AIG bailout.... call me socialist if you want !

We all know that credit crunch has been propelled by easy credit for mortgages. Mr. Smith bounght a house for 1m, got 700,000 USD, after one year the value of his property was 2m and banks were happy to lend 700,000 more, and so on.
When everyone realized the king was naked, things got nasty.
AIG played an important part on this process. Underwriting CDS for CDO, they hedged risks for many financial counterparts. Now they got bailed out, saving AIG and financial firms who lent too easily. With tax-payer money.
But, in easy terms, some tax-payers got money from banks for their properties and they were not able to repay. Most of them spent money they borrowed too easily in every types of goods, from basic to luxury, exstend the apparent benefit of easy credit to almost all US companies, from large retail to small specialized shops. Plus big corporates, which directly had benefit from spending euphoria, gave generouos compensation to their top dogs and nice dividends to their stockholders.
Now the bailout is asking all of them to give back part of these benefits, addressing the mistakes made in the past. These mistakes were made by few, true, but the majority had their advantages. Now the majority pays, and should not complain.
Not everyone had same portion of these toxic benefits, but I believe it's good everyone plays his role of giving back what was not fully entitled of, throught these massive bailouts.

Sinful hand

People are boarding on flight 818 from Riyadh to Dubai. A saudi woman, exausted for the long week, lays her hand on the top of the seat in front of me. Curious, I start staring and her hand, so close to my eyes. The woman notices it, and wrapped her hands in her black dress, furiously highlighting her movements to show me her disappointment and shame. Or just to sweetly warn me not to look at her hand...

Shisha outside Riyadh

The highway heads East, outside of town. Buildings in Ryiadh suburbs are obscure, with few small embrasures on the wall. Private spaces adsorbe private family life.
Outside the city, shisha is allowed. Large tends are structured to host guests. Coal warms the space. Noise from TVs. Solitare man smoking in front of Egyptian dancers. Tens of TVs. Lights and colors, songs, speeches and chronicles. Experts handle hot coal, trimmimg it in small pieces and position them on the edges of aluminium support, far from the small holes from which I breath.

leaf

with a pale yellow lacost shirt and sage trousers my wife asked me to stay away as I look like an Autumn leaf.
Ouch !

friends

Friends, one of the most misused word-
Always smiles. Often sorrow, envy.
Friends are the one you like. Full stop.
The persons are right for you, the persons you want to meet no matter what.
The smiles you want to receive.
The hands you want to shake, because you need their warmth-
warm hands, shiny smiles.
friendship so difficoult to describe, so easy to immagine
so easy, so easy to betray, to trust, to enjoy, to smile at.
friedship in reality is so uneasy !
what is this about? common experience? common hugs?
unexpected hugs?
friendship is a pupil which doesn't lie or overpromise. Which warms the winter when it is needed, which gives energy at the last moment, when people think you are lost !

Power and good

People are paid by cash, almost everywhere. People work, people receive cash, as a reward of their power.
Power writers are rich, some good writers are poor.
Power journalists are extremely wealthy, some good journalists are unemployed.
Good managers are power managers, good bankers are supposed to be power bankers.
Power is good, or it is supposed to be so

Mahler 5

On Emirates music programm Pierre Boulez directed Mahler 5 symphony is delighting my ears. Two weeks after watching stunning Death in Venice, Luchino Visconti masterpiece, I hear the adagietto 10,000 meters above the gulf sea after a long working week.
Suddenly Venice streets, burning of cholera and of passion, seem so close. Sand of Lido in the palm of my hand.
Still searching for the meaning of beauty ...

last images flowing in the dark

Memories of ancestors grow olds and fade in youngster’s minds. Slowly young fellows start rusting. New generations start growing older and older.
Memories of ancestors buried deeper and deeper. Finally the last survivor witness of a man from another ages passes away.
Memories disrupted.
There is a line, 70 years after death, which marks the final end of remaining memories of a man. Like life, memories die every day, slowly, until they remain in a last survivor, hidden in a senior brain, almost unreachable.
And useless.

