Good Will Hunting - Afleck's job interview

Watching Gasparino's 'I don't have what I got' interview reminded me of my favourite absurd scene from Good Will Hunting:

The script:

Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference

table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The
executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks.

EXECUTIVE
(tentative)
Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what
you mean, we've already offered you a
position..

Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives,
hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best.

CHUCKIE
Since this is obviously not my first
time in such altercations, let me say
this:

Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating
"cash." The executives are baffled.

CHUCKIE (cont'd)
Look, we can do this the easy way or
the hard way.

The executives are completely blank.

CHUCKIE (cont'd)
At the current time I am looking at a
number of different fields from which
to disseminate which offer is most
pursuant aid to my benefit.
(a beat)
What do you want? What do I want?
What does anybody want? Leniency.

EXECUTIVE
I'm not sure--

CHUCKIE
--These circumstances are mitigated.
Right now. They're mitigated.

Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room.

EXECUTIVE
Okay...

Chuckie points to the third executive.

CHUCKIE
He knows what I'm talking about.

The third executive is baffled.

CHUCKIE (cont'd)
A retainer. Nobody in this town works
without a retainer. You think you can
find someone who does, you have my
blessin'. But I think we all know
that person isn't going to represent
you as well as I can.

EXECUTIVE
Will, our offer starts you at eighty-
four thousand a year, plus benefits.

CHUCKIE
Retainer...

EXECUTIVE
You want us to give you cash right
now?

CHUCKIE
Allegedly, what I am saying is your
situation will be concurrently improved
if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket
right now.

The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets.

EXECUTIVE
I don't think I...Larry?

EXECUTIVE
I have about seventy-three...

EXECUTIVE
Will you take a check?

CHUCKIE
Come now...what do you think I am, a
juvinile? You don't got any money on
you right now. You think I'm gonna
take a check?
EXECUTIVE
It's fine, John, I can cover the rest.

CHUCKIE
That's right, you know.
(turns to #1)
He knows.

Chuckie stands up and takes the money.

CHUCKIE (cont'd)
(to exec #1)
You're suspect.
I don't know what your reputation is,
but after the shit you tried to pull
today, you can bet I'll be looking
into it. Any conversations you want
to have with me heretofore, you can
have with my aforementioned attourney. Gentlemen,
keep your ears to the grindstone.

CNBC's Gasparino loses the ball big time

'I don't have what I got'

CNBC reporter Charlie Gasparino is far, far away in this clip. There is some talk of Gasparino being wasted on legal or illegal substances but I think it's just proof that if you immerse yourself in the madness of these markets, it's only a matter of time before the madness manifests itself in you.

Just found the transcript:

Lee: I was thinking that we were going to go to Charlie Gasparino.

Ratigan: We'll go to charlie first. What have you got?

Gasparino: What do I got? What do you want? What do you want?

Ratigan: I want your best stuff, Charles. I only want the good stuff.

Gasparino: "What do you got?" Now that is such a... that is almost zen-like. What do I got?

Ratigan: That's where we are...

Gasparino: I have many things...

Ratigan: I know...

Gasparino: I have many things...I have many things in my arsenal. But what I got is not what I have. I don't have what I got.

Ratigan: All right. What have you got?

Gasparino: I don't have what I got. I don't have what I got.

Lee: Oh gosh (laughs)

Ratigan: Are we done?

Gasparino: We're done. I don't have what I got.

Ratigan: All right

Lee: Let's talk Merrill Lynch, Charles. What do you have on Merrill Lynch.

Gasparino: The Merril Lynch...oh, just on Merrill Lynch? Or the Merrill Lynch-Bank of America merger?

Ratigan (and Gasparino talking over eachother): Charles, I got a short amount of time and a capitalist system doing a lot of stuff. You can use the airtime to tell me some information or I'm moving on brother...You got two choices: information or I'm leaving.

Gasparino: No. You know what you got. That's right.. you have... you have... You have one choice: shoot to the capitalist system. 'Cause that's what you've got.

Ratigan: Do what?

Gasparino: No. That's what you got. That's what you got.

Lee: Okay.

Ratigan: Shoot the capitalist system?

Gasparino: Shoot to the capitalist system. That's what you got.

Lee: Okay. Thanks Charles.

Ratigan: All right. Thank you Charles. I'm not quite sure what just happened, quite honestly.

Lee: (laughs) Me neither.

