Don't Let Hotels Miss Out on Casual Cuisine

How many times have you walked into a hotel restaurant only to find over priced, less than satisfying food? Generally, hotel restaurants exist to a) provide food to captive hotel guests or b)add to a hotel's luxury offerings to make guests more likely to come (back) and stay. Their presence has never been to contribute significantly to the bottom line, and most struggle to break even at all. So, if hotel restaurants aren't making money, are there other ways that hotels could leverage food services to make their guests happier, support and add to their own food offerings, and reinforce unique aspects of their individual brands? Casual Cuisine offers the Hotel industry a unique opportunity to achieve a variety of these goals with little to no cost or risk.

What follows are the three categories where Casual Cuisine can add to Hotel offerings (and support their bottom line):

1. The Pop-up:
The most tempting place for a hotel to dip its toe into the Casual Cuisine waters would probably be the pop-up restaurant movement best demonstrated by Ludo Bites down in LA. Chefs taking over restaurants for short stints is not an unusual thing. But the combination of the economic downturn (read: good chefs without gigs), the rise of the celebrity chef, and perpetual foodie search for the next "undiscovered treasure" should be manna from the gods to hotels with dark rooms and banquet facilities looking to generate some buzz, or provide a unique offering to guests. It should also not go unnoticed that professionally trained chefs are comfortable in formal kitchens and with (typically more formal) hotel service styles. Why not open a second restaurant once a month in dark banquet space featuring a guest chef serving some highly imaginative cuisine? Whats there to lose? You have to keep the kitchen open anyhow...

2. The Added Attraction:
All Hotels should take note of of a very successful movie night that the Good Hotel (a JDV property in San Francisco) did in conjunction with the bicycle coalition. Set aside the Green and Local appeal of this event for a moment, and focus mainly on the totally unique experience that Good Hotel was able to offer its guests:

Imagine seeing that on your first trip to San Francisco! Even better, imagine the battle hardened road warrior seeing that on his or her 50th time to San Francisco. These vendors prepared the food themselves, arrived on their own dime, and were happy for an opportunity to showcase their food. There's no reason why a hotel couldn't capitalize on this low cost event idea again with something focused on local food and local community for their guests. (Hint: It wouldn't even have to be in the hotel, how about near the hotel or in a parking lot...)

3. The "Oh My! What's is this?"
Everyone loves dim sum. The carts come around and you take something that looks good.

If something comes around that you don't like, you leave it. No problem. Something else will come along.

Tapas is the same way; small plates that keep you around to purchase the (high margin) drinks. Why couldn't a hotel allow certain mobile food vendors to come in and sell things once a week? To be sure, this isn't workable for all Hotels. But what about the ones with limited food offerings (especially late at night)? This is a home run for happy hours or theme nights. Keep the variety. Keep the soul of the food. Make it easy to manage and maintain quality. You'd have foodies searching for you from far and wide. And, if things don't work out? No problem. Easy to end.

There's something special happening with Street Food at the moment. Hotels would do well to take note and run with it. It'd serve the properties just as well as it would serve food vendors.

Street Food: Building a Brand Using Twitter Direct Messaging

Much has been said about the way that mobile street food vendors are using Twitter to publicize their locations, build community and encourage word of mouth buzz for their products. To be true, the food cart craze is one part foodie expression on the cheap and one part grown-up scavenger hunt that is benefiting from a broad realization that the same tools and techniques that keep your food safe, clean and delicious in a restaurant can allow you to have a fantastic food experience on the outside. But here's something really unique about what street food vendors are doing with social media: They're growing their customer bases by purposely limiting their audience -- not necessarily a marketing plan most industries rely on.

For the uninitiated, tracking down your favorite vendor is more than simply driving to the same scheduled spot every day. Because many of these fine products are not actually sold legally, many Street Food vendors have been reluctant to provide hard addresses to their followers (who might be police). The result is that simply following a vendor isn't always enough. Next you have to (actually) pay attention to their tweets so you a) know when they are going to be serving and, b)can direct message them to find out their location. Third, finally, you are "in the know" and can commence the physical part of actually tracking down (and eating) some food. In case you missed it, that's lots of opportunities for customers to get frustrated and give up; but its also an excellent filter for ensuring that, if you go out (as a vendor), you are going to actually see a large enough number of those people (who've jumped those hoops) to make the outing worthwhile.

