Greek bailout “strategy” unnerves European leaders

The Greeks want to hold a national referendum (next January) before agreeing to their bailout package. This did not go down well with the rest of Europe.

In Athens, Mr. Papandreou’s move unleashed political chaos on Tuesday after it emerged that despite having met his German, British and French counterparts only the weekend before, he had not told them of the plan to hold a referendum in January. Even his Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, was caught completely unaware. It was widely reported that Mr. Venizelos was hospitalized Tuesday with stomach pain.

I’ll say. I have believed for quite some time that the question is not “if”, but “when”.  As in, when will Europe go down the tubes?

Greece is within weeks of running out of cash entirely, and a default would lead to a collapse of Greek banks and far worse austerity than any bailout would impose.

In the meantime, the German-Italian bond spreads continue to hit all-time highs.

I had lunch with a German, an Italian and a Frenchman yesterday and we got on to the topic of the economy. No one thought that Greece was going to get out of this alive, even if they take on the rescue package they want to hold a referendum on. The Italian was bewildered at why the markets were punishing Italy so much – too much in his opinion (it does have a Debt to GDP ratio of almost 120%). The Frenchman was worried at rising unemployment and that S&P was going to downgrade their credit rating any day now. The German reacted pretty much as you’d expect someone to react to throwing good money after bad. None of them regarded the political situation in their home countries as particularly rosy. It’s bleak almost everywhere and the powder keg is growing – so the question is, where do you park your money these days?

In the meantime, here is one German chancellor describing how big Greece’s debt is:
 

  9:53pm  •  Business & Finance  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Halloween Doodle

In case you missed it, this is pretty cool:

  12:11am  •  General Media  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Margin Call

Margin Call is actually a really good movie – one of the best I’ve seen this year, actually. It’s a tough ask to make an entertaining movie about something as removed as a bank’s risk management department without deviating off into motorcycle chases or fist-fights, but this movie has done that. Filled with several Oscar winners and other A-list actors (Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto and more), Margin Call is carried mostly by the engaging dialog and the way its actors pull it off. It details less than 48 hours in an investment bank which has figured out that its exposure to securities it holds on its book are about to put it out of business – unless it can dump all of them off onto unsuspecting buyers. From what I can tell, it presents a realistic, believable view of things, and I found it tough to sympathize with the executives who got the axe when they appear devastated and still walk off with enormous severance packages that would tide most middle-class families over for years. Unfortunately, Margin Call only seems to be playing on limited screens – I saw it at the Aquarius in Palo Alto, but it wasn’t at the big chains.

  2:33pm  •  Movies  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Richard Stallman’s info packet

I saw this on Kottke.  It’s Richard Stallman’s information packet – the one that he sends out to people who want to invite him to give a talk.  It’s long.

Back when I was in law school (2004, actually), I was involved in organizing a talk by Stallman. He sent us a similar information packet.   I just pulled it out of my email archives. It was long back then, but, I shit you not, the length has almost, literally doubled from about 5,400 words to 9,100 words in the intervening 7 years. As for the talk – I don’t remember much about the organizing process except for it being very… fiddly – but his anti-software patent message definitely stuck with me.

  1:05am  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Patent Trolls: How Bad Is the Problem?

It’s bad. Popular Mechanics writes about the scourge of “non-practicing entities”, otherwise known less euphemistically as patent trolls:

Vague wording and flaws in the U.S. patent licensing rules helped to give rise to this breed of aggressively litigious patent-holding firms, according to James Bessen, a Boston University School of Law lecturer. These organizations have pressed hundreds of lawsuits against thousands of defendants over the past 20 years, and business is booming now more than ever. Bessen wanted to know just how big the problem was, and according to a recent study he co-authored, fighting these firms cost companies an estimated $500 billion from 1990 to 2010. How did things get this way? [emphasis added]

  12:42am  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Deep Intellect: Inside the mind of the octopus

An interesting article in Orion Magazine about octopus intelligence:

Occasionally an octopus takes a dislike to someone. One of Athena’s predecessors at the aquarium, Truman, felt this way about a female volunteer. Using his funnel, the siphon near the side of the head used to jet through the sea, Truman would shoot a soaking stream of salt water at this young woman whenever he got a chance. Later, she quit her volunteer position for college. But when she returned to visit several months later, Truman, who hadn’t squirted anyone in the meanwhile, took one look at her and instantly soaked her again.

  12:37am  •  Science & Technology  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s obituary

From The Telegraph’s obituary for the whacky Gaddafi:

Gaddafi would arrive at summits of Arab leaders in a white limousine surrounded by a bodyguard of nubile Kalashnikov-toting brunettes. At one non-aligned summit in Belgrade, he turned up with two horses and six camels; the Yugoslavs allowed him to graze the camels in front of his hotel – where he pitched his tent and drank fresh camel milk – but refused to allow him to arrive at the conference on one of his white chargers. Several of the camels ended up in Belgrade zoo.

At an African Union summit in Durban in 2002, his entourage consisted of a personal jet, two Antonov transport aircraft, a container ship loaded with buses, goat carcases and prayer mats, a mobile hospital, jamming equipment that disrupted local networks, $6 million in petty cash, and 400 security guards with associated rocket launchers, armoured cars and other hardware, who nearly provoked a shoot-out with South Africa’s security forces.

On his return motorcade through Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, Gaddafi tossed fistfuls of dollars from his car to appreciative crowds, remarking that this way he could be sure they went to the poor.

  11:00pm  •  Current Affairs  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

The lucky country

Associated Press is reporting that median net worth in Australia is the highest in the world. Looks like Australia is currently in a really good spot:

The report showed that the median value of wealth – total assets minus debts – in Australia was $US221,704 per adult, while the average for all adults was $US396,745, 79 per cent more than the median.

By comparison, the median value for wealth in the US was $52,752, and the average was $US248,395, almost five times the median.

Australia’s proportionately bigger median compared with the average shows a more even spread of wealth than the US.

…
The report showed Australia’s median net worth of $US221,704 was the highest in the world.

Moreover, the report found the proportion of Australians with net worth above $US100,000 was, at 70.5 per cent, the highest of any country and about eight times the world average.

  9:27pm  •  Business & Finance  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

How they prepare for mealtime in airplanes

Interesting look at how flight attendants get meals ready (for business class and the pilots):

It’s actually pretty fascinating. Everything is oven-cooked or warmed in a couple of small ovens.

  9:03pm  •  Travel  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  •