Unknown tears

How many emails you received have been written by someone with tears in his/her eyes?
How many time did you suspect crying behind a message?
Tears inside ascii letters are invisible but pure as angels' souls

Istanbul in TV colors

Life in the desert and in the land surrounded by extensive masses of dust and sand is opaque. Dubai dense humidity is also a factor. After living more than one month with a misty horizon, Istanbul landscape is even more impressing. Clear air, probably only relatively pure, lets my eyes see the old town with a forgotten clearity.

Back to Istanbul, Europe

Thursday, July the 3rd I am back to Europe after 44 days. On the West coast of Bosphorus lays the European side of Istanbul. I am back to the Turkish capital after 12 years.
Back in 1996 on a dirty white truck I crossed eastern Europe with other eight friends to cruise to Anatholia. 1996, Atlanta olympic games, Micheal Johnson flying for 200 meters in 19.32 secs. Through one of the first mobile I asked my mom the results of track and fields.
Vegetation and weather are familiar. Far from the extreme heat in Arabic peninsula, green hills with large trees. Perfumes of Mediterranean accompanies the sun through the long July day.
Istanbul, for centuries the bridge from the East to the West, welcomes me for this short adventure in Europe. Far memories of adolescence and friendship make warmer and sweeter the weekend.

White eyes in white buses

A float of white buses carry the army of construction workers aroud Dubai. From the suburbs to the developing areas, a continuous flow of blue dressed pakistani is the blood thet feed Dubai.
Tired faces directed home, white wounded eyes looking for few hours of rest.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week endless motion. Thousands miles from Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and more small communities from Punjab to the north, thousands miles reflected in their opaque espression, in their dusty beards.
Colors and spices of Pakistan become empty sweat. Still their big white eyes look outside the dirty windows of the buses, over the horizon, without destination.

Sand

On a 767 from UAE to Saudi Arabia. Sea colors are pure and innocent but the coast shapes nervous and bizzare. Many dessalinator plants work furiously to provide urgent and impelling Saudi needs. Thirtsy and sandy land. Once the plane start flying over the desert, the earth becomes invisible. Pale yellow clouds, wind and sand. Nothing for thousands of kilometers, until Riyadh.
Wind in Saudi brings dust everywhere. Warm and sandy air through my nostrils on the way back to my hotel.

Kingdom Centre, Riyadh

It's a typical early June day in the Saudi Arabia capital. Dust and humidity, dense air covers the city. Kingdom Centre is a giant shadow very far away, but as the cab moves towards the skyscraper, it becomes cristalline and soft. Shopping malls colored neons start to shine as the sunset approaches. Kingdome Centre reveals its unusual geometries, tough angles and imaginative surfaces. Riyadh is imponent, friendly and calm. Its peaceful soul just asks to be discovered.

Hard Rock cafe, Dubai, Sunday night

Sunday working day very long. 830pm I need a legendary epic-burger. 100 meter from my office Hard Rock cafe, Dubai.
Two 10-meter-tall guitars stand in front of the main entrance.
Unlucky selection of videos during my quick meal, including Cinderella (oh !) and a special dancing event with all the HRC staff shaking their bodies randomly and hazily with the luxurious rithm of 'Cadillac-eye Joe', the techno legendary song by Rednex.
On my left a Kevin-Spacey-looking guy stares at me while I am divoring my burger.
Some turists are loosing their time here. For me it's enought to go back working

St. Moritz and Aspen reunited, Emirates Mall

Snow falls gently night time. Nearby St. Moritz cafe's fireplaces broadcast fire.
Yes, that's what they do, they simply broadcast fire.
Aspen cafe, close to Virgin Megastore, is much more quiet. And cozier.
Curry smell covers the restaurant area, Burger King is surrounded by felafel and kebabs.
Emirates mall teaches skying lessons. Sells original French baguettes, videogames.
A slightly more commercial version of Disneyland, where kids are safely shaken by a gigantic robot hand.
Never ending, always surprising, shiny, immaculate and fresh.
Sky-lift operate until 11pm. From the terrace of T.G.I.F. a phenomenal view of the slopes.
Outside, still 100 Farenheit, dust, and the first shadows of the night.