On top of that, every time that a vendor forces someone to DM them, they also potentially pick up a new follower (you can't DM if you're not a follower), initiate direct customer contact (because the vendor has to start following you back) and communicate with you in order to tell you their location.

There's few better ways to truly make your customer feel like an insider who is "in the know" about something special. As an added virtuous circle bonus: The next time that the vendor tweets about a location they'll have an established customer getting a direct line about their plans, which makes it easier for the vendor to know their customer, which allows for easier planning for their customers, which makes it more likely the vendor will have another positive transaction as a result. By priming their audience through making them feel special and part of an exclusive group, as well as establishing an effective form of continued communication (converting them to an interactive follower) these vendors have demonstrated a counter intuitive dance that, by limiting your audience, you can simultaneously reinforce brand recognition, loyalty, and trust. Which, as it turns out, isn't counter intuitive at all; its just good business.

Street Food in San Francisco

There has been a lot of excitement generated by the publicity from the emerging "gourmet roach coach" thing in San Francisco and the Bay area. But as a mobile food vendor, entrepreneur, investor and partner in this business here's my take:

My immediate reaction to the explosion in popularity of what is essentially an underground food economy is: its great but unsustainable. The reasons for this are simple: the money associated with the legal operation of a food cart in San Francisco is (very purposely, I believe by the city) an impractical one for a continuing or start-up venture. And, while it makes sense that Twitter has empowered mobile vendors to connect with their audience, at the end of the day you can't individually contact every patron you might seek and you have to be publicly open in order to sell something. It costs 100,000 easily to purchase a mobile food truck. Add in an additional 20,000 for permitting and (a little bit) of marketing and you have yourself quite an investment; too much of an investment for the vast majority of would be vendors to risk on an unstable location, and routes that are at the will of the police (not to mention the climate). Carts cost less, but you can't legally cook raw food on them (at least in San Francisco), nor legally sell it (as vendors are beginning to find out).

There a lot of ways to encourage street food in this city, and hopefully the unlicensed vendors will persevere successfully. Ironically, it has been the power of social media to connect to a large audience that has brought attention to an economy that has existed in the city (especially the Mission) virtually unbothered by the police for a very long time. It would be a shame to loose the momentum that has built up over the summer for quality, diverse street food; so here is my suggestion: Look to the bars.

The only way that the city will reach mass adoption of this medium is going to be in partnership with brick and mortar businesses that are willing to sponsor these vendors with vocal support (along with their tax base) ala, the Tamale Lady. Bars, off hours for restaurants, and mixed use store fronts are a natural fit for these vendors to work in partnership with, and cross promote each other. It would give customers consistency. It would allow the vendors to build a tax base. These locations have the bathrooms and sinks that mobile vendors need; Some of them even have full kitchens and food quotas for service asscociated with their liquor licenses.

There's a movement here worth saving, but the way to preserve its vibrancy isn't to take it more underground.

Bellagio and MGM Grand Schnanegans

The wires are reporting that Kirk Kerkorian is making a bid to purchase the Bellagio from... well, himself (as he owns 56% of the MGM Mirage). Interesting timing with the WSJ reporting yesterday that the MGM is making an international play to build and manage branded luxury hotel properties around the world (which won't be casinos). When I read the article yesterday, it seemed to oddly contrarian for the company to make a play like this in an industry that is battling a horrible business travel climate and uncertain luxury leisure travel. But, upon hearing this, it makes a little more sense; if Kerkorian buys the crown jewels of MGM, than the company needs some other reason to exist.

I suppose, this is just a long way of saying that I wouldn't bet on Kerkorian buying the whole company and taking it private.

Michael Lewis Review of Warren Buffett Book

Mike Lewis reviewed a new book about Warren Buffett for Powell's books. The review itself is typically awesome writing but, of course, it helps that the subject is so interesting. Here's a small piece from a quite thoughtful review:

By the time he was sixteen, Buffett had accumulated the equivalent in today's dollars of $53,000, and hardly saw the point of taking the spot he had been offered at the Wharton School. He knew what he wanted to do for a living -- live in Omaha and invest in stocks -- but his parents prevailed and off he went to college. He lasted three years before he returned and finished at the University of Nebraska.

