Observations
Jan. 17th, 2006 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI see that Anshul Rustagi, superstar of complex derivatives at Deutsche Bank, has been sacked for overstating his position by a mere £30m. As DB will doubtless say, this is not very much in the grand scheme of things when it comes to DB's derivatives book, so perhaps Mr Rustagi should appeal, claiming that the amount was "trivial".
Much though I would love to use this as evidence of some kind of portent of doom in the credit derivatives market, I won't, because it just wouldn't be true. All that this incident showed was that these guys are dealing in areas so complex that the risk managers aren't brainy enough to keep up with them (since once reason that they are risk managers is that they are not fast and sharp enough to be traders).
Could Rustagi have carried on for longer and "done a Leeson"? I doubt it. Unlike Barings, DB is not run by total tossers who preferred to believe mythical profits rather than hard numbers like cash flow.
But we can see how it all developed. Young stud in big gambling game (non zero-sum) wins money, thinks he's good, plays bigger, gets unlucky, is too embarrassed to reveal that even he can occasionally make a big loss, conceals loss, chases loss, loses again, and so on. Gets discovered, and yet another blow-up. Taleb chuckles into his soup.
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There was a program on Radio Four last night on Phil Dick. They used the android of Dick to "speak" his own lines. Seriously weird. Surprisingly, this actually told us some things which I, at least, did not already know. Brian Aldiss wasn't much use, but Ray Nelson posited that the 1971 break-in of Dick's Marin County home was probably his then wife's druggy friends looking for cash. Dick, whose mental state was already precarious, couldn't accept this, and so blamed it on the CIA. Already you can see the plotline for A Scanner Darkly emerging.
Dick's later "exegesis" in 1974 looks to have been a minor stroke in disguise. After all, it was a major stroke that killed him eight years later. So, Dick didn't "discover" God. The quest that ruled the last years of his life was the product of little more than a chemical reaction in the brain. A pity. It would have been cooler if he had discovered God. As I think Dick once said, "It seems only fair that a person who finds God should be allowed to keep Him."
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So, Brokeback Mountain sweeps the Golden Globes. Will this movie turn out to be a cinematic masterpiece, as some respectable critics claim, or will it be one of those "oh yes, very pretty, what was it called again?" films when we try to recall it a decade later (see River Wild, Bridges Of Madison County, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil). I have no idea, but Ang Lee looks a shoo-in for best director at the Oscars.
The one fly in the ointment was predicted by yours truly, with the superb Philip Seymour Hoffman getting best actor award for his role in Capote. Another gimme for the Oscars, I suspect. I'm not a fan of backing the favourites, but this looks like a favourite's year.
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Do any of you remember the raid on a Hagley Road brothel in Birmingham a few weeks back? This was put up to rescue girls from "people trafficking". All interesting stuff, I think you will agree.
Except, once again, it wasn't true. Almost immediately the rumours began to surface. Here's a post from the Army Rumour Forum:
Cuddles is one of about ten brothels on the Hagley Road, I helped put the fire alarms into all of them about 3 years ago. They were all owned by one Greek / Turk type guy back then.
Lots of foreigners there then and if they were "forced into it" then I'm a George Bush's uncle. The night shift used to tip up at around the time we were knocking off (about 1730) to get ready for the evenings trade and not once did I see anyone forced in or out of any of the places we worked on.
Anyway, this has turned out to be correct. None of the girls "debriefed" (perhaps an unfortunate term in this circumstance) turned out to have been trafficked. But, lots of good publicity for the West Midlands police, eh? Wouldn't have looked so good if it was just "Police bust brothel". That might just have generated the line of "Well, looks like a bit of a waste of resources, to me".
Much though I would love to use this as evidence of some kind of portent of doom in the credit derivatives market, I won't, because it just wouldn't be true. All that this incident showed was that these guys are dealing in areas so complex that the risk managers aren't brainy enough to keep up with them (since once reason that they are risk managers is that they are not fast and sharp enough to be traders).
Could Rustagi have carried on for longer and "done a Leeson"? I doubt it. Unlike Barings, DB is not run by total tossers who preferred to believe mythical profits rather than hard numbers like cash flow.