Nuran Greens residence, Dubai

The noise of air conditioning cannot be dumped by my soft pillows. Laying in my bed, thinking abount this Sunday. The tears in the airport. The cold in the airplane. The heat in the taxi line in Dubai.
Le lights of the new city. The malls, the hotels.
The stars.
The middle east, and the gulf area.
Too many emotions to sleep, I calmly eat a banana in front of the tv. Satellite brings me Rai1, and whispers from Italy.

Moving on: Barcelona, MBA graduation, Dubai

After last Friday MBA graduation cerimony, University's campus was very quiet. Gone are hundreds of couples of parents who came from every part of the world to live this emotion with their promising children. Gone are the heavy rains, the queues for the cabs. Gone are the parties.
Gome are my very last two years as a student.
Walking around the campus I felt absolutely quiet. Fruits and jems of the MBA are ready to be caught. No more a student, I automatically feel distant from the working rooms, from the cafeteria, from all the facilities. I am a guest, walking around, during a holyday, in a desert University.
Desert in front of me. Arabic peninsula is waiting for me.
I will land in Dubai next Sunday, and will start working in ten days.
No more a student, I am ready to move on. Time will bring me some wiseness and some reflections on the MBA experience. For now, I am just thankfull.

MBA graduation eve

In computer lab, pretending it's just another day.
Some students checking email, knowing it's just the last day.
Some partents visiting campus, feeling it's really a special day.
Wind and heavy clouds won't make the Dean sleep tonight.
It must be a sunny day. Melanchony will come later, when I will close all my baggages. It will be just another maniac Monday !

From St. David to Rothko

Large field of light colors in the South West coast of Wales.
I flow through capillars from Newgale to Little Haven. Horses staring at the sea, enormous spaces, sand and wind.
Yellow are the flowers of Wales.
Dark purple the paints of Rothko in Tate Modern.
Shallow light, deep intimate. Four hundred miles between chromatic solitude, sweet and cold spaces.
Some colors are free, enigmatic. Others are stored, for the future.

Pembroke

Last grasp of Wales is the castle of Pembroke. Ruins of white sand rich of history. Quick clouds run over the fortress.
Ice creams are already for sale. It rains and my trip in Wales is over.
Main objectives of the trip:

emotions
images

Both linked to nature, soil and tradition. Driving, too much, from place to place, I found warm rooms and solitude, for this time, an unwanted emotion.
Sweet smerald green landscape, rusty walls. Warlocks and wizards are finally resting.

From Mt. Snowdon to Whitesands Bay

Finally, unfortunately, Welsh weather stops making discounts. Mist and rain around Mt. Snowdon make the hike impossible.
A slow diesel train bring cold turists to the top of the montain. In fact, it brings turists into a giant cloud. The landscape is hidden. The train is cold and wet. Ironically the wagon has an automatic speaker which keep on suggesting to look left to heartbreaking views.
Two hours of mist suggest me to move south, to the coast nearby St. David. It's a long trip, but, at this point, necessary.
Short pit-stop at Cardigan, another disappointment. Cardigan castle is just a ruined wall, the rain isn't heavy but penetrate below my skin.
Warming in my car, hot blood and excitement bring me (finally) to St. David. Nearby Whitesands Bay is marvellous, large and sweet beach. It's a Breton see in Britain, without seafood in the low tide.
Dogs are playing into the waves. The sun finally kisses Wales, two hours before the sunset.
After disappointing meals, I give myself a special dinner, crabs and sea bass with Cider.
Extra-cold Walsh Cider is a really exciting drink. Immagine a big glass of cider filled up with ice cubes. Chilled as ice tea. Great great drink, obviously a disaster with sea food.