Interesting that he wrote the review for Powell's rather than Amazon. I wonder if they paid him?...

Fund Rasing

There is a good article in the Times today about what sacrifices should an entrepreneur make when pursuing capital:

“We had a fairly solid vision of what we wanted this company to be,” he said, adding that he had built a previous start-up by selling software to small businesses and knew he could find strong demand in that market. But the investors did not agree. “Many V. C.’s just follow the leader, and for a time it was in vogue to just fund consumer-based plays.”

Unproductive Productivity

There is an interesting story in Sunday's NY Times about looking busy (even if you're not) at work:

A lawyer at the New York office of an international firm wanted to give the impression he was working late at night — but he was stymied by office lighting that would dim when he left the room. So he brought in an oscillating fan, which tricked the motion detectors into keeping the lights on long after he’d departed.

Productivity is a strange thing; less people theoretically doing more in less time. Productivity in hotels was (at best) a rough science calculated on the amount of guests actually in house, but failing to account for the increased work demands associated with more guests checking in and out. Productivity in creative fields? Forget about it, right. Who knows? Midweek internet surfing could produce the next great ad campaign (Might not be suitable for work):



Productivity is so often reported as a flat number, but it is so obviously not a flat idea. Does merely being "present" for 18 hour days constitute productive? The Japanese may think so (just don't ask for overtime worked vs overtime paid statistics). In retail or service industries where customers might come in waves, how to do businesses staff and stay lean without sacrificing customer experience when people do arrive in mass? It begs the contradictory question: Should customers expect to spend their increasingly scarce dollars on goods that are provided through poorer service?

It seems, though, that often we are all engaged in a happy farce. From the NY Piece:

“You don’t want anyone from corporate to walk in and see you doing nothing,” Ms. Bailey said. “You’ve got to keep busy for them and the clients. You have to be proactive —” she broke off to reposition a handsome pair of boots, “so we’ll do a lot of refolding and dusting. Hey, I might just mop!”

Wonder if they'll get rid of the janitor next? Like everything thing in business it is a balancing act, but it leaves one to wonder if, eventually, there will be anyone left at all?

Credit Default Swap Resolution

The NY Times has an article on Credit Default Swaps and what should happen with them. Probably the most interesting quote is:

Mr. Raynes’s resolution is more radical: unwinding all outstanding credit-default swaps through a process he calls inversion.

Under this plan, insurance premiums would be refunded to buyers of credit protection from the entity that wrote the initial contract. And the seller would no longer be under any obligation to pay if a default occurred.

The premium repayments would be made over the same period and at the same rate that they were paid out. If a contract was struck three years ago and charged quarterly premiums, the premiums would then be refunded quarterly over the next three years.

Wouldn't this also create a reverse market as well? They'd be like 3 year bonds that could be traded and rated based on the health of the originator of the swap...

One of the funny things about the CDS market is that everyone gets so worked up about it because of the size of the market (Est: 30 Trillion $US). But the chances of payment on even a fraction of this is extremely remote. The larger problem with them is the psychological risk associated with the currently interwoven global economy; should an institution go bankrupt the carnage would not be contained to their own poor choices, but would be magnified (many times possibly) by forfeitures by CDS issuers, and then again by CDS insurers on Swaps in the orginal issuer, etc.. Seems like a freeze would help, but what is really needed is a new major bank that is decoupled from the other entities in this market and is able to operate freely without these liabilities. Hmmmm...

Yet another reason to keep on the lookout for the rise of community banks in your neighborhood. VC opportunities? We all know that there is some cash out there.

Michael Lewis Interview

On Journalism:

When I write a long magazine piece that gets attention I feel like it's more widely read now than it was ten years ago, by a long way. In fact, it feels excessively well read. Twenty years ago I might get a couple of notes in the mail and I'd hear about it maybe at a dinner party. And that would be the end of it, and it would go away very quickly. Ten years ago it would get passed around by email, and it would seem to have a life to me that would go on a little longer. Now the blogosphere picks it up and it becomes almost like a book: it lives for months. I'm getting responses to it for months. And I don't think the journalism has gotten any better.

