Cross Town Thoughts
Quite the odd couple. They want to reinstate Glass-Steagall. Good intentions. But, it’s an anachronism. We’ve entered the electronics age. Even if banks segregate at-risk assets on commercial side from investment deals, the risk just shifts. The entities still rely on profits from split-second trades, derivatives and new instruments invented way ahead of the regulators ever catching up.
Problem persists. Power concentrated in a few U.S. Banks. Each too big to fail.
Hagel staggers into Pentagon today. Diminished by his own performance, just as sequester negotiations peak. Obama’s weak presence on the Hill will seal another fractured financial fate. Trickle-down redefined as reality in the States.
Women in the workplace hits tectonic plate. Yahoo’s mommy CEO rattling feminist base. Face-time still important in the office. Work-life balance teetering.
Girls on the cliff. Enough Lena butt already. Graphic testimony in crazy Arias slut trial, too. Eeeyu. Beyond Fatal Attraction. HBO’s Parade’s End a plodding facsimile without Downton’s appeal. Cummerbund mumbles and waggles.
Déjà vu all over again. Ground hog day. Take your pick. Here we go, again. Over the cliff. No comity on the horizon. Just bad jokes as the tragi-comedy for the economy unfolds. Then another debt ceiling comedy show in a couple of weeks.
So, enjoy the New Year, a fresh foot of snow. Football. Movies on-demand. Surprisingly, I didn’t hate Ted . It had some tender moments. And The Guard, set in Ireland was good. Bought season 1 of Homeland for a marathon into 2013.
Deus ex machina our only hope? Divine intervention to create some semblance of comity in congress. So far, just comedy of errors. If Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly can coexist, there must be a god out there somewhere. January pay checks will not be funny. Even Tea Partiers won’t be laughing. Game, set, match. Fiscal cliff. Obama tax bill. Hahahahaha. Comity Central coming soon.
In the Valley of Debates. IMF warns that global economy is teetering on the brink as the struggling EU gets Nobel Prize for Peace. Fiscal cliff looms here. No debate to date has dealt with either. The world is flat. Remember that.
Ogilvy is one of LinkedIn’s top 20 InDemand global employers. Lucky mAdBen.
Pumpkins popping out of the ground. JeanJean the PromQueen StuffingtonPost. Happy milestone to A-Man. AutumnCandy. RecipeDetours. Bon weekend. 
New York Times Magazine article on “The Mitt Romney Who Might Have Been”. If Mitt the Massachusetts moderate had a backbone and didn’t chronically capitulate to the Republican right, he may be a more appealing candidate.
Frank Bruni’s column “Trembling Before Mitt”, wonders which Mitt will show up at tonight’s debate. Success in primary contests was accomplished by his opponents’ lack of gravitas. Perry, Bachmann, Cain et al.
Jack Cafferty asked what Romney needs to do to win the first debate. He read on-air what I said:
Tiger is back! Mad sick chip on the 16th. Jack Nicklaus said it was the gutsiest, best golf shot he’s ever seen. It was so much fun to watch. Long time coming.
Lane’s demise was predictable. As was Jaguar not starting. Don should have protected himself and the agency by confiscating Lane’s keys and making him leave immediately. Wait until he finds out about the big loan. Don is now haunted by two suicides for which he feels culpable. He bears no blame for Lane’s, he was too humane. Glen and Sally. Strange. Gratuitous. One more episode.
Matt Creamer’s AdAge recap spot on. Change in profit margins of ad agencies when fees/commissions replaced fat retainers. Life is crappy theme. Sally’s first period frame made him drop his iPad. In so many ways. Eeeyuu.
Dear Mr. President. Hurry up and get a new team. Leadership. Now. Krugman is right. It’s not the time for austerity in this teetering global economy.
Lots of sun, son this weekend. Ben Piccata. RecipeDetours.com.
Taking time out from Facebook, still think it has jumped the shark. How to monetize the advertise to thirteen year-olds? Any money to be made has been. Spanish banks out of pesos. Uh, Euros. Jamie Dimon cannot intervene in every trade. Get real. They take like a nano- second. Joshua voted out, finally. Could never stand his screeching. Love Phillip ‘Cocker’. Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation collection has moved to rave reviews.
Elaine’s landmark on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is sorely missed and no replacement has yet been found. Wish I could buy it. Those were the days.
Thomas Sargent, NYU, was just named one of 2011’s Nobel Prize Winners in Economics. Sargent was among the judges who deemed Ben’s Econ Thesis worthy of winning NYU’s highest honor, the Borgman-Phi Beta Kappa prize for outstanding undergraduate thesis: ‘Functional Data Analysis of Economic Bubbles: Creating a Coherent Shape of Inflationary Phenomena’.
Back in the early 90’s when there was talk of a European Union forming with one currency, I was a naysayer. I could not imagine countries with centuries of distinct cultures, languages, economic roots ever agreeing on anything as one entity. An article in The Economist, entitled ‘Yerp’ caught my attention at the time. It was a kindred cynical satirical view using the American tourist term for the continent. “We’re heading off to ‘Yerp’ for vacation in August.” As if Europe were just one big happy country. Never thought it could actually become so.
Wrong. The EU formed in 1998 with the Euro its common currency. However, as Paul Krugman says today, maybe we were right.
Side Trek . NYC 