November 2007
10 posts
Great Moments in Negotiation: The Liquidity Put →
From Fortune.
Bolding is mine. Leaving aside the point that taking these CDOs off balance sheet was probably a sham transaction by accounting standards, why would you ever agree to this term? Heads you win; tails I lose.
At bottom, the countdown to both Prince’s exit and Citi’s November shocks began in that summer crisis period for the credit markets. Citi started then to have ominous dealings...
Mortgage Continued: Alwaweed on Prince →
I know we are running a little late on current events, but life has been a bit busy.
Anyway, it is always interesting when Alwaleed gets annoyed. He waits, waits, waits and then look out. From Fortune.
Prince Alwaleed: Let me tell you the facts. Basically when Citigroup pre-announced the $6.4 billion writeoff, Chuck Prince called me within five minutes of the announcement and informed me of...
Singapore Gets Crazy →
So Singapore wants to highlight that it is a great place for tech companies. So it decides to put a bunch of its senior bureaucrat/managers in a rap video of all things.
Words cannot describe…
Thank you Techcrunch for making my night.
back from Belize. amazing visit to possum point and wee wee caye
antonisp: going to belize in a few hours. there til Sunday. Work, not play however…
Mozilo, Countrywide and Personal Financial... →
A few weeks ago a gentle reader wrote in with some interesting stats about Mozilo really standing behind his firm. I haven’t verified the figures but this guy is pretty good at math.
any guesses on a) how much countrywide mozilo sold since june 06 and b) how much he still holds?
according to yahoo finance, he sold ~$350M over that period. he currently holds a whopping $7.5M. that’s faith in...
antonisp: It is officially cold now in New York
Jim Rogers on Bloomberg →
I like Jim Rogers.
He was right on commodities in 1999 (pretty much called the bottom), he was right on the dollar and right on the finance industry, right on China.
Here he is on Bloomberg - summary is that he is:
a) short on investment banks
b) short dollar (worried about Fed printing money, worried about inflation)
c) long renminbi
d) long agricultural
e) less long on other...
Kiva.org →
I found Kiva.org to be a strangely addictive way to do “charity”
1. It is microfinance lending so it is not “really” charity. Default rates are very low as with most of microfinance so you can recycle your money through to various people working on small businesses.
2. The immediacy of reading the micro business plans is pure honey to a business geek like me
3. The price points are low,...
antonisp: The air is getting crisp in New York. I love the transition into Fall where it is cool but not too cold yet…