Focusing on Value at Risk:

Lets take a bond, let's say a General Electric bond. A General Electric bond trades at some spread over treasuries. So let's say you get, I dunno, in normal times, 75 basis points over treasuries, or 100 basis points over Treasuries, over the equivalent maturity in Treasury bonds. So you get paid more investing in GE. And what does that represent? You get paid more because you're taking the risk that GE is going welsh on its debts. That the GE bond is going to default. So the bond market is already pricing the risk of owning General Electric bonds. So then these credit default swaps come along. Someone will sell you a credit default swap -- what enables the market is that it's cheaper than that 75 basis point spread -- and he's saying that in doing this he knows GE is less likely default than the bond market believes.

Why does he know that? Well, he doesn't know that. What really happened was that traders on Wall Street have the risk on their books measured by their bosses, by an abstruse formula called Value at Risk. And if you're a trader on Wall Street you will be paid more if your VaR is lower -- if you are supposedly taking less risk for any given level of profit that you generate. The firm will reward you for that.

And, turns out I don't agree with him on everything:

You know, I have yet to have a financial person persuade me that there's a really useful reason for a credit default swap. I know why they exist and I know why they're used. They're mostly used as speculative instruments. And the people who are selling the insurance are mostly selling it because they don't pay a price for it until everything goes bad. They weren't judged as taking any particular risk. But I have yet to have anybody explain to me why these things are terribly useful. They might have some good use and I just haven't heard it yet, but I'm dubious.

Default Swaps certainly are difficult to understand, and there is definitely risk associated with them. But they are instruments to enable investors to act on information or hedge other risks in their portfolio in a more effective and targeted way. The problems with them come from lack of accounting in risks and leverage/oversight by the people/markets who create them.

GE and Capital Crisis

Money quote from Times piece this PM:

G.E. said its finance arm overall should be able to earn $5 billion in 2009, despite assuming losses from bad loans totaling $10 billion mainly on credit cards in the United States, home mortgages in Britain and commercial lending to businesses.

Way back quote from Meredeth Whitney:

The U.S. credit card industry may pull back well over $2 trillion of lines over the next 18 months due to risk aversion and regulatory changes, leading to sharp declines in consumer spending, prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney said.

They are just exposed from every possible direction.

David Swenson on Charlie Rose

He manages the Yale endowment.



He cites Ben Graham specifically as a mentor.

Where's the teeth, SEC?

Good article from The Big Money about the possible new head of the SEC:

Schapiro, who was first appointed as an SEC commissioner by Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s, has most recently presided over the FIRA —a nongovernmental regulatory agency dominated by industry participants that epitomizes the "self-regulatory" approach, according to which the financial industry is quite capable of overseeing its own affairs without interference by the state.

The whole piece reminded me of this piece by Michael Lewis in the NY Times:

If the S.E.C. is to restore its credibility as an investor protection agency, it should have some experienced, respected investors (which is not the same thing as investment bankers) as commissioners. President-elect Barack Obama should nominate at least one with a notable career investing capital, and another with experience uncovering corporate misconduct. As it happens, the most critical job, chief of enforcement, now has a perfect candidate, a civic-minded former investor with firsthand experience of the S.E.C.’s ineptitude: Harry Markopolos.

Mr. Markopolos is the guy who wrote a 17 page opus to the SEC speculating exactly what Bernie Madoff was, which they proceeded to ignore. It is worth reading simply to know how just how obtuse the SEC must have been not to catch Madoff, and just how much fixing they need. But it is beyond comprehension to me that this is the first that I have heard of this appointment, and that an Obama administration would choose her. It seems a basic qualification for any would-be head of the SEC should be: If you investigated Madoff and failed to find anything wrong, than you are disqualified.

Here's my choice. Why not?

Somalian Pirates

This story just gets more and more interesting (from the Independent):

In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European
hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply.

Yeah, thats right: The Mafia! More to come on this...

