I'm not pro or anti marijuana. Michael Phelps appears to be pro.
The picture that surfaced last week of him with a bong has prompted a quick apology. He apologized for bad judgement, not for smoking dope, like maybe he was just in the same room with it. In any case, he left himself some wiggle room.
The camp that wants to legalize marijuana is going to have a field day with this. If one of the world's greatest athlete smokes dope, it can't be that bad for your health. If he doesn't lose his endorsements, isn't that proof that society doesn't take a particularly dim view of it? If he does lose his endorsements, that is going to have been a very expensive bowl.
Monday, February 2, 2009
He Wasn't Joking
Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt was on Bloomberg radio this morning on my morning drive. He's normally a good guest with sound ideas. Today was a head scratcher.
Bloomberg's Tom Keene was asking him about the challenges and perception of Wall Street executive compensation at a time when the government has had to take such a large role in backstopping those institutions. Levitt's solution was - ta da - to raise base salaries for these folks.
His point is that if you plan to pay someone $1,000,000 and their base salary is only $100,000, naturally a $900k bonus is going to be unpopular with Joe Public. The problem according to Levitt goes away if you raise said employee's base to $700k. I don't think regulating compensation works, but instituting some limits in cases such as this period we're in, especially for top execs, makes sense. The way that the comp is split between base/cash bonus/restricted stock/options is not a problem at all.
Flame away.
Bloomberg's Tom Keene was asking him about the challenges and perception of Wall Street executive compensation at a time when the government has had to take such a large role in backstopping those institutions. Levitt's solution was - ta da - to raise base salaries for these folks.
His point is that if you plan to pay someone $1,000,000 and their base salary is only $100,000, naturally a $900k bonus is going to be unpopular with Joe Public. The problem according to Levitt goes away if you raise said employee's base to $700k. I don't think regulating compensation works, but instituting some limits in cases such as this period we're in, especially for top execs, makes sense. The way that the comp is split between base/cash bonus/restricted stock/options is not a problem at all.
Flame away.
Big Government
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, seeking to improve public perception of the $700 billion financial rescue, is expected to announce this week tougher executive-compensation restrictions for some firms that get government aid.
Officials also are considering splitting off the Troubled Asset Relief Program from the Treasury and creating an independent entity, according to government officials. Some within the department think such a move could help improve the perception of the bailout, which has come under heavy criticism for being too secretive and not imposing enough rules and conditions on banks that get government aid.
I'm going to view all this as positive. In one of his interviews yesterday, Obama clearly promised that he would get all the pork (I think he used the word earmarks) out of whatever stimulus bill was passed. That would be nice.
I like the idea of moving the TARP assets into a separate entity. That way as institutions do pay back the money they owe, and some or most of them will, it will be crystal clear where it came from and hopefully go straight toward paying down debt. If you're Goldman Sachs, and the preferred stock dividend is scheduled to go from 5% to 9% at the same time that every bonus check and stock grant is getting the beatdown, paying the TARP funds back will be job one.
****
Futures are down sharply again today. This market needs Punxsutawney Phil to go on CNBC and call a bottom for this market. I'm calling an end to winter so we on the East Coast don't need him for that.
Officials also are considering splitting off the Troubled Asset Relief Program from the Treasury and creating an independent entity, according to government officials. Some within the department think such a move could help improve the perception of the bailout, which has come under heavy criticism for being too secretive and not imposing enough rules and conditions on banks that get government aid.
I'm going to view all this as positive. In one of his interviews yesterday, Obama clearly promised that he would get all the pork (I think he used the word earmarks) out of whatever stimulus bill was passed. That would be nice.
I like the idea of moving the TARP assets into a separate entity. That way as institutions do pay back the money they owe, and some or most of them will, it will be crystal clear where it came from and hopefully go straight toward paying down debt. If you're Goldman Sachs, and the preferred stock dividend is scheduled to go from 5% to 9% at the same time that every bonus check and stock grant is getting the beatdown, paying the TARP funds back will be job one.
****
Futures are down sharply again today. This market needs Punxsutawney Phil to go on CNBC and call a bottom for this market. I'm calling an end to winter so we on the East Coast don't need him for that.
27 - 23
That was a great Superbowl. The commercials were weak for the most part but you can't have everything.
Conventional wisdom would have told you that Roethlisberger could not win if he had to throw the ball 30 times, and the Steelers rushed for 60 yards total. I guess it was meant to be.
Conventional wisdom would have told you that Roethlisberger could not win if he had to throw the ball 30 times, and the Steelers rushed for 60 yards total. I guess it was meant to be.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Like I Said
I wrote a few days ago how misguided I thought the protectionist measures in the Senate version of the stimulus package are. From today's LA Times:
Andrew Rose, a professor of international trade at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, said you could practically set your watch by how quickly protectionist sentiment ratcheted up whenever the economy turned sour.
And in almost all cases, he said, "buy American" provisions are a bad idea."It's certainly a bad idea for the rest of the world, and it's a bad idea for us as well," Rose said. "If we only buy American, we'll probably pay more for inferior goods."
Not to mention the global backlash against U.S. produced goods that will occur if we stop buying Chinese. It has got to be a two way street.
On the other hand, I shudder to think what new pork is going to need to be added to get these measures out of the bill.
Andrew Rose, a professor of international trade at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, said you could practically set your watch by how quickly protectionist sentiment ratcheted up whenever the economy turned sour.
And in almost all cases, he said, "buy American" provisions are a bad idea."It's certainly a bad idea for the rest of the world, and it's a bad idea for us as well," Rose said. "If we only buy American, we'll probably pay more for inferior goods."
Not to mention the global backlash against U.S. produced goods that will occur if we stop buying Chinese. It has got to be a two way street.
On the other hand, I shudder to think what new pork is going to need to be added to get these measures out of the bill.
It's All Bad
From the Washington Post, and/or everyone else on a slow news weekend:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 31 -- Computer users doing Google searches during a nearly one-hour period Saturday were greeted with disturbing but erroneous messages that every site turned up in the results might be harmful.
The company blamed the mistake on human error and apologized for any inconvenience caused to users and site owners whose pages were incorrectly labeled.
The glitch occurred between 9:30 a.m. and 10:25 a.m. EST, Google said in an explanation on its company blog. Anyone who did a Google search during that time probably saw the message "This site may harm your computer" accompanying every search result, the company said.
It would be much more comforting if Google never made mistakes but you can't ahve everything.
****
It looks to me as though Federer at his best can no longer beat Nadal at his best, all other things being equal. Luckily for fans who don't want any match to be a fait accompli, there is weather, fatigue, court surface and a host of other variables to get in the way. And the fact that I don't know anything about tennis.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 31 -- Computer users doing Google searches during a nearly one-hour period Saturday were greeted with disturbing but erroneous messages that every site turned up in the results might be harmful.
The company blamed the mistake on human error and apologized for any inconvenience caused to users and site owners whose pages were incorrectly labeled.
The glitch occurred between 9:30 a.m. and 10:25 a.m. EST, Google said in an explanation on its company blog. Anyone who did a Google search during that time probably saw the message "This site may harm your computer" accompanying every search result, the company said.
It would be much more comforting if Google never made mistakes but you can't ahve everything.
****
It looks to me as though Federer at his best can no longer beat Nadal at his best, all other things being equal. Luckily for fans who don't want any match to be a fait accompli, there is weather, fatigue, court surface and a host of other variables to get in the way. And the fact that I don't know anything about tennis.
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