Travelling is looking for excitement. And for emotions.
Staring at a painting in a museum, staing at the sea.
Spotting a koala on a tree, walking through the street of a city old district.
Sometimes emotions can emerge from hybrid experience, food, music and landscape.
Or writing my blog in a B&B managed by chilled, surf dudes staff !

quick comparison (Although I hate comparisons)

Like Iceland, Wales average village population does not exceed 1000. Despite looking important on the map, 99% of villages offer just a small cafeteria and a nice sight.
Which is beautiful.

Whistling Sands, Aberdaron

Aberdaron, as the Lonely Planet guide states, is an end-of-the-earth kind of place.
Roads connect people to places. Thus, most of the earth can be reached only by a walk.
Highway and main roads connect to a limited and selected number of spaces. To break this gentle control, small roads in Wales do the job.
following a thiny and nervous road in the Llyn peninsula, I find myself in a desert beach surrounded by black stones.
I meet two persons:

• A young fisherman
• A technician who's trying to repair the cash payer for the parking. Even remote beaches have a two pound parking fee!

On the last edge of the peninsula lays Aberdaron. Here I find a small Cafe, serving sandwiches filled by fresh Aberdaron crabs. This place is all white painted wood, warm canvas. It's crowded by 60ers turists from Cardiff. Everyone is speaking in Welsh.
What does Aberadon offer?
Malichony, rains. Magic islands.
Most important, it offers intimity like no other spot on the earth does.

Travelling is movement. I cannot stare at Beaumaris castle more than 15'.
Following 10' in Beaumaris Courthouse. So uneasy place! So much enphasis on death sentences, tortures and witch-hunting. Dark emotions, people's favorite.
Several questions make my mind pale:
What is the substitute of witch-hunting?
Why humankind burnt witches for centuries?
And what do we do now instead?

Wales is full of witches, warlocks, and wizards.
I am the lizard king. I can do everything.

Wales day one

Wales in just two hours West of Heathrow.
What the hell I am doing in Wales?
Nature is, most of the times, the direct creator of the most stunning beauties. Views, sights which leave you breathless. Unexpected colors, gigantic masses with potent shapes, pure lines.
Elegant felins, thousand of birds flying together as a pink cloud. Crocodiles, born to kill.
Most of humans can only try to replicate the power of the universe.
Wales is not that disruptive. Wales is beautiful. Its landscapes are sweet, green and warm.

First visit, unforunately, a disappointment. Hay-on-Way.
The town of second hand books is useless. True, there are a lot of second hand libraries, true the maior festival (it's in one month) is a unique event, at which even Bill Clinton likes to partecipate. Dunno, what the past president likes in looking through one billion of insignificant old, stinky books.
The ruins of an old castle host the outdoor library. It's without personnel, in fact it's called the honest library. If you like a book you just grab it and deposit half a pound in a box. When I was there it was raining a lot. It's romantic when it rains over a million of books.
In fact here it rains at least ten times per day, for just a few minutes.
Day one ends in Betws-y-Coed. Walking in a forest, muddy soil, to the waterfalls.
Sleeping in a cottage, with a lot of white painted wood. Warm old Wales !

Map of Intelligence

Talking smart, looking intelligent, I am not sure these are real signes of intelligence.
Evaluating intelligence in a discussion requires to take into account the capability to adapt to the current situation.
Two quick examples:
1. In a political discussion you may prefer to be perceived as not extremely smart by certain enemies, so that they won't see you as areal threat.
2. When you meet the first time your boss' wife, a very beatiful but insignificant woman, you may prefer to talk about easy and silly matters to be liked by her.
In my view intelligence is not linear at all. Up to a certain threshold is about a deep analysis, then it's a quantic jump to the adaptation zone. Like Poincarè maps, two distinct areas of behavior are separated by a stiff curtain.
Evaluating intelligence is even more complicated. If a potential political rival seems not extremely smart in the first occasion you meet him, you may want to discount the possibility he is only pretending to be average to leave you relaxed.
And so on.
Obviously eveyone agrees that intelligence is understanding people, and, probably, nothing else.