Too Beautiful to Live

I spend too much time in front of the computer, all things considered. Because (most) of that time is used productively (ahem) I tend to listen to things while I work, which is why podcasts have been such a lovely thing for me. And, I suppose because I have so much time to "screen" shows I feel like I have hit on a pretty good mix of podcasts, NPR and pandora (with some personal tunes thrown in for kicks.) I'll be glad to share more as I go along, but... Anyway, around Halloween time I heard a great segment on This American Life (sorta a weekly treat for my ears) from this show in Seattle "Too Beautiful to Live." I have been pretty much hooked since then. It is high brow enough that the maybe 30% of attention that I give to the show occasionally while it plays in the background allows me to hear an interesting nugget or two of information every hour or so, and I genuinely laugh out loud every other show. Also, it is conveniently on in three, one hour, podcasts so I can spread them out throughout the day. Anyway, they just got written up as the new wave of something good in Talk Radio. They are definitely going places, so give them a try and I think you'll like it.

JCVD

I first heard about JCVD from a slate column about it a while back. The movie is an alternate reality send up of Jean Claude Van Damm as B movie actor going through a divorce and needing money (basically his real life) who gets pulled into a bank robbery in Brussels. The reason why I went to see it is that the slate specifically references a monologue that Van Damm gives as the best monologue of the year. I was mostly surprised by how much I really like the film as a whole. The opening shot is a particularly impressive piece of an, uncut, unedited shot that reminded me strongly of one of my favorite scenes from a great Korean movie: Oldboy. Well worth checking out if it comes around you or, more likely, to add to your netflix cue when it comes out on DVD.

I listen to Too Beautiful to Live pretty regularly, which is a radio show that is out of Seattle (its on the Friday 8-9pm show.) The show itself is great and fun, and they just read a customer review of the book "The Secret" that was one of the funniest things that I have heard in a really long time. I couldn't believe that it was a real review, but here it is:

Please allow me to share with you how "The Secret" changed my life and in a very real and substantive way allowed me to overcome a severe crisis in my personal life. It is well known that the premise of "The Secret" is the science of attracting the things in life that you desire and need and in removing from your life those things that you don't want. Before finding this book, I knew nothing of these principles, the process of positive visualization, and had actually engaged in reckless behaviors to the point of endangering my own life and well being.

At age 36, I found myself in a medium security prison serving 3-5 years for destruction of government property and public intoxication. This was stiff punishment for drunkenly defecating in a mailbox but as the judge pointed out, this was my third conviction for the exact same crime. I obviously had an alcohol problem and a deep and intense disrespect for the postal system, but even more importantly I was ignoring the very fabric of our metaphysical reality and inviting destructive influences into my life.

My fourth day in prison was the first day that I was allowed in general population and while in the recreation yard I was approached by a prisoner named Marcus who calmly informed me that as a new prisoner I had been purchased by him for three packs of Winston cigarettes and 8 ounces of Pruno (prison wine).

It only gets better from there. Its the first review for the book. Be sure to rate it!

New Shepard Fairy Poster Available

I bought one of these last night. Can't help but feel that the original Obey poster is going to be a great peice of pop history. Unfortunately, the price for those have gotten a bit out of hand. Glad that I got this one, but sad that I paid more than double what the orginal (signed) poster cost when it came out...

Battling Fish Sticks?

How and where not to do The Fishstick from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.




Dance Move: The Fishstick from Jenna Fox on Vimeo.

In case you're interested: Shazam says the music is Archie Bell & The Drells, Tighten Up

San Francisco Pirate Radio

From their website:

Pirate Cat Radio 87.9fm is an unlicensed low powered community radio station, broadcasting on 87.9 megahertz, to both the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles basin.

And, as an added bonus, just 12 short blocks from Dave Eggers' Pirate store at 826 Valencia.

Did you know? You Look Nice Today.

"The Noises Rest" from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

Russia

This whole oil pipeline imbroglio is like a bad pitch for a Tom Cruise star vehicle:

Scrappy fledgling democracy (lead by a Russian assassination survivor) must fight for independence (read: heating oil) in the midst of an international geo-political battle of modern eco-commerce against a brooding mastermind with sights in cornering the Natural Gas market in Europe as a petro-fueled crown for own imperial ambitions....

