American Madness

Been a little while since I last wrote, so I am hoping I am not too rusty, try and keep with me as I work out the kinks of my writing, I promise in the coming days to try and find some time to write a bit more. Also keep an eye out for a some long over due product reviews, staring with this one.

Tea companies come in many sizes. On one side you’ve got your Lipton, Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings pumping out teas for the masses, creating almost every conceivable flavor in the spectrum, as long as it appeals to a bunch of people. Then you’ve got Artisan’s Cup. Artisan’s Cup lies firmly on the opposite side from the big tea companies, in fact they are barely even on the same playing field. Read the rest of this entry »

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Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Or, as I like to think, sometimes life is better without the pussy.

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4. A hedge-fund manager gets up at 5 a.m. It takes him 12 minutes to shower, 8 minutes to get dressed, and 20 minutes to eat breakfast. How big is his domestic staff?

You must read all of these!*

*only if you found the above funny [Matt Note]

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Via Yahoo!
In addition to relevant concerns about, oh, safe drinking water and bread, the British naturally feared losing their most valuable caffeinated commodity.

“The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce (28 grams) per head per week could be ensured,” according to a memo drafted between 1954 and 1956.

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Via Reuters:

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A Rio de Janeiro tour company could be in trouble for giving tourists too intimate a view of life in the city’s notorious slums, including photo opportunities with drug gang leaders.

The Brazilian city’s tourism chief said on Monday that the company, Private Tours, could be stripped of its license after a report in Sunday’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that it had set up meetings between traffickers and tourists.

Several companies have for years offered tours of the city’s more than 600 slums, offering tourists a controversial alternative to the city’s beaches and an insight into the lives of the more than 1 million people who live there.

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Pierre Paulden, writing for Bloomberg, describes the interdealer broker market as one big orgy! The story is juicy and detailed and sure to piss off quite a few people.

The entertainment can go further than expensive restaurants and bars. According to a complaint filed … in the Southern District of New York … the firm “regularly paid prostitutes to entertain traders.”

[The trader] frequently “visited brothels masquerading as massage parlors,” and was “required as part of his entertaining duties to retain other prostitution services,” according to the complaint. [He] also said he went on a January fishing trip to Costa Rica in 2006 that was an “extended orgy.” On one occasion, [he] said he was recalled from vacation to attend a “customer drinking and drug party.”

Credit Seizure? $6 Million Pay Turns on Relationships

Related: WSJ: Wall Street Sex Scandals, A Partial History

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Famed securities industry attorney Bill Singer has had enough:

I believe in the benefits of independent/regional business. I patronize Starbucks but deeply miss the neighborhood coffee shop with all its quirks and characters. I patronize Barnes & Noble but miss the local bookshop where the owner read her titles and knew my preferences.

I miss the mix of mom and pop stores that used to face out upon our streets and avenues, but have now been replaced by a homogenous façade of national chains that repeat every four blocks with numbing regularity.

I miss innovation. I miss the clash of ideas in the marketplace. I miss the differences that add vitality to our lives. For the comfort of sameness and reliability, we have sacrificed choice and sincerity. Wall Street has not been immune to the demand of bigger-is-better. No, Wall Street has been victimized by that imperative in the shape of unwieldy financial services supermarkets and bloated, ineffectual regulators.

This is a sad day for Wall Street. Bill Singer was a tireless advocate for the little guy. And make no mistake: it’s the masses of little guys who serve the people, not the big brokerage firms. But the large brokerage firms have the loudest voices when it comes to regulation.

Indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love. In losing the spirited opposition of Bill Singer, Wall Street has lost a great deal.

Perhaps I am simply too old and too tired to keep tilting at the windmills. Not finding any credible, national trade group to call home; not finding folks willing to work tirelessly with me; not finding any receptivity for meaningful reform within the regulatory community; and not finding any sincerity among politicians to propose sensible legislation to reform Wall Street—I think it’s time for me to follow in the footsteps of Cincinnatus and return to the farm.

In the next few weeks I will populate my blog with my thoughts on issues that endanger Wall Street—for the public investor, for public issuers, for individual brokers, and for brokerage firms. I will try to explain how to best address the issues that I note, and welcome my readers to bombard me with emails and phone calls with your comments, suggestions, and criticisms. I will do my best to respond.

I highly recommend Bill’s blog at rrbdlaw.com.

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