Global Economy

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2009 09:41

Manhattan, Bay Area, some parts of SF & LA, Londonistan etc are globalization at it's best. Shows the high points of the global economy in its highest notes.

not a surprise. the most high-end high-margin crooks gravitate there and inculcate the finest foodie tastes. but pls dont drag the bay area into it - atleast
they produce something you can feel and hold (even though it may crash everyday after the startup is sold).

I think paris with its farmers markets atleast can lay claim to fresh local produce. eating New jersey produce would be tough....the pollution is 10 levels deep there
from a past century of defiance....want to take a holy dip in the raritan river?

most states in US have a advisory against consuming any fish from lakes and rivers. even a relatively pristine state like MA....I hadda give up my plans to be
a redneck fisherman...just could think of spending a day to catch one small
fish in the heat and flies lakeside but throwing it away or releasing it.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 12 Mar 2009 09:44

vina wrote:
NYC is full of such places. For eg, how many folks have tasted the "Sabra" (just google around for it and find out why the Native born Isrealis are called that) . One of my close pals who is Jewish took me to a real upmarket deli and we gorged on some. The best Proscuitto , where else except in NYC !. The best Camembert Cheese, the best possible imported directly from Phrance , and of course you will learn to turn your nose up as "pasteurized" as not the real thing, develop a liking for the smelly cheese and remark with a nice Phrench accent "Vat iz life wizzout Camembert Cheese" , learn how to be a true sommelier and turn your nose up at even half way decent things and say "Ziz iz nat vin, ziz is vineygah!" . Sigh. the culture, the diversity, the truly international character of that place, the food, the experiences.

I get all these in the next door market in NorCal. Eating with Europeans will bring in all the high taste. On a visit to Europe in the 90s the Business manager was an Italian - firstgen.
He took me all around Antwerp walking to find the best Pizza, and the best beer ever I had.

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Mar 2009 10:33

ArmenT wrote:Sabra is that sweet cactus pear, right? I've had it before. Sabra is also a brand of hummus here, which isn't too bad tasting. However, since I live in a big Armenian area, I get better freshly made hummus at some of the eating establishments, where I'm seen as a regular. Gotta love Zankou Chicken's hummus as well as Raffi's

Yes. LA/ Glendale area sir?

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Mar 2009 10:38

Singha wrote:I think paris with its farmers markets atleast can lay claim to fresh local produce. eating New jersey produce would be tough....the pollution is 10 levels deep there
from a past century of defiance....want to take a holy dip in the raritan river?

Saar, how many times do I have to say that the word New Jersey is not mentioned in polite society, oops in ANY Manhattan society.

Water in NYC ?. Easily among the sweetest nicest water anywhere in the world, straight from Catskills mountains onree, Thank You (No NJ). Fruits and Veggies. Why, it would be Long Island, Upstate NY, Pennsylvania, California, Florida etc, Meat--> Midwest. Fish --> Maine and the rest of the world .

However, I do have to mention that the bay area produce in terms of locally produced weekend farmers markets is better (obviously) than what you get in NYC. But NYC easily imports Oieropean stuff , along with the east cost stuff.

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Mar 2009 10:42

Acharya wrote:I get all these in the next door market in NorCal. .

Where do you get it next door in NorCal?. I cant remember any "next door" stuff. You will have to drive for it and go to a particular place. I have lived in SF/Bay Area. Not as easily as in NYC. Though it is better than say Wichita, Kansas, where "food options" will be a bad Italian and a Chinese Restaurant/ Takeaway.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2009 10:56

the word New Jersey is not mentioned in polite society, oops in ANY Manhattan society.

ummm ... but neither is pakistan in India. yet we are joined at the hip
forever

HORDES of NJ people work in NJ. there are even rich towns
like Summit albeit way off the gritty north coast. it has pearls of capitalism
like newark, patterson and rahway

I found southern NJ more palatable than most of CT (cept foxboro

) or the thickly wooded impassable hills of NY (palisades, bear peak, 7 lakes drive etc...mohican territory). upstate NY is ok.

NJ != woodbridge + iselin + edison

NYC should actually be downsized and resettled in other areas..too big to
manage cleanly...I believe 100s of tons of garbage are taken out in barges and
simply dumped 50 miles offshore. people in greenland are suffering poisoning
via fish due to the uncouth activities of the american consumerist east coast.