Barclays gets bailed out, by the Arabs

Reading about the terms of Barclays' £7.3 bn financing deal with Abu Dhabi and Qatar makes me wish such tasty investment opportunities came the way of the general public:

'The £3bn of so-called reserve capital instruments it's selling to Abu Dhabi and Qatar pay an interest rate of 14% before tax and 10% after tax - only a bit cheaper, after tax, than the preference shares being bought by the British Treasury from other British banks.

But when you include the warrants attached to these reserve capital instruments, it's not obvious that this money is better value than what was on offer from the Treasury.

In some ways it looks pricier - because Abu Dhabi and Qatar have been given the right to buy 18.1% of Barclays shares at any time in the next five years at the current bombed-out share price or £3bn in total.

And £2.8bn of mandatorily convertible notes give the two buyers a dividend of 9.75%, and the ability to buy a further 33.5% stake in Barclays next June at a discount of a fifth to Barclays' share price over the past couple of days.

So Qatar and Abu Dhabi could together control just under a third of the entire bank.'

I thought this was a very bad deal for existing shareholders and was surprised to see Barclays share price up 10% first thing in the morning. I've just checked the price again and it's down 9%. That's better. Logic prevails. If I had money, I'd be looking to start buying some shares in these guys, but as it stands I'm happy to sit back and enjoy things as a spectator.

The new investors must be celebrating with glee. Not only are they buying into Barclays at rock bottom prices, but they'll be saving a further 20% on the exchange rate relative to a few months ago. It's nice if you can get it.

Books I've read and reviewed

I've just moved my record of book reviews on-line. This is an on-going, personal reference project, although readers may find it useful for recommendations. I found anything that scored above four stars highly worth reading.

Calories

A quote from the New York Times article, 'Calories Do Count':

'The number of calories in food shocked most New Yorkers, according to a September survey by the health department. A Starbucks blueberry scone delivers 480 calories. A Quiznos regular tuna melt is 1,270 calories. Wraps, the refuge for low-carb sandwich lovers, can top 800 calories. Bagels pack more calories than doughnuts.'

To put this in perspective, an average person should consume around 2000 calories a day, so after that tuna melt there really isn't much more room left. And the Starbuck's blueburry scone, well that has as many calories as six regular slices of toast, albeit without butter.

Commodity prices are tumbling

Just pulled this informative chart from a research note I was reading. If you looked at the individual charts they would show commodity prices truly falling of a cliff edge. It's very bad for the producers who were betting on the good times lasting forever, especially those who were poorly hedged, but it's good news for your average Joseph who has had enough with being squeezed with higher prices every which way.

Note that quite a few people expected gold to rise during the credit crisis due to its safe haven status. Turns out, it just hasn't fallen as fast as the rest of 'em.

What is this?

answer: the first snowfall this winter

Risky speculations

Let it be known: I think the equity markets are close to bottoming out and believe it is a good time to start buying for the long-term. I would buy 1/3 Nikkei, 1/3 S&P, and 1/3 FTSE and not check the prices for several years.

Let is also be known that I know very little about very little.

Short the CSI bubble

I just read an article about on Slate about how the popular crime series C.S.I. may be nearing exhaustion. The latest season premiere of CSI New York lost some 4m viewers and featured a bored looking Gary Sinese. It is still a very popular franchise but I felt the CSIs started to lose their fizz last season and they have all dropped from my currently empty 'must-see-tv' schedule. Also, I remember reading that Gil Grissom (played by William Peterson), the driving force behind the original CSI, is leaving the franchise. This could be pivotal for the series' future if his replacement, Laurence Fishburne, fails to live up to the high benchmark.

Out of interest, I thought I'd take a look at what's happened to the housing markets in the CSI locations (Las Vegas, Miami, and New York) over the past year:

Las Vegas: down 30.6%
Miami: down down 28.1%
New York: down 6.9%

(Source: Case Shiller price index)

Ouch. International investors can at least find balm in the fact that the USD has appreciated quite a bit recently.

Quick thought on forecasting and the economic crisis

In a normal economic environment, economists are next to useless when it comes to making predictions.* In the current economic crisis, economists are all over the news with views on where the economy is headed, and prescriptions and ideas on what policy makers should be doing next. Their contribution to policy is not a total waste as we can learn from our previous errors in policy making, but when it comes to telling us where the economy is headed we should remember that economists are no better that they were before this all started (i.e., pretty useless).

* All economists all know this, even the ones who are paid by financial and other institutions for the very act of generating forecasts.

