Boardroom In Black

… to me, it’s not the most important thing in my life. The health and well being of those few I truly cherish are.

I have two cats. Both are black and white tuxedo shorthairs, each with their own unique personalities. One is 10, the other 7 years old. They are my children, my sons, my companions, as much of my own flesh as they could be. Life would be much less without either one.

The oldest of the two has been loosing weight and growing lethargic the past couple of weeks, and we’ve been taking him for tests and check ups. Today, he underwent an ultrasound, and we discovered the problem – he has cancer, and it’s been spreading rapidly.

Needless to say, this is crushing to me. I have performed a Working, and his healing is now a To Be. This definitely went a long way towards my own sanity. Now, we wait and see, and love the little beast even more then we’ve done in the past, cherishing our brief time on this Earth with him.

Continuing along the theme of stratification in finance, there has been a lot of hubbub around the audacity of banks paying huge executive bonuses. (see here for a common example of this). These banks were the ones first in line at the public bailout soup kitchen, blowing Uncle Sam for a shiny quarter. Public opinion has formed mostly along the lines of, “These are the jokers that got us into this mess, why should we give them bonuses for their failure?”. While sounding logical, this line of thinking betrays a lack of real understanding as to how business (and in particular, Big Business) gets accomplished.

The real value of a businessman isn’t just his accomplishments, but the alliances and relationships he has carefully courted and built over the years in order to Get Things Done. No man is an island, no man is “self made”, and the ones who claim to be are either fools, liars, or are selling you something. Finance execs, in particular, run all their railroads this way – the accounts they service are rarely new, but rather, are the result of relationships built as the exec climbed the ladder over the years. These accounts aren’t loyal to (say) the Bank of Dumberica – the BoD is simply where the exec currently works at, and one bank is often as good as the other. If the exec moves to another institution, or (even more lucratively) starts his own financial consultancy firm, those huge accounts in his stable will follow him to his next stop. Loyalties in business are almost always personal – it’s not the bank that gets the client rich, it’s the exec pulling the strings at the bank who has done the real work.

AIG and other banks are rightfully concerned that they will not be able to retain finance execs if they cannot pay the six and seven figure bonuses that these people demand. Even in these “rough” financial times, the exec simply will leave, taking his accounts with him. By not spending millions in bonuses, the banks and firms stand to loose many billions of dollars in accounts. This is already happening – I’ve many friends who do IT consulting in the financial world, and all of them are completely swamped with calls from finance folks who are setting up shop on their own. It is this exodus of talent from the larger firms and banks that may ultimately spell their downfall, and if you think the economy is screwed now…

It is unwise to assume that a group of people higher up in the financial food chain then oneself go through life, playing by the same rules as the Common Idiot. This is how the game is played, and those few who have demonstrated their worth in the ring play by these rules. Pay them their bonuses now, or pay them your financial well being later… the choice is up to you. Ensure you’re making a fully informed one. And if you’re just starting out in your career, treat people well, build those alliances, and guard your contact list with your life.

Hello, everyone – welcome back. Again, sorry for the delay, but when time is short, living life is more important then writing about it. Did you take a peek at my last post? You did? Yea, bullshit. Go watch the damn video – there will be a quiz. Next time, review the fucking materials before coming to the discussion.

My fellow Misanthropologists, I am told we have a problem. You see, it seems that the entire world has been going completely batshit around this whole “Credit Crisis” thing – if one is to believe all the hype, our country, our culture, our very way of life is threatened by the recent “implosion” of the credit market. The constant wailing and gnashing of teeth has inspired me to scan the television’s daily programming list for what I know must imminently come – that Very Special Episode of the Geraldo Show, where The Big G uncovers something horrid – psychologists all over the country have uncovered “repressed” memories of homeowners signing horrible home financing agreements. The Banktanic Panic, coming to courtroom near you.