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Mar 2009 11:25

Singha wrote:I believe 100s of tons of garbage are taken out in barges and
simply dumped 50 miles offshore.

That is a slur on the fair name of that city . It is a Pakiesque lie in fact. True that garbage is taken out in barges, but it is dumped in land fills, right within the city limits in Staten Island

. In fact the Staten Island folks wanted to do a Paki like "secession" from NYC and there were rumbles on that front. But of course, the embrace of mama NY is just too much. Now show me ANY big city anywhere, which takes care of it's own garbage with it's boundaries.

people in greenland are suffering poisoning
via fish due to the uncouth activities of the american consumerist east coast.

That is the NJ types doing via the "holy raritan river" and all the petrochem / gas refineries along the coast and other heavy industrial pollution.

negi · Post by **negi** » 12 Mar 2009 11:34

Burur.. seems all Armani/RL wearing and starbucks mocha sipping fatcats lurk on BRF, Imo best food in NY is on its streets; Greek Felafals,Gyros , seekh Kebabs and ah the cramped Italian Pizza joints with the best Meatball Marinara in the world...heavenly.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Mar 2009 11:59

Shame on you B-R fellas! Developing a liking for smelly goat cheese indeed! humph! Nothing beats Indian food in taste, sophistication and variety. I work in a place full of oiropeans...damned buggers haven't learnt to eat even though their nose is taller than mountain friend. Ofcourse pukka european beer is mucho better than amirkhan pi** water. Interesting how Heineken tastes different and better in Europe than in Khanland.

vina saar, please don't shanghai us Bay Area dhoti-clad SDREs as part of uppah-class rich of Noo Yoik. After Arnie bhaiyya and Obama kaka take their cut bi-weekly, we have barely enough left to afford some dry chana and a glass of arrack. New Jersey is an darn ghetto with pockets of fat cats spread like so many goat droppings.

Still amongst all these discussions about smelly goat cheese, greasy meatballs and live animal sashimi, nobody here has answered my question re. Alphonso mango icecream in Whole Foods.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2009 12:14

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 53,00.html

it seems NYC used to just dump it crap in the sea earlier...later regulations
must have stopped it. its clear who was being the Paki(NYC) and who was
Yindia(NJ)

1931:

Three weeks ago in the Supreme Court of the U. S., New York City won an important suit against New Jersey involving water from the Delaware River (TIME, May 18). Last week in the same court New Jersey won a suit no less important against New York City involving garbage in the Atlantic Ocean.

For years New York City's custom has been to load most of its garbage aboard scows, tow them about 40 mi. to sea, dump them. Wind and tide drift much of the refuse back to shore, spreading it along New Jersey's otherwise fine resort beaches, polluting the water, depreciating property values. New Jersey asked the Supreme Court to enjoin New York's garbage dumping as a public nuisance. Last week the Supreme Court ordered the city to stop its evil practice, but allowed it a "reasonable time" (yet to be fixed) in which to construct garbage incinerators. As of "no importance" the Supreme Court put aside New York's defense that the dumping took place beyond the three-mile limit and hence outside U. S. territorial jurisdiction.

A problem for every municipality is garbage disposal. New York put in its first incinerator in 1908. Other installations have been slow because citizens living near the proposed sites have fought them tooth & nail in the courts as veritable stink-pots. The Supreme Court's mandate spurred city officials to press on, regardless of local complaints, with a plan for 15 new incinerators to cost $17,375,000. During the War, New York considered plans whereby garbage could be reduced to grease and sold at a profit of $3,000,000 per year but the slump in grease prices ended that idea. Within the year a Boston man nibbled at New York's garbage output with a proposition to dry it out for fertilizer, but nothing came of that. Deep-sea dumping costs the city 23¢ per ton.

Arya Sumantra · Post by **Arya Sumantra** » 12 Mar 2009 21:34

Raja Bose wrote: Still amongst all these discussions about smelly goat cheese, greasy meatballs and live animal sashimi, nobody here has answered my question re. Alphonso mango icecream in Whole Foods.

As a thumb rule, anything organic is 2-3 times the cost of food meant for SDREs like us. Since your GHQ is khan she would find it even more heavenly if she tries a $4 can of actual alphonso mango pulp from yindia. Lasts for days, put it as topping on as many vanilla ice creams you want, and a Better Return on Investment

Raja Bose wrote:Shame on you B-R fellas! Developing a liking for smelly goat cheese indeed! humph! Nothing beats Indian food in taste, sophistication and variety.