Book review - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a beautifully told, expertly crafted story. It is set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and tells the tale of two friends - a son of dentist and a son of a doctor - who are sent to a mountain village for 're-education'. There they meet the 'Little Seamstress' and together their lives are forever changed when they get hold of a suitcase filled with famous Western literature.

I highly recommend this book but am holding back from giving it the full five stars because while I found it spell-binding and surprisingly humorous, the darker and more serious content seemed a touch unevenly distributed.

**** 1/4

Quote from Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress:

'What you are about to hear, comrade, is a Mozart sonata.' Luo announced, as coolly as before.
I was dumbfounded. Had he gone mad? All music by Mozart of indeed by any other Western composer had been banned years ago. ...
At that instant the glint of the vigilant Communist reappeared in the headman's eyes, and his voice turned hostile.
'What's the name of this song of yours?'...
'Mozart...,' I muttered.
'Mozart what?
''Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao,' Luo broke in.

Magoo cat

Some pictures of a neighbourhood cat that visits us everyday:

A handful of interesting market developments

> This worrying graphic is from Bloomberg. It shows how the Baltic Dry Index, a measure of international freight costs that had risen to stratospheric levels, has plummeted 90%. International trade operates on a system of credit notes and guarantees and things can get a bit difficult if you don't have confidence in your counterparty. The silver lining is that when things get going again shipping costs will be nice and low, but for now the take-away message is that the wheels of international trade seem to be screeching to a halt.


> From Aussie newspaper, TheAge:

"Kuwaiti traders staged another walkout on Sunday and protested outside the stock market as shares in the oil-rich Gulf region plunged amid growing expectations of a global recession.

The traders, who deserted the stock market on Thursday, the business week's final day, left the trading chamber again after the index dived more than 300 points a few minutes after the opening.

About 30 of the traders marched to the nearby council of ministers building where the cabinet was holding an emergency session to discuss a bill to guarantee bank deposits.

"We want the government to intervene to rescue the bourse and traders.

"We want the government to buy stocks. This month, I have already lost half of my investments in the bourse," one of the protesters, Hussein Tubayekh, told AFP."

> Bespoke Investment Group provide this stunning graphic that shows the dollar difference between platinum and gold. Gold may be losing it's shine but if platinum continues to fall at this rate it will soon be competing on price with coal.


From Bespoke: 'Men everywhere holding out to buy that platinum engagement ring can rejoice in the fact that the metal has declined from a high of $2,276/ounce in March to just $793/ounce today. But what's really crazy is how close platinum is trading to gold. Even though platinum is 30x rarer than gold, it is currently trading at just an 11% premium. Earlier in the year, there was a $1,300/ounce price difference between the two metals, but that difference is now just $83.'

Thanks for stopping by. In a previous life, this blog was known as The Real Man Fraternity (RMF). These days it is just another meandering blog.

Books reviews

Occasional contributions to Daily Speculations

Photos

30 Days Down - Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD)

Trading



Weight loss

Apologies to subscribers for any funny business

I'm playing around with the format of the site so you may get a few strange blog posts coming your way.

The Gun Kata in Equilibrium (2002)

Equilibrium (2002) is one of those films that were heavily panned by critics (Rotten Tomatoes 36%, Metacritic 33) but appreciated by the masses. The film gets an average rating of 8.6 from 122 Metacritic users and scores 7.8 from over 63.2 thousand IMDB voters. I'm with the masses.

After Ijaz's comment about the fight scenes in the film, I found an excellent compilation on Youtube (see below). The fighting style created for the film is called the 'Gun Kata' and is described as follows:

"Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically-predictable element. The Gun Kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of the statistically-traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120%. The difference of a 63% increased lethal proficiency makes the master of the Gun Katas an adversary not to be taken lightly."

Check out the video below to see the ballet of death in all its glory:

Book review - Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

My expectation of 'Breakfast at Tiffany’s' by Truman Capote was similar to my expectation of the film (still unseen); that it would be a breezy piece of enjoyable froth. I was far off the mark. Capote's famous short story is richly put together and the central character, Miss Holly Golightly, is far more complex than I had anticipated. This is a memorable piece of writing about the human condition and a great story to boot. Fantastic.

**** 1/2

Quote:

‘I don’t want to own anything until I’ve found the place where me and things belong together. I’m not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it’s like.’ - Holly Golightly

Random photos

Taken from my mobile phone in recent months:

Every Breath Bernanke Takes

An RM in the City sends this music video. If you know your Greenspans from your Bernankes, you're going to like this:

Not again

Last night, I had another dream of the stock market taking a nose dive. The FTSE is currently down around 3%, far off the 12.5% in my dream, but it's still rather disconcerting. Trust this to happen when I am no longer trading.