Somehow, the whole thing is just so cliche to me... I'm sure it wouldn't be if I was sitting cold, at home, in Bosnia. The whole thing is very Graham Green.

Madoff Trustee

I went searching for who the Madoff trustee is: His name is Irving Picard and practices with Baker & Hostetler LLP in New York. He got his JD from BU law School and LLM at NYU.

XKCD on Steve Jobs

Sony's Greek Tragedy

Sony has been an interest of mine for a while. It could be that I still have this idea in my head from back in the day that their products were simply better than their competition. Could be that I have respect for their (historic) preference for innovation over cost cutting. I like the way that the company was started from the ashes of Tokyo fire bombing and without a clear product that was going to be sold or manufactured. So that last few years have been especially interesting as a Foreigner has come in to run the company. In some ways I think that a split personality within the company was inevitable, but this?... Its a shame.

PS. I still haven't bought a blu-ray player despite the tantalizing existence of an even better Godfather. That says something.

Meredeth Whitney Investor's Call

I've really gotten to like Meredeth Whitney lately. Probably because she is right most of the time. Here is her latest:

From July 2007 to date, over $5 trillion worth of securities have been downgraded, but our concern here is that the pace of downgrades has only accelerated through 2008," the Oppenheimer analyst wrote in a research note dated January 6.

It seems as though the banks may be holding off on lending because they are concerned about the rate of right downs on existing debt. Which explains a lot and makes a lot more sense than other ideas that I have heard that the credit freeze is due to fearful non-bank actors who are wary of any risk at the moment and constitute the majority of US lending through the bond markets. If banks are suffering write downs on their debt, than those same private equity and sovereign wealth funds HAVE TO be dealing with the same (or greater) order of losses.

So Ridiculous, So Cool

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Blue Ribbon Counsil

Ever wonder what a "Blue Ribbon Counsil" actually is? Heard it for years, but really struck me that I actually didn't know.

Apple without Steve; Who They Should Hire to Takeover

Evidently Macworld is super dull without Steve there:

The entire affair reminded me of countless presentations I've been to by other execs. Apple without Steve Jobs, it seems, will be just like Microsoft or Oracle, an ordinary tech firm with perfectly adequate products and no sizzle.

Not that he doesn't have trouble of his own (and who knows how little technical experience), but Apple should hire Howard Shultz to take over for Steve Jobs. It seems like what Apple needs is a consumer products guru rather than a technical leader. There is no one else, I think, that comes close to Jobs' marketing distortion field power than Shultz. It is also notable that it would let Schultz out of having to fix Starbucks, which can't be nearly as much fun as it was when he was growing it 30% a year when it started...

So there you go. You heard it from me first.

Starbuck's Union Issues

Unions are interesting things...

The National Labor Relations Board found on Dec. 23 that Starbucks had illegally fired three New York City baristas as it tried to squelch the union organizing effort. The 88-page ruling also says the company broke the law by giving negative job evaluations to other union supporters and prohibiting employees from discussing union issues at work. The judge ordered that the three baristas be reinstated and receive back wages. The judge also called on Starbucks to end discriminatory treatment of other pro-union workers at four Manhattan locations named in the case. The decision marks the end of an 18-month trial in New York City that pitted the ubiquitous multinational corporation against a group of twentysomething baristas who are part of the Industrial Workers of the World.

I tend to be of the opinion that if workers are happy than they typically would choose not to participate in a Union. Starbucks' flexible scheduling system (along with working people just under full time) is a big reason for these problems. Here is an interview with Howard Schultz from 2004 detailing the company's Heath Care cost problems:

Without a doubt, it's health-care costs. We just had to raise our prices for the first time in four years. That is primarily because of the rising costs of health insurance and also dairy prices. Over the next two years, we will spend more for employee health-care costs than we will for coffee. That's quite a statement.

The companies that are doing the right thing by covering their employees are paying for the companies who don't do the right thing. Starbucks provides health insurance for all employees working 20 hours a week and up.

Funny thing how flexible the concept of "do the right thing" can be...

