Freak weather strikes Australia BBC
Researchers say voters swayed by candidates who share their looks Stanford News Service
$150,000 Wardrobe for Palin May Alter Tailor-Made Image New York Times
Interview of Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Benoit Madelbrot PBS. Both of them are scared.
Small businesses cry out for help as failures mount Times Online
Amazon forecast highlights holiday fears Financial Times
Credit Crunch Rocks Bain, as Funds Fall Up to 50% Wall Street Journal
Crisis mounts in East Europe after shock 3pc rate rise by Hungary Telegraph
COUP D’ETAT!!!! Sarkozy to renew his European presidency for another year Eurointelligence
The Bank Capital Mirage Paul Kedrosky
Bailed-out Banker Compensation: A PR Disaster in the Making? Roger Ehrenberg
Very true Brad Setser
Antidote du jour. This first is a departure from our usual programming and features the Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir (hat tip reader Marshall):
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My favorite news from yesterday:
“Frank Calls for ‘Moratorium’ on Wall Street Bonuses”.
Will it see the day before the huge 2008 pay-out?
a said
“Frank Calls for ‘Moratorium’ on Wall Street Bonuses”.
Yeah that was good one. The article had shown what the bonus pools for 2008 vs 2007 were (40B vs 33B) Too bad the author did not connect the dots to show us how much government money( direct or indirect) kept those ibanks out of bankruptcy. Gotta love it though — a something about a leopard can’t change its spots — even when drowning
Cutest. Video. Ever.
The audio of Taleb and Mandelbrot is worth a listen.
These gents know a lot more about chaos, black swans, math and economics than the average economist, and they are very, very afraid of a total financial meltdown. Taleb went so far as saying that he is not sleeping well any longer.
I would not bet against them.
On a lighter note:
http://newsbiscuit.com/article/poland-overwhelmed-by-influx-of-british-investment-bankers-379
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3AzpByR3MvI
Love the photo.
If I didn’t need to work on making a tasty coffee drink, I’d be here with a connection to The Large Hadron Collider…
Nicholas and Benoit, do you have any advice for us other than “Be afraid, be very afraid?” Shall we just waste our lives away getting no sleep and worrying about all the black swans out there? I mean, if the credit crisis doesn’t do us in, nuclear war might. Or a global pandemic. Or a meteor. Volcano. Terrorist. Car accident.
What is the point of spending your short life being miserable with fear over that which you cannot control? Maybe in two years you will be on a bread line, maybe not. Maybe you will be dead, maybe not. Meanwhile, go have an ice cream cone, watch a sunset, hug your spouse and kids, and be kind to others.
From
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a._s5F17cvP4&refer=home
we learn:
"Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch set aside a combined $33.3 billion to pay salaries, bonuses and benefits in the first nine months of this year, down 20 percent from $41.8 billion in the same period in 2007. Banks typically pay about two-thirds of the total in year-end bonuses.
Since 2003, the five biggest Wall Street firms have paid about $145 billion in bonuses. "
That means, about $75 billion (or 1/2 of all bonuses paid between 2003 and 2008) has been paid out over the past 18-20 months. Seems to me that they are looting the company, paying out most of the bonuses when the company is failing and the government is throwing money at them. Jerks.