All around us, people are pointing fingers and demanding answers. How could this have happened? Thus far, there have been but two sides to this debate – the conservatives and the liberals. Both are pawns and idiots, and have no clue at all as to the objective reality of things. Very predictable. Each of the two sides are asking many questions, but there is a third question (coming perhaps, from a Third Side) that I’ve yet seen asked.

Why the Hell does anyone think that this whole fiasco is a problem in the first place?

Look… the video I presented in my last post is not a map of a problem, or of exploitation, or anything of the sort. A Satanist comes from the axiom that man is an animal, yet there is one feature of this that skews differently then our beloved four legged friends: our “jungles” tend to be built from social rules, norms, and laws. The video refers to one such jungle, and within the wilds of wealth (or at least, the opportunity for wealth), there were countless opportunities for gain, at all levels of the game. The home owners obtained home ownership, many for the first time. Other people created wealth by “flipping” homes, and an entire industry sprang from home repairs and upgrades. Title companies. Real estate agents. Banks. Investment groups. All who chose to play the game had a shot at significant gain (and for most of the time, the gain was easy to get).

But… what goes up, must come down. This was clearly a housing bubble from the beginning, and was unsustainable over the long term. This was clear to anyone who wasn’t caught up in the hype and had functional thumbs for working a calculator. So why did some people get left holding the bag? Take a peek at “The Nine Satanic Sins” for illumination – pretentiousness, self-deceit, herd conformity, and most especially forgetfulness of past orthodoxies were the downfall of those who dropped the ball (or at least, found themselves holding the ball when the train stopped). Used your home as a credit card? Overextended leverage? Thought that an ARM loan, taken at near zero interest rate, would never result in a rate increase? Dumb asses.

“Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.”. Those people, especially at the bottom of this little stratification event, were begging to be fleeced. One must always have proper perspective in the game. If one is at the bottom of the pile (“homeowners” or “consumers” in this case), then one has far less leeway to screw up, takes a greater personal risk, and must especially take care not to overextend oneself. Those bankers and investment officers that public opinion is currently fleecing? They still made the money, which didn’t disappear when the bottom dropped out. The firms that they work for took a severe beating, but if they played their cards right, they had little to no meaningful repercussions in this. This is important to remember as things continue to shake out – by virtue of stratification and their position in the food chain, they don’t play by the same rules that the herd does.

Finally, a self disclosure: I myself did not purchase in the housing feeding frenzy, as I determined that the risk of home buying at the time wasn’t worth it – when all this started seven years ago, I was much earlier in my career with less cash on hand, and housing prices in Northern California were always insane (furthermore, my lair was already a rental that was in an excellent neighborhood, and is still damn dirt cheap). No, what I did was leverage the ease at which credit was obtained at the time, and channeled this into the founding of a start up company. This company is an online advertising company, founded on an incredibly novel and unique idea (more on this later). The result of our hard work was a cornering of the market, growing well over 200% year over year. This company was sold last year for just a hair under $100 Million US, and I have accepted a senior management position at the purchasing company. This was not my work alone, but working in conjunction with some very smart, shrewd, and well connected people, all of whom are sitting pretty right now. While short sighted friends of mine are moving out of their foreclosed McMansions, I’m experiencing a much different (and more lucrative) reality at the moment.

A couple of weeks ago, I was presented with a promotion at work, resulting in yet another round of corporate political chess. While this is always necessary (and in fact, quite enjoyable from my perspective), this is also time consuming.

Fear not, my dear readers – this round of gameplay is almost complete, and I will soon be returning here to further satisfy your entertainment needs.

A recent poster to BiB asked me to write something up about the current “financial crisis”. Intrigued by his suggestion, I’ve began an outline of ideas that may very well turn into a post here. Stayed tuned…

A challenge to having meaningful discussion around this topic is that what actually happened vs. what is generally reported to have happened are two very different things – finance is complex and interwoven, and it takes some skill to find the straw in the needle stack.

And thus, I present to you a video that describes current banking, home ownership, and credit problems we are facing. Take the time and watch this a few times – it really needs to sink in well.