Outrageous Fortune

I have become simply addicted of late to a little Canadian TV series dating from 2003 named "Slings and Arrows." As the title suggests, it revolves around a struggling Shakespearean theater company in the imaginary little Canadian town of New Burbage Recall that Richard Burbage was the star of the Lord Chamberlain's Men -- later the King's Men -- the Bard's company. It is simply delightful. The series appeared on American cable -- Bravo I think -- a few years ago, and several of my classically minded friends caught it at that time.

While hilariously funny, it also contains more than a few splendid insights into the art of the stage and acting and directing technique. I commend it to all who enjoy Shakespeare, or brainy comedy.

A taste from the lyrics of one of its ditties:

Cheer up, Hamlet; chin up, Hamlet;
Buck up, you melancholy Dane!
So your uncle is a cad who murdered Dad and married Mum.
That's really no excuse to be as glum as you've become!
So wise up, Hamlet; rise up, Hamlet; perk up and sing a new refrain.
Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui.
Your antic disposition is embarrassing to see.
And by the way, you sulky brat, the answer is to be!
You're driving poor Ophelia insane.
So shut up, you rogue and peasant;
Grow up, it's most unpleasant;
Cheer up, you melancholy Dane!

McCainomics II

My friend George M responded to my thoughts as follows:

Primo. Deutschebank is two words, Deutsche Bank. [Fixed! Quelle idiot!]

Secundo. McCain is a total economic illiterate. He simply does not know what he is talking about. What he said has nothing to do with the current crisis and is beneath inanity.

Terzio. Banks can operate with the illusion of capital, as you well know from your own experiences. Citibank has been technically bust at least two times in my lifetime. Trump went bust but was kept alive by the banks and eventually got out of it.

What a bank needs, or an institution that funds itself in the money market, is credit. Remember, it comes from credere, to believe. If the market doesn’t believe you are trustworthy, you aren’t.

As I was saying....

Frankly, the only reason I wrote this at all was because I have been attempting all week to decipher McCain's remarks, not a total waste of time on the off-chance that he could be our next President (Aieee!). Despite my best efforts, and a certain element of charity, they remain hermetically sealed.

McCain's Solution to the Credit Crisis

I have spent the last several days puzzling over what John McCain meant when he babbled:

"Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital."

It doesn't take much of a genius to realize that most of the financial industry would operate with zero capital if they could legally get away with it. I am of course ignoring the modest discipline imposed on the world's banks by the market. Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan can't operate without any capital; nevertheless, it has been apparent since the early 90's, witjh the emergence and expolosive growth of the deriviatives markets, that the capital a bank shows on its balance sheet may bear little relationship to the actual risks embedded in the institution's assets, including quasi-assets such as swap and other derivative contracts.

Thus in the 1990's the West's central bankers, meeting though the Bank for International Settlements, began formulating risk capital rules that had the admirable, if unattainable, objective of reflecting all the risks that impinged on the institution. These rules were, and continue to be, the focus of struggle and controversy in the industry not because bankers wish to be exposed to risk for its own sake, but because capital costs money, the more capitalized the less profitable, all other things being equal.

Now I suppose McCain may be suggesting a number of things here:

1. He could be promoting a roll-back of seventy-five years of securities regulation. I don't think so.
2. He could be promoting a reduction or elimination of capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends. A possibility, but this goes way beyond our immediate crisis -- a lock-up of the credit markets as a result of a crisis of confidence over the adequacy of firms' ability to withstand losses, i.e., capital.
3. The most likely -- what he means by "accounting impediments" is a return to the bad old days when so-called "off-balance sheet" risk was just that: not a consideration in setting the levels of regulatory capital, and not spelled out in excruciating detail in a firm's financial statements.

I have to say I find any of these suggestions naive and extremely dangerous. We are in the midst of a credit crisis, meaning that market participants don't believe that their counter-parties can honor their obligations. McCain's suggested approaches are at best wide of the mark and ineffectual, and at worst will exacerbate the present crisis.