Vince Cable for prime minister

I'm not big on politics, perhaps because my political leanings are very much a mixed bag, changing by the day, sometimes through the day. Also, I find most politicians distasteful to a degree that separates them from normal man. Qualities which we would abhor as individuals are to readily present among these creatures, from the widespread lack of earnestness to the complete absence of willingness to accept responsibility for personal and party failings. When politicians are faced with tough questions they often respond by answering another question altogether, a question they have just created in their mind. This is great con that the public has been forced to accept over the years but it is a punch in the face of public accountability. Try such a tactic in an exam and see where it gets you. I could go on, forever, but I shall stop with the rant and get to the point, which is that I see a light on the political landscape. The light is Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vincent Cable. This man exudes honesty and level headedness. He is low on spin and high on good sense, and I believe the nation would do well to have Cable at the helm.

The Liberal Democrat's principles, taken from their web-site, also resonate quite well with my own beliefs:

'The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.'

While I know very little about the rest of the LD party leadership, I guess I'm a Liberal Democrat at heart, for the rest of the evening at least.

Book review - Anthem by Ayn Rand

It was with a degree of intrepidation that I picked up Ayn Rand's Anthem from the library. Because Rand is such an important figure in the libertarian movement, I was unsure whether political polemic would overshadow the storytelling - it doesn't.

By now, everyone is familiar with the dystopian vision set fourth in the book. In this world, people are not allowed to think for themselves in the individual sense but only as a part of the wider collective. The state dictates all and every action is always for the greater, common good. This is not a world suited to the protagonist, Equality 7-2521, whose natural inquisitiveness and discoveries bring him into direct conflict with the system. Yes, we've been here before but we have to remember that Anthem was written back in 1938. What is more, while the theme may no longer be ground breaking in the way it once was, Anthem succeeds as a rallying cry for the individual and, most importantly, as a good story.

Because it is a short work of around a hundred pages, Anthem is a good test bed to see if you like Ayn Rand's work, although I recommend persevering through the first twenty pages or so to get comfortable to the protagonist's use of the word 'we' instead of 'I'.

****

---

Quoted from Anthem:

"This (light) box is useless," said Alliance 6-7349.

"Should it be what they claim of it," said Harmony 9-2642, "then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one."

"This would wreck the Plans of the World Council," said Unanimity 2-9913, "and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon."

"And if this should lighten the toil of men," said Similarity 5-0306, "then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men."

Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.

"This thing," they said, "must be destroyed."

And all the others cried as one:

"It must be destroyed!"

---

One of my favourite films that develops this theme and supplements it with superb ninja-type action scenes, is the criminally overlooked 'Equilibrium' featuring Christian Bale. Here are some quotes from the film:

DuPont: In the first years of the 21st century, a third World War broke out. Those of us who survived knew mankind could never survive a fourth; that our own volatile natures could simply no longer be risked. So we have created a new arm of the law: The Grammaton Cleric, whose sole task it is to seek out and eradicate the true source of man's inhumanity to man - his ability to feel.

Father: Prozium - The great nepenthe. Opiate of our masses. Glue of our great society. Salve and salvation, it has delivered us from pathos, from sorrow, the deepest chasms of melancholy and hate. With it, we anesthetize grief, annihilate jealousy, obliterate rage. Those sister impulses towards joy, love, and elation are anesthetized in stride, we accept as fair sacrifice. For we embrace Prozium in its unifying fullness and all that it has done to make us great.

Mary: Let me ask you something.
Mary: Why are you alive?
John Preston: I'm alive... I live... to safeguard the continuity of this great society. To serve Libria.
Mary: It's circular. You exist to continue your existence. What's the point?
John Preston: What's the point of your existence?
Mary: To feel. 'Cause you've never done it, you can never know it. But it's as vital as breath. And without it, without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock... ticking.

Stephen Fry's new blog and web-site

I've been reading Stephen Fry's blog and listening to his rambling podcasts for a while now and feel duty bound to promote his beautiful new web-site.

Fry 2.0 is beautifully put together and the site is quickly becoming sufficiently content rich to keep fans glued for long periods. Fry's use of the site to make the goings-ons in his life accessible to all is quite something to behold. In addition to writing blog entries, the Fry-meister is posting short videos to the site, as well as providing status updates in the Twitter/Facebook style.

