The Madoff results…

“In just 16 months, the US unemployment rate has doubled from 4.8 per cent to 9.5 per cent, a remarkable surge by virtually any modern-day metric. It is also likely that the 9.5 per cent rate understates the extent to which labour market conditions are deteriorating. Just witness the increasing number of companies asking employees to take unpaid leave.”

The message is obvious. Don’t fear swine flu, but stay clear of anyone with underlying health conditions.

Robert Shrimsley (Financial Times)

If you say “no, they are not parallel” and someone comes and tells you that your view is a mere mind effect and that these lines are actually parallel… Will you buy into that? And what if the person telling you is a “financial specialist”? Will you then buy unknown and risky financial products which you have no idea on how they work and operate?

I was amazed when I got to know that a CEO defended “the tools and financial products became so complex and so difficult that after a certain point managers couldn’t actually understand what the products were really about”.

So… Would you buy something, would you spend your own hard earned money on something you actually don’t understand to the full extent? No? What if it’s not your money? What if the risks would actually pay off in the upcoming months for yourself and your career? What if doing so would get you a fat pension and great bonuses (even if all hell would break loose afterwards)? Would you do it then? I guess that most people falling in the category of “total absence of professional ethics or values, blind ambition and thirst for power” will have an instant answer for these questions…

Until now, if we exclude Madoff (small fish) did anyone ended up in jail?

The markets will probably keep falling until governments actually show that responsibility will be taken to those responsible.

So if you go to a bank and steal the safe, what will happen to you? Jail?

Now try this… Go to a senior management position and loose money that it’s not even yours in investments you don’t even understand. What will happen to you then? A fat pension?…

On TV everybody is saying the “D” word… also known as “Depression”. Financial depression. I guess that for a lot of people depression came a long time a go, with foreclosures and sub-prime meltdown. Recession gone into depression. Never thought I would even hear about it during my lifetime… It’s that sort of thing you only read and study in history books.

From talking so much about it I guess TV channels will actually help installing it. It’s the placebo effect. Like going to a doctor that constantly tells you are worst than you already are.