American Madness

More on this later (when I get a minute to breath), but I think we can fairly say that New York Magazine’s recent fawning article notwithstanding, Jamie Dimon may have made a big mistake purchasing Bear at any price. Other than some potentially hard-to-unload midtown real estate, Bear’s real assets (as they say in marking brochures) are its people, and the firm is losing employees (and their client relationships) very rapidly. If you don’t have the people, you don’t have a business. And despite Dimon’s pleas that other banks not hire his staff, prime brokerage executives I’ve spoken to say they haven’t gotten any word from the tops of their firms prohibiting them from hiring out of Bear.

Apparently, even though New York is the Big Apple, that isn’t an official nickname of the city. In fact, New York City doesn’t have any official nicknames.

While this may seem rather shocking that no nickname was ever attached to the city, Queens City Councilman Hiram Monserrate is looking to fix this by officially linking up New York as Gotham City. Monserrate feels that with this summer’s release of Batman : The Dark Knight, the city would be able to launch into an all-out campaign with “Come visit the real Gotham City.”

Of course the Gotham City depicted in Batman’s world is dark, gritty and filled with crime and supervillians, which, to some extent is actually kind of fitting for New York (sans the Supervillians). Not exactly the right message to be sending about New York, is it? Especially when you ate trying to lure in tourists. (more…)

Earlier this week you may have heard that the merger deal to unify Sirius Radio and XM Radio was approved. The only question that was holding the approval back is that it seemingly turns satellite radio into a monopoly held by one company.

Well, since the approval there has been some other news relating to the merger, let’s just say that communication companies broadcasting on regular radio are not happy:

Howie Carr (Boston’s WRKO) was reading the news on the air about the Department of Justice approving the merger and was bleeped over by his producer* when he said the names of the merging companies. WRKO is owned by Entercom Communications.

Clear Channel Communications, one of Entercom’s competitors, has gone a step further and has asked the FCC to impose a list of conditions on to the newly formed Sirius/XM alliance. (more…)

This is incredibly amusing, buy also very sad.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About 60 protesters opposed to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s help in bailing out Bear Stearns entered the lobby of the investment bank’s Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday, demanding assistance for struggling homeowners.

This is the state of populist protest in our country: homeowners are kinda sorta aware that the Federal Reserve just spent taxpayer money to bail out a bank (well, really, to bail out it’s counterparties…the bank’s employees were not saved), but they don’t really know whom to blame!

See, folks, the Fed did the bailing, not Bear Stearns. So it doesn’t make much sense for protesters to hang out in Bear Stearns’ lobby when there’s a perfectly good NY Fed building downtown that you can march on.

(And, yes, I realize that they got press, so the stunt worked, and it probably would not have worked as well downtown where they would have been less significant standing on the crowded street.)

LOS ANGELES: Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald’s restaurants, has died, a Southern California McDonald’s official said Wednesday. He was 89.

Can there be any doubt that since the 1911 invention of Crisco, few have done so much to make our country as unhealthy as it is. Here’s to you, Mr. Peterson!

I keep coming across artists’ websites. Some of them are barely worth the time spent clicking through of them, others have some interesting work and some are just plain great.

Here for you are some of the artists I have come across this week who are work taking a look at:

First up we have Boogie. A photographer who shoots primarily in black and white and has some incredibly powerful images. He has a way of capturing a scene that is just really powerful. My first introduction to him was though his photos of skin heads, inner city drug use, gangs, and Hasidim Jews. He has added onto these with photos of various cities around the world. Definitely worth checking out. Boogie also has a couple of books out now and four in the works.

Next up we’ve got a sculptor I found today. Stephanie Metz isn’t your typical sculptor, she isn’t using metal or stone or wood as her medium, but rather wool. The decision to work in wool was “in order to explore and exploit its unique physical and conceptual possibilities.” First she felts the wool and then creates her impressive sculptures. Personally I am a fan of Teddy Bear Fetal Development and Teddy Skull, I think they both speak well to the medium. (more…)

Not sure how we missed out on writing about this when it was in the news a week and a half ago (though I have an idea that Spitzer coverage may have over shadowed it a bit in the US), but Pope Benedict XVI’s people have announced that they felt there needed to be some updates to what is considered sinning in the modern age we live in:

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos.”

While there have not been any official changes to Catholic Doctrine, the new cardinal sins on the list include Drug Dealing, Abortion, Pedophilia, Genetic Engineering and Excessive Wealth.

While it is nice to see that the priests are making an effort to update doctrine and get back in touch with their followers I am not exactly sure that this is the right way.

Also, doesn’t Pedophilia fall into the same category as Lust? Excessive Wealth a form of Greed? And if they are saying Excessive Wealth is a sin, shouldn’t they be giving up a few coins themselves? Maybe get rid of a few child-touching-priests? Oh, right, the 7 Deadly Sins (and this new updated list) can be absolved through confession to the proper officials (priests) and the proper penance.

So, what do we think, is Excessive Wealth as bad as Pedophilia? Is Genetic Engineering on par with Sloth?

In “McCain Warns Against Hasty Mortgage Bailout ” the heir apparent to the Republican Presidency said:

“It is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.” … “Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy,” … “Some Americans bought homes they couldn’t afford, betting that rising prices would make it easier to refinance later at more affordable rates.”

Mr. McCain argued that even during the ongoing crisis, the vast majority of mortgage holders continued to make their payments.
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Lan Zur carmenere is the Bear Stearns of the FreshDirect wine world. While it is probably worth $50 a bottle, you can get it for $10. The tastes are reminiscent of big Bordeaux blends: lots of cedar, leather, smoke and fruit. But, it isn’t from France, its Chilean and at this price alone, it is worth buying a case. Maybe the wine store will throw in a prime brokerage business for free. It’s worth a shot.

Winery: Lan Zur
Grape: Carmenere
Region: Chile
Year: 2005

Source: FreshDirect is out this week. I’ll post a link when it is available again. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled at the Astor Place wine warehouses of the New York
Price: $10

Color: Cherry red

Nose: Opening up this bottle is like opening a Hope chest, with big cedar notes right off the bat. A little time out of the bottle and some gentle persuasion, and you pick up leather, plum and raspberry, with cheese, onion and asparagus. There was a lot of Bordeaux in this nose.

Taste: “Alright, you’re gonna have to share this one,” said Mrs. WineHazard after that first taste. For the uninitiated, this means the bottle is good and was she ever spot on. The wine enters with pronounced raspberry, plum and chocolate before descending to mid-palate with strong scorched earth flavors, cedar, tobacco and a touch of rubber. The finish is smooth, with lingering tannins wrapped around cedar and salty leather. The longer the bottle stayed open the more it resembled an Old World Bordeaux blend.

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Muxtape: Make mixtapes that play anywhere.

Created by Justin Ouellette. His description of the service:

I’m proud to introduce Muxtape, a new way to share, discover, and listen to hand-picked music online. Starting right now you can create a muxtape and upload up to twelve songs curated by you (instead of a cold computer algorithm), then share it in a simple, elegant player as easily as giving out a link like justin.muxtape.com.

I’ve been working on this literally every spare moment I’ve had for the past few weeks so I’m very excited to be at a point where I can start sharing it with everyone. Please give it a try and tell me what you think (good or bad, bug report or feature request.) My goal is nothing short of changing the way we consume, distribute, and discover music. Follow this tumblr for future developments.