In an effort to get the site to pay it's own way, Fry has decided to charge for some content. My reflex response was 'it probably won't work', but then I read that Fry will be presenting a selection of Oscar Wilde stories on his site and thought back to Ricky Gervais's great success with his podcasts . This is the kind of thing many people will pay for, and rightly so. I'm confident this project will be a great success, benefiting fans and Fry alike.

Have you seen this man?

The AA 7.21% bond is no more

On October 5th, I noted a discrepancy between long-term and short-term interest rates:

'If you are willing to lock your money away for a year, the AA of all organisations is offering a whopping interest rate of 7.21 % AER. I've never seen such a wide gap between the expected policy rate and the 1 year saving rate. I don't know how long these great rates will be on offer but as it stands this is a brilliant time to be a saver.'

A few days later the world central banks enacted a coordinated interest rate cut, with the Bank of England slashing interest rates by 0.5%. Providers of super-high interest rate saving products immediately cut rates, some even pulled products off the shelves altogether. Fortunately, I took some of the families money and managed to shove it into the AA account a day before they cut the saving rate to 6.30%.

Widespread opinion is that rates are going to fall further, so if you have spare funds aside you can still score north of 6% on a 1-year bond. Also, given the extent of the impending economic doom, we can't rule out super low interest rates and the possibility of deflation over the course of the year, which would give such fixed rate savings even more purchasing power a year hence.

My current thinking is somewhat opposite to that of the financial community right now. Instead of going long accessible cash (liquidity) during this time of crisis, I see more opportunity in putting one's risky capital in equities with a long investment horizon (north of 10 years) and locking up a large bulk of one's conservative capital in fixed rate bonds.

ps - Despite being a man with neither employment nor any savings worthy of mention, I remain perversely interested in the monetary and economic world.

Sad times

Things are moving too fast and I haven't fully developed my thoughts on the fundamental political-economic-philosophical shift that is taking place around us. As it stands, the sense of relief is dominated by a sense of sorrow, loss and foreboding. However, my long-term outlook remains resolutely optimistic.

From 'Capitalism at bay', the leading article in the Economist:

'Capitalism’s defenders need to deal with two sorts of criticism. One has much more substance than the other.

The weaker, populist argument is that Anglo-Saxon capitalism has failed. Critics claim that the “Washington consensus” of deregulation and privatisation, preached condescendingly by America and Britain to benighted governments around the world, has actually brought the world economy to the brink of disaster. If this notion continues to gain ground, politicians from Beijing to Berlin will feel justified in resisting moves to free up the movement of goods and services within and between their economies. Arguments for market solutions in, for instance, health and education will be made with less conviction, and dismissed with a reference to Wall Street’s fate.

In fact, far from failing, the overall lowering of “barriers to intercourse” over the past 25 years has delivered wealth and freedom on a dramatic scale. Hundreds of millions of people have been dragged out of absolute poverty. Even allowing for the credit crunch, this decade may well see the fastest growth in global income per person in history. The free movement of non-financial goods and services should not be dragged into the argument—as they were, to disastrous effect, in the 1930s.

A second group of critics focuses on deregulation in finance, rather than the economy as a whole. This case has much more merit. Finance needs regulation. It has always been prone to panics, crashes and bubbles (in Victorian times this newspaper was moaning about railway stocks, not house prices). Because the rest of the economy cannot work without it, governments have always been heavily involved.'

... 'Capitalism is at bay, but those who believe in it must fight for it. For all its flaws, it is the best economic system man has invented yet.'

Houses in Detroit - a warning

I just read a post on Felix Salmon's blog about super cheap houses in Detroit. He asks someone to look into the median house price (it's below $10,000) to make sure he hasn't reported on a misprint. He hasn't:

'There are about 180 homes on realtor.com alone that are for sale for at or below $1,000 (that's not a misprint), with some for a few hundred. The common theme is that these homes either need serious work... The huge wave of foreclosures in Detroit has left banks owning loads of properties that they want to get off their balance sheets, at any price.'

Here are some houses you can buy in Detroit:

The above house is priced at $10,000

This one is a mere $1000

Just $500

Given that an unoccupied is a liability, it can't be too long before they start giving some of these properties away for free.

The Harder A Wife Works the Cuter She Looks, and a couple of 'improving films' for women

First the film jokes from Harry Enfield and chums.

At the dinner table


Driving

Now for some real adverts along the same lines, taken from a new book called 'The Harder A Wife Works the Cuter She Looks':




The times, they have a changed. Before I get lambasted, despite the title of the blog I am glad for the change ... largely!