AoA to that. IMHO adding cheese and wine to any food is like an easy way out to make ANY food taste good. It's like my SHQ adding paneer cubes anytime the vegetable does not taste good.

Raja Bose wrote: I work in a place full of oiropeans...damned buggers haven't learnt to eat even though their nose is taller than mountain friend.

Barring desserts and items from french & italian cuisine, oiropean and khan food is a Joke.

Sorry admins for OT.
Back to the topic
Old Europe Is Right on Stimulus

After a meeting of Euroland finance ministers Monday, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker delivered the Continent's verdict on global stimulus. "Recent American appeals insisting that the European make an additional budgetary effort to combat the effects of the crisis were not to our liking," he said. That's putting it nicely. When the EU established the euro in 1999, it put in place strict limits on deficit spending and debt-to-GDP ratios. Those limits have not been universally honored within the currency bloc, but there's a reason they're there.

For decades, countries like Greece, Italy and Belgium had run up huge national debts trying to pay for social-welfare programs and keep their economies afloat at the same time. The chief result of these policies was a huge pile of IOUs. In Italy, the national debt stood at 107% of GDP in 1999. In Belgium and Greece it was 104%. Greece's fiscal house was so disordered that it was excluded from the first group of euro countries.

So from its founding, the euro zone insisted that countries not respond to every economic downturn by piling up debt. Budget deficits are supposed to be limited to 3% of GDP, and total debt to 60% of GDP. This has worked imperfectly, but debt ratios have for the most part come down or remained steady. Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio is now 96%. Greece is at 105%, while France and Germany have hovered around 50% and 40%, respectively. U.S. debt stood at 36% of GDP at the end of 2007 -- before the financial panic and stimulus started piling it on. (See the nearby chart.) The U.S. has run up $1 trillion in publicly held debt in the past six months alone -- that's 7% of GDP right there. Calling on Europe to follow this example is like dangling a bottle of grappa in front of a recovering alcoholic.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 12 Mar 2009 21:53

vina wrote:
Acharya wrote:I get all these in the next door market in NorCal. .
Where do you get it next door in NorCal?. I cant remember any "next door" stuff. You will have to drive for it and go to a particular place. I have lived in SF/Bay Area. Not as easily as in NYC. Though it is better than say Wichita, Kansas, where "food options" will be a bad Italian and a Chinese Restaurant/ Takeaway.

Knowing the right people is important. Lot of these fancy items are kept by Trader Joes now and farmer markets also sell euro specialty items.

sivabala · Post by **sivabala** » 13 Mar 2009 00:14

Since when the global economy has melt down to food and wine?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 13 Mar 2009 00:20

money is all gone...its food, wine and women left now.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Mar 2009 00:35

Singha wrote:money is all gone...its food, wine and women left now.

...and song!

Arya Sumantra · Post by **Arya Sumantra** » 13 Mar 2009 00:56

From a comment here
“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world,”

Jack Welsh

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/294ff1f2-0f27 ... fd2ac.html

Arya Sumantra · Post by **Arya Sumantra** » 13 Mar 2009 01:00

Borrowing to Save

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 13 Mar 2009 01:15

Japanese GDP shrank by 12.1% last quarter.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Mar 2009 01:47

How does fractal statistics work?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Mar 2009 01:52

Arya Sumantra wrote: Since your GHQ is khan she would find it even more heavenly if she tries a $4 can of actual alphonso mango pulp from yindia. Lasts for days, put it as topping on as many vanilla ice creams you want, and a Better Return on Investment

Ex-GHQ during univ. days was TFTA Khan-shama...current GHQ to whom I have professed undying love ityadi is SDRE onlee just like me!

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 13 Mar 2009 10:33

Raja Bose wrote:
Singha wrote:money is all gone...its food, wine and women left now.
...and song!

You mean Rum, Bum and Mouthorgan?
Gautam

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Mar 2009 10:51

g.sarkar wrote: money is all gone...its food, wine and women left now.

...and song!
You mean Rum, Bum and Mouthorgan?
Gautam

Only if RayC sir is elected as Finance Minister!

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 13 Mar 2009 12:16

@vina: Right on the money.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Mar 2009 03:36

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/12/barry- ... holtz.html

You have said the latest craze is blue-chip penny stocks. Do any of these actually entice you?

