Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Excellent blog post from Washington Post's Chris Cillizza on whether Sarah Palin may have the 'teflon'-like quality of past presidents Reagan and Clinton, to whom negative stories rarely stuck.

"We wondered whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin might have the same quality. As most recent polls show, despite a wealth of stories critical of Palin and questioning John McCain's selection of her as a running mate, she remains generally popular across the country. Does this mean Palin has the Teflon quality? And if so, can she maintain it all the way through Election Day?"



I personally don't think you can compare the gun-toting, fish-loving (my dad loves to fish, aint nothin wrong with that) Alaskan Governess to Bill Clinton, she has all the charisma of a Barbie doll, as is underscored by her foreign policy credentials "I can see Russia from my house!"



Speaking of the Governess, apparently the Palins are in New York at the moment, as are the Sarkozys, The New York Observer's Irina Aleksander wonders whether they would meet... and how that meeting might go down...

"We’re picturing it like a scene from
Wife Swap where the two sets of spouses are seated across from each other, having a civil discussion until someone inevitably loses their temper and storms off. And while Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy might be tall, beautiful, a singer, and, ahem, a former supermodel, Ms. Palin was a runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant, eats moose burgers and, she can shoot guns!




Something tells us the husbands might take the back seat in our fantasy. "

Mr. Obama meanwhile is busy trying to fix this ridiculous bail-out "plan" that the Bush Administration has hastily cobbled together with... oh... $700 billion of taxpayers money. Here's my favourite part:



"It is wholly unreasonable to expect that American taxpayers would or should hand this Administration or any Administration a $700 billion blank check with absolutely no oversight or conditions when a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess...The plan must include protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to further reward the bad behavior of irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street. There has been talk that some CEOs may refuse to cooperate with this plan if they have to forgo multi-million-dollar salaries. I cannot imagine a position more selfish and greedy at a time of national crisis. And I would like to speak directly to those CEOs right now: Do not make that mistake...This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives."




While all the talk at the moment is that "the US is more communist than China" after nationalising a bunch of companies and bailing out a bunch of others with the above-mentioned tax plan, I think what's a bigger problem is the Bush Administration is going to throw taxpayer's money at an issue (more tax cuts! more defense spending! more war! less medical! less education!) and not even bother to delve deeper into the lack of regulation and oversight that created this mess in the first place. I think it's ironic that the sub-prime mortgage crisis started with a bunch of unscrupulous financial organisations giving loans to people who were never going to be able to pay them banking the entire time on the fact that the property bubble will never burst... and this is being "solved" by an unscrupulous Governing Administration giving a bunch of shady financial institutions a blank cheque (so that the CEOs can keep their multi-million dollar salaries) assuming that the share market bubble wont burst as long as we throw money at it. Ah do we ever learn from our mistakes?

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Monday, September 22, 2008

New York Times:

"Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last big independent investment banks on Wall Street, will transform themselves into bank holding companies subject to far greater regulation, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night, a move that fundamentally reshapes an era of high finance that defined the modern Gilded Age."

So this means no more US investment banks. The big 5 has turned into the big nothing! This is huge news. This means they will be conventional banks now with investing arms, but it also means greater regulation and disclosure, less risk and less of the high-flying lifestyle for Investment Bankers (boo?). Will this translate over to their branches overseas such as Australia? Will Macquarie and other home-grown investment banks follow suit? At least this will definitely save the market!


Gulf Daily News:

"PLANNERS are already mapping out possible rail routes from Bahrain and other GCC states to Europe, via Turkey, thanks to a proposal by His Majesty King Hamad.

A proposed GCC rail link to Turkey could become a reality "in the next five to six years", Turkish Ambassador Osman Haldun said yesterday.

It would ultimately lead to the Gulf region being connected to Europe by rail, he told the GDN."

This is pretty amazing news. I'm not sure if this will materialise but a rail link from the GCC to Europe would be such an amazing opportunity for financial investment, cross-cultural learning and sharing between the two regions and an important cultural bridge between Arabs, "Islam" and "The West". Immediate questions that spring to mind are... will anyone use it? Gulf Arabs generally prefer to travel in comfort, not on 20 hour train rides, and will Gulf women use it? Will this result in a further influx of European backpackers into the region? Will this even materialise, as many of the plans announced by GCC Governments never did... Wow... so cool to imagine though.

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