Basel II

I have become more and more interested in the Basel II accords for accounting standards. And, more specifically, how new accords under a Basel III summit could change the accounting rules for capital requirements and mark to market accounting. This will have major implications for how companies report risk, debt and leverage for their financial positions.

For deeper reading you can go here:

In practice, Basel II attempts to accomplish this by setting up rigorous risk and capital management requirements designed to ensure that a bank holds capital reserves appropriate to the risk the bank exposes itself to through its lending and investment practices. Generally speaking, these rules mean that the greater risk to which the bank is exposed, the greater the amount of capital the bank needs to hold to safeguard its solvency and overall economic stability.

Best Year in Sports Ever?

Sports Illustrated says so:

This kind of reckoning is never a science, but let's do the math: An absurdly difficult catch to ignite a Super Bowl upset plus a heart-stopping swim in the Olympics plus the gutsiest golf performance imaginable plus the greatest tennis match ever played plus....Yeah, it all adds up.

Manning to Tyree.
Lezak finishing the 4 x 100.
Nadal beating Federer.
Tiger woods winning the US Open.

Pretty good year, I'll give 'em that. Wonder what this guy would have said about it?

Transition Away from Wall Street

The times has a new story up about people's transition to new creative fields and away from Wall Street.

“The economy couldn’t survive on speculation and what really amounted to advanced financial alchemy,” he told The Times. “We are now realizing it is our human creativity that is our real capital.

“The economic downturn is going to free up top talent to do other things that are going to change the metabolism of cities like New York in a very good way.”

This has been a long time in coming and seems to be something of a myth: All the bright creative people of our generation left their Ivy League schools for gold plated Wall Street and were hopeless to resist the financial rewards.

I am skeptical. I wonder how much of this is willfully wishing that our best and brightest were more altruistic and bursting with something other than unaccountable greed, and how much of this pent-up creative genius actually exists? All the same, it is not like money is going away and with TARP its also not like the government wouldn't be a proud stop for altruistic financial do gooders... I just wonder how many Creatives are going to willfully turn their back on the money that will be made (in the future) now that they have tasted it?

My Call

Shorting commercial property indexes over the next six months seems like a no brainer right now. There is no question that businesses are going to tighten their staffing levels over the next two quarters as they reflect a shift to different areas of profit from the previous 12 months. Because of this it seems self evident that their reduced foot prints would create significantly broad increases in vacancy rates. I would be tempted to say that risks associated with credit shortages and defaults would already be built into the system. But, as the above chart shows, commercial real estate as a whole returned 2.5% last quarter. Indeed commercial index IYR is trading almost 33% off its lower at the end of last year.

I just don't see why this index won't see a correction along the magnitude of the residential market. I am locking in a price 35.83 and we'll see where we stand in 60 days, and 90 days.

Risk All Around

There are some things you should know about before you even begin to discuss the article in the times about Value at Risk (VaR). The most important seems to be that the article wasn't written for the investment community and, because of that, I have read some criticism of it because it uses generalities in order to avoid losing its audience. I acutally liked the piece alot and think that its premise is a sound one: There simply is no way of converting hugely complex calculations into simplistic ideas for uneducated audiences.

It seems a reoccuring story in this crisis that people want simple answers to complex questions, even if there is a high likelihood that those answers are wrong. How else can you describe the carnage that is our economy at present? How many of these sophisticated (ie too complex for the average person to understand) investment tools which have imploded over the last year have relied on these inclinations to facilitate their risky behavior?

For some cirticism of the article you can look at this piece that astutely points out many the technical flaws with the NY Times piece's premise, but the post also regretably looses sight of the larger issues raised in the piece for the Times' larger audience.

Our Finacial Times

It is oddly fitting that I would choose to write my first post (and link) to a Michael Lewis article. He has been my favorite author for quite some time mostly, I think, because he lives in a space with his material where he knows the fundamental absurdity of the topics he writes about, and yet doesn't shy away from conveying (what seems to be) a genuine feeling their importance all the same.

He is the best writer on money anywhere that I have read and it would be worth you while to read this one too. If you haven't read the SEC report that he refers to about the Madoff mess, you can find it online. It is well worth a read to find out how obtuse the SEC must have been to ignore Madoff for so long.

Welcome to my world.