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Yearly Archives: 2012

IPO – I’m Pissed Off

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MF Global, while crashing and burning, lost $1.6 billion – at least that’s what appears to be missing.  JP Morgan, for reasons they don’t quite understand, lost $3 billion – by the most recent estimate.  And now Morgan Stanley has lost at least $18 billion – but this doesn’t count because it was Other People’s Money (OPM).

There has been no bigger joke on Wall Street than the Facebook initial public offering (IPO).  From the beginning up through the sorry slide it’s on today, nothing has worked.  There is even a likely Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into revised earnings information that somehow wasn’t shared with the public – but a few insiders had a peak at.

If you ever needed proof that big investment banks are nothing but leeches sucking the life out of our economy, Facebook’s IPO is it.

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Greek Drama, New Act?

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I admit it, I’ve been slow to write about Greece again.  There is news on the Greek crisis every day that is worth writing about, and yet somehow it all seems the same as two years ago.

But then along came Alexis Tsipras, who at 37 is likely to be the next leader in this odyssey of debt.  Outside of Greece he and his “Coalition of the Radical Left” are not well known, which is only reasonable.  They aren’t that well known in Greece, either.  What matters is that he is playing his hand perfectly and may well stand up to the big banks of Europe after June 17th.

Will this former youth organizer for the Communist Party be successful, not just in winning power but leading his nation away from disaster?  It seems unlikely, but if it happens it will be one Hell of a story.

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Next Generation’s Struggle

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This is a dialogue with my daughter Thryn Hare (Kathryn).  Thryn has been named one of OutFront’s “25 leaders under 25”, a strong activist for Gay / Lesbian / Transgender rights at only 15 years old.  I couldn’t be more proud.

I should start by asking what it was like to talk to me about who you felt you were and how difficult it was.  I know it took you some time.  Did you think I might reject you for it?  What was going through your mind?

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Merkel, Alone

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European news has been roughly the same for three years.  An agreement is reached between a group of bland looking national leaders, and then one of them disappears from the scene.  There’s been an election or a series of protests that led to a resignation, nevermind the reason why.  When the cast changes, the old agreement is tossed aside and negotiations begin again.

Why can’t Europe get its act together?  Why is it so dependent on personalities?

That gets us to the chief personality of them all, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  She has been the one who, with her conservative Christian Democratic Party, has insisted on “austerity”, the tightening of budgets and paying of bills even as the economy crashes.  And now Merkel stands completely alone.  Does this mark the end of austerity for Europe?

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Energy: Implementation

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If you ask just about anyone who makes a living predicting the future of societies and economies in the developed world, they will tell you we are a technology driven society.  New ideas, products, and systems will change our lives and get us out of any jam.

Yet our economy is still hopelessly tied to the market for oil, despite its increasing dysfunction and, more importantly, the existence of proven technologies that can give us energy independence, sustainability, and conservation.

New ideas themselves are not the answer.  Implementing them is the real skill of technology, and on that score the developed world is failing horribly.  Why and how is worth discussing, especially in light of the faith we put in this thing called “technology”.  It is, in the end, about our values.

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