None whatsoever. I always look at "How much can I lose?" And it can be 100%. They should be nationalized. I look at GE. This is the answer to what don't people know. For the past three years, I've [been] lambasting the financial sector. Not only do I not know what's on their books, they don't know. They will deny [that]. About a year ago, on some show with a famous banking analyst, after being negative he flipped positive. He said these are generational buys. Yeah, it will take a generation to break even. Not only do investors not know what they have, these guys have no idea how damaging the toxic assets are that they hold.

GE has a hedge fund in the middle of their donut. You don't know the extent of the potential damage of GE Capital Corp. The CFO can tell us everything is great; I don't think this guy has a clue. If he did, this stock wouldn't be $6. I don't think anyone in top management at GE can tell me the value of the toxic paper they hold. The fact they can't answer that question is astonishing.

Another thing people do not know--I don't think most people realize the vast majority of the financial sector invested heavily in Star Wars collectibles. You can buy stocks, which is a $50 trillion market. Bonds, an even bigger market. Trillions of trades. You can go into currency, the value of which is in the trillions per hour. Instead of taking these broad, deep markets, they said, "We will take this new paper. It's hard to value and has no real market, but I think we'll find out an exit strategy down the road. We'll stay away from well-established markets, and go with the Beanie Babies. Because I'm sure I can sell these CDOs [collateralized debt obligations] on eBay. How hard can it be?"

It's not just that the housing market is falling apart. If you can do two plus two, you can figure this out. I just don't know how people managed to miss that. Any of these blue-chip penny stocks are penny stocks for a reason. You're better off buying the Mega Millions ticket for the lotto. Your odds are just about even.

You can see I have a hard time coming out of my shell.

John Snow · Post by **John Snow** » 16 Mar 2009 03:49

by considering only fractional parts that are at micro level to manifest at macro level

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 16 Mar 2009 17:48

The Goldman infallibility myth

* Robert Peston
* 16 Mar 09, 09:35 AM

AIG - the monstrously reckless US insurance and financial group - last night published a list of the "counterparties" that benefited from the $85bn emergency loan it received in September from the US central bank, the Federal Reserve.

This disclosure of which banks were on the other end of its complicated financial deals came after weeks of pressure from Congress. And it's a remarkable event: such information is typically cloaked in secrecy.

What it shows is why the US authorities felt they had to rescue AIG, while almost simultaneously (and some would say mistakenly) allowing Lehman to collapse.

If AIG had collapsed into bankruptcy, the losses for some of the world's biggest and most important banks would have been life-threatening for them and arguably lethal for the financial system as a whole.

Goldman Sachs, the name that leaps out for me as a leading beneficiary of the AIG bailout is Goldman Sachs.

Between 16 September and 31 December last year, Goldman received $2.6bn in collateral from AIG Financial Products - which in turn had been provided by the Federal Reserve - on credit default swaps (these are a kind of insurance against borrowers defaulting on loans, which are frequently used as a way of speculating on the health of businesses or other creditors).

There were subsequent payments to Goldman of $5.6bn, to purchase from it the securities underlying certain credit default swap contracts.

And there was a transfer to Goldman of $4.8bn to fulfil commitments under securities lending agreements.

So the gross sum received by Goldman from the US Federal Reserve, via AIG, was $13bn.

What that shows is Goldman would have been in the deepest, darkest doo-doo, if AIG hadn't been put on life support.

Which - some would say - rather explodes Goldman's fearsome reputation for controlling risk better than its rivals.

Goldman allowed itself to become deeply dependent on the health and fortunes of a business, AIG, which we now see to have been an unstable house of cards of a scale that boggles all comprehension

As it turned out, AIG was far too big to be allowed to fail by the US authorities. But few would argue that was a sound reason for Goldman - or anyone else - doing business with AIG.

If Goldman's senior executives don't wake up every morning and whisper "there but for the grace of...", well they wouldn't be quite human if they didn't.

That said, there are other fascinating conclusions to be drawn from the list of banks which received succour from the Fed, as intermediated by battered AIG.

The first is that the disclosures are something of a counterweight to the notion that French and German banks were more prudent than their US or UK rivals.

For example, the gross sum that Societe Generale of France received from the Fed via AIG was $11.9bn; and there was a gross transfer of Fed money to Deutsche Bank of $11.8bn.