But we can see how it all developed. Young stud in big gambling game (non zero-sum) wins money, thinks he's good, plays bigger, gets unlucky, is too embarrassed to reveal that even he can occasionally make a big loss, conceals loss, chases loss, loses again, and so on. Gets discovered, and yet another blow-up. Taleb chuckles into his soup.
++++
There was a program on Radio Four last night on Phil Dick. They used the android of Dick to "speak" his own lines. Seriously weird. Surprisingly, this actually told us some things which I, at least, did not already know. Brian Aldiss wasn't much use, but Ray Nelson posited that the 1971 break-in of Dick's Marin County home was probably his then wife's druggy friends looking for cash. Dick, whose mental state was already precarious, couldn't accept this, and so blamed it on the CIA. Already you can see the plotline for A Scanner Darkly emerging.
Dick's later "exegesis" in 1974 looks to have been a minor stroke in disguise. After all, it was a major stroke that killed him eight years later. So, Dick didn't "discover" God. The quest that ruled the last years of his life was the product of little more than a chemical reaction in the brain. A pity. It would have been cooler if he had discovered God. As I think Dick once said, "It seems only fair that a person who finds God should be allowed to keep Him."
+++
So, Brokeback Mountain sweeps the Golden Globes. Will this movie turn out to be a cinematic masterpiece, as some respectable critics claim, or will it be one of those "oh yes, very pretty, what was it called again?" films when we try to recall it a decade later (see River Wild, Bridges Of Madison County, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil). I have no idea, but Ang Lee looks a shoo-in for best director at the Oscars.
The one fly in the ointment was predicted by yours truly, with the superb Philip Seymour Hoffman getting best actor award for his role in Capote. Another gimme for the Oscars, I suspect. I'm not a fan of backing the favourites, but this looks like a favourite's year.
++++
Do any of you remember the raid on a Hagley Road brothel in Birmingham a few weeks back? This was put up to rescue girls from "people trafficking". All interesting stuff, I think you will agree.
Except, once again, it wasn't true. Almost immediately the rumours began to surface. Here's a post from the Army Rumour Forum:
Cuddles is one of about ten brothels on the Hagley Road, I helped put the fire alarms into all of them about 3 years ago. They were all owned by one Greek / Turk type guy back then.
Lots of foreigners there then and if they were "forced into it" then I'm a George Bush's uncle. The night shift used to tip up at around the time we were knocking off (about 1730) to get ready for the evenings trade and not once did I see anyone forced in or out of any of the places we worked on.
Anyway, this has turned out to be correct. None of the girls "debriefed" (perhaps an unfortunate term in this circumstance) turned out to have been trafficked. But, lots of good publicity for the West Midlands police, eh? Wouldn't have looked so good if it was just "Police bust brothel". That might just have generated the line of "Well, looks like a bit of a waste of resources, to me".
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 07:09 pm (UTC)I think that there is a lot of humbug written about prostitution. It's easy to be high-minded if you have a really satisfying sex life. But not everyone is that lucky.
DY
Sources
Date: 2006-01-19 09:10 am (UTC)This one came from a Radio Five programe late at night on Tuesday. One of the speakers pointed this out and none of the other speakers (including various official representatives) questioned it.
As you say, it's very easy to be sniffy about prostitution. I saw one report equating it to rape. It's hard to work out where this comparison is most offensive or stupid, since it qualifies for both on so many levels.
The refusal to accept that sex can be (but does not have to be) an economic transaction, where both sides gain, dictates a narrowness of thought that prevents me from even engaging such morons in debate. The only sad thing about it is that this restricted mental capability actually dictates the law of the land.
Is it puritanism? Is it a personalisation of the matter (I wouldn't want my husband to do it, so it should be illegal)? Is it nimbyism (I don't want to see prostitutes on the street, I'd rather not think about it)? Is it temptation (no, this is quite attractive, but it's wrong, so let's ban it)? Probably a whole combination of irrational fears dressed up as moral indignation.
But at the heart of it is the old "you might think it's okay, but we know better", usually directed at the female. The prostitute's response is normall "oh shut up, you ugly old bag. Just because your old man comes round once a week...", but that doesn't get any laws changed.
PJ