A $50 bn scam (Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme)
A $913 m scan (the SEC budget for 2009)
A $138 bn scandal (see "How the Fed Reached Out to Lehman" NYT 20081215)
It looks a little bit like computers and the race against hackers : the more open the networks, the more likely bad guys will outsmart the system, and anything can happen.
Well. Not quite right.
Entering NYC's financial market ain't that easy. Plus everybody knows everybody... Actually, thieves pal around with cops all the time. Furthermore, post-9/11 America is not post-Hoxha Albania, where no-one knew anything about capitalism and Ponzi schemes could flourish as quickly as culprits could vanish.
Madoff didn't vanish.
The man is smart enough to know he was bound to crash, and the more he postponed his escape, the bigger the final ka-boom. Come on. Even Woody Allen would take the money and run.
But Bernie kept parading in lavish mansions. Bernie kept deceivingly spreading the wealth around. Bernie kept smiling his best dummy smile.
Because somehow, Bernie kept existing.
Bernard Madoff fell because his Second Life Avatar Bernie didn't follow The Woody Law.
Morale of the story : when dummies outdumb dummies, anything can happen.
Showing posts with label Albania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Albania. Show all posts
20081217
20070426
White, red and pink blogules to the World in 2020
The CER (Centre for European Reform ) and Accenture recently waged a debate about the World in 2020, partly fueled by Mark Leonard's essay "Divided world: The struggle for supremacy". The democracy vs autocracy divide sounds a little bit white vs black to me, and I may add a few other key structural changes within :
- America enjoying good demography dynamics but becoming more monolithic, more focused on itself, welcoming fewer influences from abroad. Growing old a different way.
- At the opposite of this Mainland Amerika, China is embracing its own diversity. Chinese imperialism is no more about spreading a unique monolithic model but about a much smarter pervasiveness, leveraging on all minorities instead of crushing cultural diversity (ie China intends to build the core of Koreanhood on its very soil, claims the Koguryo cultural heritage, and position the Korean peninsula as a motherland's satellite).
- What I call "Asianitude" keeps growing. Asian countries developping intra-asian relationships beyond the traditional bilateral relationships with Western countries, students and executives moving from places to places, a common ground and cultural identity, a sense of belonging to the same community at the individuals level...
- The Korean moment. Surrounded by ambitious giants (and a Japan dangerously returning to ultra nationalism and Showa-style fascism), seen as the herald of cultural diversity for other Asian nations, Korea has to cope with the collapse of North Korea. In what I call the Albania scenario, the people who used to live in a quasi sect are totally unprepared for a market economy : con men and gurus get the bulk of the values they received as a kick start in a new world.
- The turn of the millenium rise of fundamentalism (Christian in the US and Eastern Europe, Jewish in Eretz Israel and Islamist everywhere) may last if democracies keep electing leaders who put religion at the top of their not so hidden agendas (the collapse of Iraq, the rise of Iran as the regional threat, and the boost to fundamentalists across the globe were not collateral damage but the very aim of Bush's game). And while terrorists trained in Iraq blossom on new urban and suburban playgrounds, al Qaeda survivors and wannabes focus on rural Asia, Africa and South America.
- America enjoying good demography dynamics but becoming more monolithic, more focused on itself, welcoming fewer influences from abroad. Growing old a different way.
- At the opposite of this Mainland Amerika, China is embracing its own diversity. Chinese imperialism is no more about spreading a unique monolithic model but about a much smarter pervasiveness, leveraging on all minorities instead of crushing cultural diversity (ie China intends to build the core of Koreanhood on its very soil, claims the Koguryo cultural heritage, and position the Korean peninsula as a motherland's satellite).
- What I call "Asianitude" keeps growing. Asian countries developping intra-asian relationships beyond the traditional bilateral relationships with Western countries, students and executives moving from places to places, a common ground and cultural identity, a sense of belonging to the same community at the individuals level...
- The Korean moment. Surrounded by ambitious giants (and a Japan dangerously returning to ultra nationalism and Showa-style fascism), seen as the herald of cultural diversity for other Asian nations, Korea has to cope with the collapse of North Korea. In what I call the Albania scenario, the people who used to live in a quasi sect are totally unprepared for a market economy : con men and gurus get the bulk of the values they received as a kick start in a new world.