Paintball; Platoon

Today Team A6 gathered together in a battlefield to play paintball. I have been shot in my throat, in my arm when I was already eliminated, in both my legs like Elias in Platoon, when the Vietcongs shot him 20 times before he died.
I did not like watching people so eager to shot at me. Hidden in the woods, journeyman snipers seem mercyless.
And they are, with semi-automatic air guns screaming. My hairs green of oily paint.
Where is my general?
Soldier boy, made of clay,
Now an empty shell,
Twenty one, only son,
But he served us well,
Bred to kill, not to care,
Do just as we say,
Finished here, greeting death,
He's yours to take away

Pale blond on A4 Audi, two Koreans follow on a BMW 730 d

So pale blond sad woman you drive big German car on which Volkswagen spent billions for marketing, media and advertising in the last 10 years.
Almost two tons of steel, in dark blue. Four silver circles on the front.
OOOO is premium.
OOOO is wealth. For someone.
Still you look so sad, awkward, exitant, with pointless red glasses, followed by two Korean punks on a big diesel BMW.
West of Barcelona in front of you, sweet sunset, you so pale.

Everybody hurts, sometimes: Bachelor party

A slow cab was bringing us to Marselle Bar in Barrio Cino, REM screaming on FM 104.2.
My best friend telling we are mature, adult. Still one weekend like this would always be possible. Maybe.
Running wild when teenager, growing up in acid cotton of wealthy society. Cynic, sarcastic, tender. Now night arrives with her purple legion. Family man, happiness in front of me, it's time to donate childhood last jems, and call it a night.
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes....
Childhood memories roll faster. 5.
8.
14 years old. More than 20 years of fun, laughts, friendship. Of life. Of doing it in our way, of pretending to be adult.
Now, one last time, we feel the moment to say goodbye.
Finally, sleeping together we hear someone vomiting in the dark, alone.
We laught, until tears.
Everybody hurts. You are not alone.

Wales eyeblink

5 days in Wales, that's my short post-MBA vacation. Two weekends with my fiancè in the City.
Wales, immaculate. Crispy hills and cold beaches. I am gonna love it !

Dumped by the radio

Thu March 20th I could not resist calling Radio24 to reply Italian Minister (of economic development) on his statement about Alitalia.
He said Airfrance is not paying just 140 mln for our bankrupt company, because there is a debt exceeding 1.5 bln.
Well, they are paying 140 mln, while they are evaluating the total potential of Alitalia 1.6 bln.
The radio conducer pointed out 1 bln of Capex, necessary to give life to Alitalia.
I think that one thing is the Business plan, one thing is the due diligence and purchasing deal. Politics confuse the two, just to make claims and for propaganda.

OK I am so boring that the conducer dumped me after two secs ! I hoped none had listened my intervent, but I have been unlucky.
Even an IESE student recognised my voice on radio and made fun of me as soon as I was back on campus !

I wanna tell you 'bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat
Comes out of the Virginia swamps
Cool and slow with plenty of precision
With a back beat narrow and hard to master

Friday night McDonald

Rejected by Petit Bangkok, dinner at McDonald in Gran de Gracia.
Royal with Cheese and Bacon, no french fries as always.

Who Traded 55,000 Bear $30 Puts Tuesday?

This past Tuesday, when Bear Stearns was trading around $65 a share, there was huge put volume in the March $30 strike.
Over 55,000 contracts traded that day at an average price of 15 cents a contract. This is an extremely unusual trade in terms of the number of contracts and how far out-of-the money those options were at the time; these options expire on March 20, so that left only 10 days for some event to occur that would cause these puts to go into the money and have some value.
So it appears that as rumors began swirling early in the week that Bear was having liquidity problems and might possibly be bordering on insolvent, someone took that to heart and bought the puts as disaster insurance. And today came news that several banks, including Goldman Sachs, would no longer act as a counterparty to any transactions with Bear. The inability to execute trades would essentially put Bear Stearns out of business.
Hence, we have today's selloff in which shares of Bear are down some $25, or 44% to around $30 a share. Those disaster put options are trading around $5.50 a contract.
Other banks and brokerage firms are seeing put volume today and several names such as Merrill Lynch saw above average activity last week. Merrill saw 13,000 and 16,000 of the March $45 puts traded last Thursday and Friday, respectively. That volume was over 13 times the 30-day daily average. At the time the stock was trading around $46 and the puts were valued at about $1.50 a contract. Today Merrill is down to $44 and the puts are worth $2.60 a contract.