It's also striking that in respect of this particularly debacle, neither Royal Bank of Scotland or HBOS - the UK's more accident-prone banks - were particularly exposed.

Of the British banks, Barclays benefited most from the lifeline given to AIG, receiving some $8.5bn (gross) of the unprecedented support given by the US central bank.

Anyway, the big point is that the losses and disruption for Goldman, Soc Gen, Deutsche and Barclays would have been hideous if AIG had imploded.

And if you were an investor in them, or a creditor to them, you'd be grateful for their luck - that they hitched their fortunes to a business, AIG, that was so enormous and complex that the US government had no other option but to put it on life support.

But if Goldman, Soc Gen, Deutsche and Barclays were to claim that they managed themselves more prudently than competitors, you might raise a querying eyebrow.

John Snow · Post by **John Snow** » 16 Mar 2009 18:51

What Osama could not do AIG is all set to do to USA.
Like the Yadavas of Krishna time the end comes with in.

Did you notice how quickly Obama started singing the Fundamentals of Economy are sound, the moment PRC said set the house in order or else?

Destroy AIG save USA

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 16 Mar 2009 19:08

shyamd wrote:The Goldman infallibility myth

I had been to the EGL campus to visit a fellow jeehadi dost of mine. There was palpable tension in GS building, the same day 10 % of staff had been chucked. The tension on all the PYT's and abduls was very much visible.

When a year back I had visited the same place, it was with the air of snooty arrogance these very idiots were walking around the EGL with a fancy french sandwich and a cuppa of eyetalian coffee, smugly awaiting the large bonuses for the fcukall work they did. My how the mighty have fallen.

Now I know how the local autowallahs and resident sweeper-class abduls feel about the IT/Vity crowd.

I hope GS collapses in it's own doodoo. These mofos could not even foresee their own ruin and have the gall to hand out ratings and forecasts for others.

Nayak · Post by **Nayak** » 16 Mar 2009 19:51

Rated F for Failure

By JEROME S. FONS and FRANK PARTNOY
Published: March 16, 2009

WHEN Standard & Poor’s, the bond-rating agency, lowered General Electric’s rating to AA+, from AAA, last week, many were shocked at the tarnishing of one of America’s most revered corporations. But the real scandal is how long it took S.&P. to make that minor change — and that the other major ratings firm, Moody’s, still hasn’t — even though G.E.’s dividend has been slashed by two-thirds and its stock price had fallen below $7, from nearly $40 a year ago.

Why, more than a year into the crisis, do regulators and investors continue to rely on ratings? No one has been more wrong than Moody’s and S.&P. Less than a year ago both gave high ratings to 11 of the largest distressed financial institutions. They put the insurance giant A.I.G. in the AA category. They rated Lehman Brothers an A just a month before it collapsed. Until recently, the agencies maintained AAA ratings on thousands of nearly worthless subprime-related securities.

The reason for this continued reliance on ratings is simple: bad regulation. We have seen up close how legal rules that depend on ratings pervert the process. One of us worked at Moody’s, and was a frequent in-house critic of how the agencies put troubled companies on artificial “watch lists” while they maintained overly optimistic letter ratings. The other of us worked in Morgan Stanley’s derivatives group, which designed risky structured products that nevertheless obtained high ratings. These deals were the ancestors of the highly rated subprime mortgage derivatives at the center of the crisis.

The trip down the dysfunctional regulatory path began after the 1929 crash, when Gustav Osterhus, an examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, proposed a system for weighting the value of a bank’s portfolio. He felt regulators needed to be able to express a portfolio’s “safety” with letter symbols.

Since then, the number of financial regulations based on ratings has skyrocketed. Money market funds can buy only bonds rated in the top two categories. Banks’ capital requirements are lower for highly rated securities. Even federal highway financing depends on credit ratings.

Over time, ratings became valuable not because of their accuracy but because they “unlock” markets; that is, they are a sort of regulatory license that allows money to flow. Moreover, institutional investors came to rely on ratings for contracts that don’t even need regulatory approval. Trillions of dollars of derivatives payments depend on ratings. Much of the panic at A.I.G. stemmed from ratings “triggers” embedded in credit default swaps, in which billions of dollars of payments depended on how Moody’s and S.&P. labeled A.I.G.’s credit risk.

