9/11 gave climate a break, the current shutdown of European aviation should outdo that. How 'bout this for a silver lining, o stranded traveler? Go Eywa Go!

+/-Nemesis

For those who believe in historical Nemesis, the past week has been a bag as mixed as it gets.

First polish President Lech Kaczynski accompanied by a delegation of 95 preeminent Polish notables dies in a plane crash on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. This is the antithesis of Nemesis: the smiting of the survivors, grief on grief.
And the sudden glory of Mr. Kaczynski can be regarded as a reaction to this baffling event as well as the latest anifestation of the Polish urge to memorialize Katyn
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/opinion/16osiatynski.html

A few days later, the theretofore nearly unknown Eyjafjallajökull (I myself hiked to the nearby Skogafoss last July, blissfully ignorant of the threat
to be ...), a minor volcano, re-erupts, this time spewing millions of tons of micro-silica in the lower stratosphere. Such ashes would not have resulted had the eruption not been sub-glacial. Unusually south-easterly winds blow the cloud primarily toward the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark.
Now, you may recall these are the countries that browbeat Iceland for the excesses of the three infamous banks Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932010_Icelandic_financial_crisis.
The plaintiffs' main demand was that holders of Icesave accounts be made whole regardless of the consequences for the future of the population of Iceland, an international case of making losses public.

Now, mother nature was taking it upon herself to exact revenge of behalf of Icelanders by grounding Northern European air traffic (unfortunately third parties are suffering too).

As it happens, the latter event affected the former when many world leaders canceled their plans to attend Mr. Kaczynski's funeral because of the dangers volcanic ashes are posing to air transportation.

Sometimes I wonder how "stranger than fiction" is a cliché.
On the other hand, would I be even noticing this if I did not have a propensity to see and search meaning in the otherwise ruthless absurdity of Becoming?
Such propensity to make sense, I am quite convinced, is a firm fiber of human nature, and meaning itself is often seen as moral, while the absence of it is the source of grief. (Note my "ruthless absurdity".)
But if you manage to abstract yourself from the unfolding of history ....

Life, where art thou?

Marina Abramovic, profiled in "The New Yorker of March 8, 2010"
(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/08/100308fa_fact_thurman)
emerges as the turn-of-the-21st century incarnation of the turn of the 20th
century ultimate aesthete, Oscar Wilde, and unlike him, she's made it into
the new century.
Contrary to the distinction she makes, it appears her life progressively
blurs into her performances to climax with exquisite trick of her demise
into a magic of cups and balls, or better, corpse and palls!

I'll be gone, you'll be home?

IBGYBG
(Sounds Chinese to you?) if you have not yet gotten your fix of Wall St.
bashing epithets try googling it.

Are you back? Ok, now that you know that IBGYBG stands for "I'll be gone
you'll be gone" and that probably best captures that subspecies of greed
that spurred much of the risk-taking during the inflation of the credit
bubble, you also understand the animosity it arouses. The anxious memory of
the bubble's burst is still vivid and the pain of its consequences is
haunting us, yet this pain is not sharp enough to push our political system
to enact effective regulatory reforms of the US financial industry.
Many blame the morass on the partisan stalemate that has seized Washington.

Meanwhile, money managers look Eastward for a "solution" (at least as far as
your portfolio is concerned). China, thanks to its authoritarian brand of
capitalism has none of the US legislative and executive snags.
In a recent piece in the "Financial Times,"
(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9cc4c144-1f52-11df-9584-00144feab49a.html), Geoff
Dyer juxtaposes the enthusiasm that this viewpoint sparks to the whistle
blowing of another bubble. Anthony Bolton epitomizes the first camp with his
faith in "the effectiveness of the centrally run economy."

A centrally run economy was at the core of the Soviet Union. Fifty years
ago, in his irascible and Donbas-uncouth voice, Khrushchev famously boasted:
"догоним, обгоним, и вперед пойдем !" ("we will catch up with you [America],
pass you, and go forth" --- hear him at
http://download.sovmusic.ru/m/khrushev.mp3).
In the ensuing years, as the texture of American society frayed in the
turbulent Sixties and the economy followed suit with the Seventies'
doldrums, many in the West started questioning the viability of the
democratic capitalistic system that afforded the questioning in the first
place.
The fact that these days you hardly hear "Soviet Union" and USSR is even
more abstruse than IBGYBG to most tells you that that questioning was a bit
too premature.

Maybe, just maybe the same could apply to the optimism and praise of the
Chinese Way?
No doubt the economic progress realized in China in the last twenty years
has been formidable. But in many ways so it was the Soviet Union "progress"
in the Sixties and Seventies. The main question is how long in the future
can we extrapolate this trend in the future? Will China really catch up with
America as most pundits say in 20 years or so? Can you assume its GDP growth
rate stay constant as far as the eye can see?

Obviously, the very fact that I am posing these questions implies doubts on
my part. On the other hand, in one respect China has already caught up with
the US. The article quoted above features prof. Yu Yongding maintaining that
"the system encourages local governments to invest in trophy projects" and
the lack of accountability of the apparatchiks who make these decision for
"if the project is barely used in five years' time as they will by then have
moved to a different job."
It appears that IBGYBG, or at least IBG is already an achievement in China.
I am not sure how proud of that is the Chinese government, or how much of a
selling point this is to Mr. Bolton.

The Amazon in search of an Avatar

Most critics and the public praised "Avatar" for its beauty.
But what about its many fabular messages?
What of the narrative that makes it like an edifying Disney cartoons for
grown-ups?
There were perhaps too many too remember, mostly barbs at the
bankrupt status quo in DC and especially the lost years of W,
from a healthcare system that still fails veterans in 2154 to preemptive
war.

The trappings of Hollywood tropes were easily forgotten before the vivid
landscapes
that would make even the most prolific dreamer purple with envy.
But as Jake Sully became his own avatar and after 162 minutes the title
exploded
on the screen in bright green one lead message dawned on me:
Save the Forest!

I could not help wondering how much of this message will stay with the
dazzled crowds.
James Cameron should have supplemented it with a website, a fund raiser,
some kind
of walk after the Toruk!

uShine!

I keep being disappointed at the lack of imagination of the Apple marketing
team. Awkwardness and legal issues aside
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/technology/29name.html?th&emc=th), "iPad"
fits the pattern: "i" + short syllable denoting the product. The good old
days of "iMac" are long gone. Consumers are no longer required to leap with
their imagination. Virtually, i-product has become synonymous of Apple.
Where it not for the all-cap, I'd reach for IMAX screen to switch movie or
browse the internet when the show sucks ...
How about daring to change the pattern with "i" + long syllable referring
to the user, one that makes a complete sentence and makes you smile when you
say it?
Say we make pronoun a little less self-centered, something like You, or
better, the tried and texted "u?"
Then make the obvious reference to the product a little less obvious, a
little less passive, something that makes you smile.
Steal that exclamation mark from Yahoo! and, voila, you got uShine!
Just a thought, just and apple seed ...