Dancefloor

Just watching girls swimming on the dancefloor. All smiling, in the pool. But when the music's acid their movements become nevrotic, sharks around them.
So their faces more intense, and dumb

Today just a suggestion:

Back home, lay on your bed and listen 'Riders on the storm'
(The Doors).
If you can have a Canadian Club on the rocks,
great !

Drunk women smoking in a bar

middle age heavy laughts,
red lips easy tears
pathetic and noisy gummy necks
(this first part has the same rithm of L.A. woman:
Cops in car the topless bar
never seen a woman so aloooone
so alooooooone)
watching decadence on my own
colored pictures from the 80's becoming pale
my childish smiles turns bitter
melanchony in my eyes, nonexistent, immaginary
deep blue my first shiny coat, bitter

Killing a hawk ...tadada tadadadan !

Pro golfer Tripp Isenhour apologized for killing a hawk that was making noise while he tried to film a TV show. Now the Humane Society wants the PGA Tour to take action.

"As soon as this happened, I was mortified and extremely upset and continue to be upset," Isenhour said in a statement issued through his management company, SFX Golf. "I want to let everyone know there was neither any malice nor deliberate intent whatsoever to hit or harm the hawk. I was trying to simply scare it into flying away."

Isenhour allegedly said, "I'll get him now," and aimed for the hawk.
"About the sixth ball came very near the bird's head, and (Isenhour) was very excited that it was so close," Baine wrote.

Isenhour said he is an animal lover and his family has adopted three cats from a local shelter.

10.15, Saturday night ...

waiting for the telephone to ring,
and i'm wondering where she's been
and i'm crying for yesterday
and the tap drips
drip drip drip driiiiiiiiiiiiiiips....

I immagine myself in late '70 laying in my infant bed listening The Cure's music from a distant room where my parents were consuming their youth. Wooden cupboard full of ghost toys. Azure walls, cloudy.

Ten years later I am a young man who hates his piano. Granpa just passed away, armchair wet of my daddy's tears. Time to relocate, same old toys and memories packed to move in a new house.

Twenty years later I am tumbling. The Cure music is playing again, ironically, as the funeral march of my youth. Indian stones cover my ears. Polluted.

Thirty years later I am here playing a little game. Through all those small sufferences I preserved. Through all my thoughts, my words, my feelings and my anger. My anxiety and my gentleness. My emptiness and my joy.
All together now, Friday afternoon, waiting for the telephone to ring....

Clarification: it's a Caprabo-Start !

Who is familiar with Spanish supermarkets can feel home in my Blog. The colored circles remind Caprabo's Private Label probuct branding.
In fact, that's the idea: this blog offers value for the money. It ain't special, similarly to supermarket's private label products, but it's honest.

A good start near the end of my MBA

Two months before finishing my MBA in Barcelona seems a good time to kick off my Blog experience. Memories will become shadows soon, a little bit of malinchony will be saved for good.
This Blog will be made of personal opinions which will cover all the possible areas.
Sport, Politics, Sex, Litterature, Music, People. But, to be honest, it will about me.
Giorgio Tedeschi, Male, Italian.
I can promise only one thing: I will try to be as honest as I can. Having said that I expect none reading any of my ideas, so it will be more for me, myself than to communicate, at least until I do not recieve any feedback that will make me change my mind.
In a nutshell, this blog is pure for now, until readers will corrupt it !
Shall I write in english only ? It's a good exercise for me, but a critical constrain to my already not exceptional writing capabilities. So it's English for the beginnig.
Finally I do not have anything in particular to say today, so I call it a Sunday start