Monday, June 29, 2009

Title of the annual millenial monthly weekday

 

‘SEE YOU IN 150 YEARS

Reuters. On the sentencing of Madoff. I know that the article is somehow different in feeling, but still, Reuters reporting on the verdict, is like saying what the entire business world (just world) wants to say to this guy.

Yet, somehow, i can’t escape the feeling that all of them (us) don’t realize that this isn’t some guy who was gaming the system. This is one of the guys that helped build the system, and he built it so it CAN be gamed. It’s as if nobody is realizing this yet…ts ts ts

Thursday, June 25, 2009

QOTD

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, on revealing his extra marital affair and the fact that while missing in the last five days he was actually with his lover in Argentina.

"I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina,"

During those five days he must have thought of quite a few variations on the above Evita pun to include in his tearful press conference. Amateur stuff really, he should be looking towards Italy to find inspiration on how to handle this stuff like a pro

Monday, June 22, 2009

Spacing

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It is no secret that over the past decades NASA has been plagued by a number of high-profile failures resulting in wasting obscene amounts of public money and sometimes even human lives for no tangible benefit to humanity.

More importantly perhaps, NASA has failed to inspire people with a fascinating and achievable objective. A man on the moon has already been achieved (and it would take upwards of 20 Madoffs to repeat), while a man on Mars is at least 50 years away.

Well this is not the case any longer. Next time you wonder why on earth (or elsewhere for that matter) we need to keep supporting NASA's gargantuan budget, especially in times of economic distress, here is your answer...
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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Commercial Strategy 101

I think its an ingenious commercial strategy that has FULL GUARANTEED success written all over it.

step 1. Hire all the people on the planet.

step 2. Make it a company policy to buy only company products

step 3. Count your cash

Oh oh oh, just remembered, don’t forget to exclude from the policy your employees in those countries that are so lowly paid that they can only dream of one of your cars…like China or South Africa.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Deal That Keeps Giving

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It is widely accepted that Lehman has probably been the prime victim of the whole financial meltdown debacle. Of course the exact extend of Lehman's screwing was only revealed yesterday when we learnt that they are now being asked to pay Barclays USD 6 mln to buy their own furniture!!! After making a nice few billions from the fire acquisition of Lehman's banking operations, one could expect that Barclays would let them have their own furniture for free. Apparently not...

I wonder what could be next. Buying back their own umbrellas? Stressballs?
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Monday, June 15, 2009

The Tragic Reality

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Lost in the faceless, mind-boggling dance of billions of the recent corporate meltdown, are the little human tragedies; the small stories that bring the devastation closer to us and make us sympathise with the simple employees (the real victims of this disaster).

Here is the horrific story of the man who was denied the right to defend his title and was forced to watch someone 17 seconds slower winning it...
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I for Idiot

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I am sure you are all aware of the famous BRIC acronym, standing for the group of the 4 rapidly developing economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) who are expected to play a larger role in the world ecopnomy and drive future global growth.
Well, we learn today that Morgan Stanley is arguing that BRIC should actually become BRIIC to include Indonesia as another rapidly developing country.

What exactly consitutes a developing country, and who gets to be included in the elite BRIC group has never been accurately defined, but one thing is for sure: once a trend is started there is no end to it. So here are a few suggestions for the third "I" (BRIIIC) surely to follow:
- Iraq: Daily suicide bombings aside, this is clearly a country on the rise (you can ask the State Department about it).
- Iran: A country that uses Twitter to protest the results of a rigged election should definitely qualify: Not developed enough to have a fair election, not 3rd world enough to ignore new technologies.
- Italy: When the Cavaliere behaves like an African monarch and still manages to get the majority of the votes, he seems to know something about his country the rest of us don't (stories like this one provide additional support for the candidancy).

Got any more I-deas? Let us hear them...
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Working Title ?

In a story that is sure to inspire the future Ocean’s 14 movie script, Italian police seize $145,5 BILLION !!!!! in US securities being smuggled in a suitcase at the borders with Switzerland. Apparently Italian law says that 40% of the value of money illegally moved can be seized, which would give Berlusconi the ability to pay back the full national debt of Italy and some pocket change for some new players for Milan (potentially some of the pocket change could be used to buy El Pais if they keep irritating him).

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Beds Are Burning

Despite the reassuring comments by Israel’s Finance Minister back in October last year that no local bank would collapse during the crisis, this lady decided to hide a few bucks under her matress for a rainy day…

Who would have thought this would happen?!?!

A Step Too Far

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After issuing our famous Apologies and Mea Culpa statements, I have consciously chosen to remain silent and watch from the sidelines as Sylvio's opponents were rapidly descending the ladder of decency.

But then over the weekend came the ultimate blow. I am sure you understand that I am not referring to the El Pais pictorios that my dear Waldorfo (his Spanish nickname) posted the moment the newspaper was delivered to his reclusive hacienda where he was spending his weekend. After all, as Sylvio put it himself "there is nothing indecent about these pictures other than publishing them". But just as the Cavaliere was ready to escape yet another mud-attack from his political foes, he conceded the ultimate "own-goal" so to speak. He agreed to sell arguably the best player who has worn an AC Milan uniform since Marco Van Basten, the Brazilian Kaka for USD 93 mln leaving countless Milan tifozi mourning.

Millions of Italians could not overcome the shock of their Premier selling their brightest star to Real Madrid (of all teams in the world!) - practically the same people who published the despikable pictures(!!!) and after that it was only natural that Sylvio had one of his worst results ever on Sunday's elections...
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Sunday, June 7, 2009

Anatomía de Berluscolandia

Now i was just reading this article and my first thought was, so what about the i-talians. Where is the love for them? And then i thought that maybe Jesus-ama saw the weekend pictures that el-Pais printed and thought "i 'd better stay away from that shit cause it sure is sticky and smells bad". (linko original en espanol con muchos pictorios)


But then, half way through the article i read this.



"I think it's important to understand that good friends don't worry about the symbols and the conventions and the protocols," Obama told reporters with Sarkozy by his side, dismissing the suggestion he was snubbing his French host. In translated remarks, Sarkozy was heard to say: "Do people think we should be hand in hand looking into each other's eyes?"



Now, if Sarkozy can make that kind of humour then imagine the hilarity that could ensue if il consigliere was there...


PS my dears, in case you are wondering, that title is the original one from El-Pais...Berluscolandia it is then


Wednesday, June 3, 2009

On The Road Again

Latvia, one of the hardest-hit economies by the crisis, demonstrates to the world the way to recovery and a return of true humanistic values (check out the photo gallery please)…

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

It’s All in the name (III)

When my dear Statler started this name thing back in the day, we all thought that he was on to something. At the very least he has an eye for comedic potential and the balls to spin it in a way that:

a. will create a competition between all parties involved

b. will create a blogging sensation that will take the world by storm

Well Statler, rest assured that both tasks are accomplished. Who knew that Tim Geithner was gonna up the challenge with a name that takes this joke to a whole new level and of course that the venerable institution of the New York Times will frantically try to beat the balcony to the proverbial punch line. Oh yeah, game on.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Meet Carl

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My vote for the 2009 Practical Joke of the Year Award goes to the brilliant creators at Disney/Pixar who decided to model the balloon salesman character of their new animated movie after Warren Buffett!!! (the joke is so divine, I 'm willing to bet that they came up with it first and then devised the movie concept around it)...

Showing the grace that befits only the classiest sarcasts amongst us, they named the movie "Up"...

Mr. Buffett on the other hand, could show his own sense of good humour by returning the joke and buying say USD 10 bln worth of puts on the Disney stock...
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