For the time being, it looks as if the best approach will be old-fashioned New Deal pump-priming. The system, will recover; it always has. The best thing we can do is not make any jerky moves that would put the cart in the ditch.

Virtual Pilot

I bet GWB wouldn't stand a chance at this game!

http://www.lufthansa-usa.com/useugame2007/html/play.html

Dave Barry on the New Hampshire Primary

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The voters of New Hampshire have made their decision, and the big winner is: Change. Here's the final vote tally:

Change -- 43 percent

Hope -- 28 percent

Hope For Change -- 17 percent

Hair -- 9 percent

Experience -- 2 percent

Dennis Kucinich -- 1 percent:

Now it's time for the politicians and the press to drop New Hampshire like an ant-covered corn dog and sprint for the airport, leaving the residents of The Granite State to spend the rest of the winter plucking 239 billion candidate signs out of their snowbanks, all the while wondering if there ever really was a candidate named ''Mike Gravel,'' or if that was just teenagers playing a sign-planting prank.

Meanwhile the eyeballs of the nation will turn toward the Next Crucial Phase of the presidential race, South (or North) Carolina, which at the moment is the epicenter of the political world, not to mention Dick Harpootlian. I have not, personally, conducted any journalism research in North (or South) Carolina, but based on sitting in my hotel room eating Cheez-Its and thinking about it, I would say that the issue most on the minds of voters there, at the moment, is: Change. Although of course that could change.

Meanwhile there are many unanswered questions about the races in both parties. On the Democratic side: Is Barack Obama for real? Or is he, as sources inside the Hillary Clinton campaign have suggested, a hologram formed by laser beams? Is the nation truly ready for a hologram president? And speaking of Hillary Clinton: When her eyes appeared to well up with tears during a campaign appearance at a New Hampshire diner, was thatreal welling? Or did she fake the welling? If she did, in fact, well, do we know for certain that those were her own personal tears? Why was no sample made available to the media for testing?

Among the unanswered questions on the Republican side are: Is John McCain, at 117, too old and cranky to be president? Like, during the White House Easter Egg Roll, would he come outside in his bathrobe and yell, ''You kids get off my lawn!'' Does Mitt Romney contain any human DNA whatsoever? Does he, for example, burp? Can he emit bodily aromas? And is there any TV show that Mike Huckabee will NOT appear on? Are we going to see him one of these nights on Deal or No Deal? Why does anybody, aside from Howie Mandel's immediate family, watch that show?

These are only some of the questions that we, as a nation, will be trying to answer in the critical days ahead. But before we do, let's take a moment to look back on both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries, and ask ourselves if these two non-representative states -- which have, between them, roughly the same total minority population as Gladys Knight and the Pips -- should play such a huge role in selecting our presidential nominees. This is a very complex issue, with many strong arguments on both sides.

No, sorry, correction: It's actually a simple issue. The Iowa/New Hampshire system is insane. It's like a 50-table restaurant with a big, varied menu, except that only two tables are allowed to order. If these two tables order clams, for example, or Michael Dukakis, that's what gets served to all the other tables. But at this point I don't think there's anything the rest of the states can do about it. Iowa and New Hampshire will do anything to be first. You populous states can't beat them, because they want it more than you do. They're like the people who camp out for two weeks so they can be in front of the line to buy tickets for a hot concert, except that instead of a hot concert, it's a chance to shake hands with Duncan Hunter six different times. Tough luck, residents of populous states! At least you don't have to deal with the snowbank signs.

Anyway, this concludes my New Hampshire coverage. I will write further campaign reports as events warrant, meaning after I do my laundry. Until then, America: Don't go changing.

My Photo

Recent Movies

Some recent movies I've seen and enjoyed: Eastern Promises; Gone Baby Gone; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead; PU-239 (HBO Production); You Kill Me; Mississippi Masala (I love Mira Nair); Breaker Morant.

One to skip: Bee Movie!