This has left us in a ratings trap. As more regulators and institutions rely on ratings, the agencies have become increasingly reluctant to downgrade. Even a one-notch downgrade of A.I.G. before it hit the shoals would have saddled it with an extra $8 billion of obligations. It is no coincidence that when government officials were debating the fourth round of A.I.G. bailouts this month, they quietly called on the rating agencies to ensure that they would not downgrade the insurer. In a crisis, downgrading debt can be like firing a bullet into a company’s heart.

The system is rife with conflicts of interest. The ratings agencies get a fortune from corporations to evaluate their bonds and naturally don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them. Nor do they want to admit a mistake or antagonize investors who might have to sell after a downgrade.

The only way out of the trap is to reduce reliance on ratings. First, regulators should undo the regulation web they began creating during the 1930s. The Securities and Exchange Commission has called for eliminating reliance on ratings, but that proposal has stalled in the face of intense lobbying.

For their part, investors should stop putting ratings-related language into financial contracts. The terms of credit default swaps and other derivatives should be free of ratings-based triggers. Banking supervisors should insist that loan contracts not refer to ratings. Fund sponsors, pension plan administrators and insurance regulators should remove ratings-based criteria.

The financial markets can function without letter ratings. Instead of relying on arbitrary letters, regulators and investors should consider all of the information available about an investment, including market prices.

Finally, regulators and investors should return to the tool they used to assess credit risk before they began delegating responsibility to the credit rating agencies. That tool is called judgment.

Jerome S. Fons is a consultant and former managing director at Moody’s. Frank Partnoy is a law professor at the University of San Diego.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Mar 2009 22:34

On this very forum there was an article that GS was very savvy in reducing its exposure to the toxic assets. Looks like that was all psy-ops. And GS was recieving direct money from TARP and also from AIG. So total is much more than what is being let on. Was the secrecy to cover GS H&D? Also Paulson was formere GS employee!

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 16 Mar 2009 22:38

Point to note is that it is the very same Moodys that has a B rating on India. And it is the very same Goldman Sachs that is predicting a deflation in India. Given their past performance, and in a business where their "word is bond", how are we to trust them?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Mar 2009 23:18

Total how much money from Feds did GS get? TARP+AIG?

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Mar 2009 23:53

http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaff ... sing-cnbc/

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vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 17 Mar 2009 03:04

ramana wrote:Total how much money from Feds did GS get? TARP+AIG?

$13.5 billion

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 17 Mar 2009 03:31

Anybody know what is the condition of that mecca of Putnam fellows and IMO gold medalists: "D.E. Shaw" hedge fund . Were they smart in their quants than the rest or did they turn out to be equally useless despite claiming to have Nobel, Putnam and IMO winners in their ranks.

Arya Sumantra · Post by **Arya Sumantra** » 17 Mar 2009 03:38

Finally bargaining catching up in khan too.

Hagglers gain the upper hand in a downbeat economy

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Mar 2009 04:00

Bargains were always there but called differently. You wait for a sale or walk away and the slaes mgr ususally throws in a sweetner.

The press is highlighting doom & gloom aspects and look at the picture attached which is psy-ops.

vina · Post by **vina** » 17 Mar 2009 05:43

Hakim Bose saab. DE Shaw and the other highly quant fund , Renaissance Tech, pulled through alright with albeit with diminished performance, but still showed positive absolute return.

DE Shaw had a near death experience in 1998 after LTCM, and they really recreated that fund from pretty much scratch after that. I had quite a few classmates from undergrad working there (yeah, that sure as hell will get Bade Saar's goat and he will rain Prey-e-dators and other bum baari on me and say that he is vindicated that it is IIT B.Techs who became quants in large numbers and ergo --> give them lamb bost. He is right of course from that perspective

)

Rahul Mehta · Post by **Rahul Mehta** » 17 Mar 2009 07:17

Can anyone give me any number on number of homeless people in US?

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 17 Mar 2009 08:04

vina wrote:DE Shaw had a near death experience in 1998 after LTCM, and they really recreated that fund from pretty much scratch after that. I had quite a few classmates from undergrad working there (yeah, that sure as hell will get Bade Saar's goat and he will rain Prey-e-dators and other bum baari on me and say that he is vindicated that it is IIT B.Techs who became quants in large numbers and ergo --> give them lamb bost. He is right of course from that perspective )

I know that when DE Shaw started in Hyd, the HR guy and many of the folks were from IIT B. I had a friend who joined there, moved to Khanland became a quant and now cooling heels in BoA as VP for the last few years.