- The turn of the millenium rise of fundamentalism (Christian in the US and Eastern Europe, Jewish in Eretz Israel and Islamist everywhere) may last if democracies keep electing leaders who put religion at the top of their not so hidden agendas (the collapse of Iraq, the rise of Iran as the regional threat, and the boost to fundamentalists across the globe were not collateral damage but the very aim of Bush's game). And while terrorists trained in Iraq blossom on new urban and suburban playgrounds, al Qaeda survivors and wannabes focus on rural Asia, Africa and South America.
20070103
White blogule to OH Se-hoon - swift boats across the Hangang
LEE Myung-bak may or may not become South Korea's next president. Like Sarkozy, he could be leading in the polls too clearly too early. Actually, the man who changed the face of the Capital city (Bus Rapid Transit system, restored Cheonggyecheon, Seoul Sup...) always seems in a hurry and doesn't like to waste time. For a start, he never took the time to change his own face. Plus he was twice convicted for starting an election campaign too early.
But swiftness is certainly not a handicap in Korea. After all, LEE's predecessor did become Korea's head of state in a hurry : GOH Gun assumed ROH Moo-hyun's interim during his short 2004 impeachment transition.
Still, LEE's successor could very well become the "next-former-mayor-of-Seoul president". It's just that 2007 looks a little bit too early for OH Se-hoon, who isn't even of the "former" kind since he only took the mayoral charge last summer. At least, this good looking politician won't have to change his face to seduce the voters.
Yesterday, OH decided to stop the pre-electoral stalemate on real estate issues, the most important topic in a country that doesn't seem to realize North Korea is about to collapse in a meltdown if not nuclear, at least economically ten times more destructive than Albania's*.
Anyway... ROH Moo-hyun's Government cannot go as far as it would like against real estate speculation because the opposition doesn't want it to succeed before this year's elections... the said opposition including many members of the "ruling" Uri party. OH Se-hoon is a member of the Grand National Party but wants to be remembered as a man who reaches for the good of the majority : he didn't wait for national guidelines to set tougher rules on new developments. A small move but a wise and a timely one.
Nowadays, some short sighted Gangnam investors see LEE Myung-bak as their only hope of postponing the inevitable burst of Seoul's real estate bubble. The wisest and swiftest among them are becoming OH Se-hoon's best supporters... with the hope of making in Gangbuk for their future losses in Gangnam : they have already moved their assets north of the Han river, flocking to such areas as Nowon-gu like rats before the shipwreck.
* once again : instead of benchmarking Germany for their reunification scenarios, Koreans would be inspired to remember what happened to Albania after the collapse of Enver Hoxha's regime.
But swiftness is certainly not a handicap in Korea. After all, LEE's predecessor did become Korea's head of state in a hurry : GOH Gun assumed ROH Moo-hyun's interim during his short 2004 impeachment transition.
Still, LEE's successor could very well become the "next-former-mayor-of-Seoul president". It's just that 2007 looks a little bit too early for OH Se-hoon, who isn't even of the "former" kind since he only took the mayoral charge last summer. At least, this good looking politician won't have to change his face to seduce the voters.
Yesterday, OH decided to stop the pre-electoral stalemate on real estate issues, the most important topic in a country that doesn't seem to realize North Korea is about to collapse in a meltdown if not nuclear, at least economically ten times more destructive than Albania's*.
Anyway... ROH Moo-hyun's Government cannot go as far as it would like against real estate speculation because the opposition doesn't want it to succeed before this year's elections... the said opposition including many members of the "ruling" Uri party. OH Se-hoon is a member of the Grand National Party but wants to be remembered as a man who reaches for the good of the majority : he didn't wait for national guidelines to set tougher rules on new developments. A small move but a wise and a timely one.
Nowadays, some short sighted Gangnam investors see LEE Myung-bak as their only hope of postponing the inevitable burst of Seoul's real estate bubble. The wisest and swiftest among them are becoming OH Se-hoon's best supporters... with the hope of making in Gangbuk for their future losses in Gangnam : they have already moved their assets north of the Han river, flocking to such areas as Nowon-gu like rats before the shipwreck.
* once again : instead of benchmarking Germany for their reunification scenarios, Koreans would be inspired to remember what happened to Albania after the collapse of Enver Hoxha's regime.
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