Alliteration in the old style, helpful for new adventures (from Investopedia):

1. Swallow your pride (pay cut)
2. Hone your skills before you make the jump (learn it)
3. Be honest with your current boss (be direct)
4. Find a mentor (senior rope-shower)
5. Don’t sell yourself short (not that big a pay cut)
6. Clear your schedule (ready the grindstone)

22h47, Manila

The question seemed simple enough.

US automakers got some money from the government, and in return, had to break its own limbs and cut off its own head(s). Banks got heaps, heaps more, and most of them still have their heads. The foxes are still guarding the hen house. Why the discrimination?

The answer? Not quite as simple.

What it seemed to boil down to, after Madame Chairman sifted through the Secretary’s words like “what we inherited” and “quickly” and “decisions” (according my vague impression and memory), was: timing.

So what does that mean? We (or our predecessors?) didn’t really know what we (they?) were doing? Or does this speak to something about that state capture we heard whispered on the wind?

Not sure. Maybe a bit of many things…

Watching as a complete outsider, this is probably how I’d score it (IMHO) after watching the first five minutes:

Warren 1 – 0 Geithner

Poor Tim. Wouldn’t want to be him right now. Or anytime soon.

***

Elizabeth Warren served some “financial chicken soup” a few days ago on the Daly Show – here is her fantastic chat with Jon.

The history of financial crises and regulatory response in the US, in a nutshell, according to Elizabeth Warren, as interpreted by me:

• Start in 1789. We boom-bust every 15 years for a couple of hundred years. 
• Great Depression comes and we learn – and we regulate (3 biggies – FDIC, Glass-Steagall, SEC regulations)
• 50 years later, we start “pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric”. What do we get? We get S&L. Then LTCM. Then Enron… 
• “And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the thread out of the regulatory fabric”.

What do you call “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? Not sure whether to quote Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein or Sandra Bullock on that one, but I’m pretty sure we all know the answer…

For the financial chicken soup, watch the clip. Great stuff.

***

23h28, Manila [Bloomberg.com]

Vaguely tuning back in – there was an argument , and a Committee member just mistook Tim for an investment banker.

Sitting behind Mr. Geithner is a man (woman?) surreptitiously yet boldly holding up a fuchsia bit of construction paper. You can make out what it says in black marker, though:

Where’s … $$$?

That’s the 64 thousand dollar question… million dollar question … er…

Trillion dollar question???  (Write-down, bail-out, size of XX unregulated market – these days you can pretty much take your pick.)

***

UPDATE

23h51, Manila

Europe equities recover some of the day’s losses on Geithner’s revelation that “the vast majority” of US banks have more capital than they need, and that there is “thawing” in the credit markets. Close a smidgen higher than yesterday’s close.

Across the Atlantic, equities reverse with techs leading on some takeover news (all-cash hostile!!). Financials on S&P go from laggers to leaders. Meanwhile, curve steepens, 10yr yield rising.

Gold in the red, WTI in the green.

IMF estimates total credit-related losses by next year = USD 4.1 trillion (USD 2.7 trillion by banks)

***

Markets like what Tim said. Very good. But what about accountability? Exit strategy? Longer-term implications of all of this? Lots to stop to think about, but things are moving quickly…

Re: “The Quiet Coup” by Simon Johnson published in the May 2009 edition of The Atlantic [thanks, PPG]

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? ‘Tis state capture, and apparently, the US is the epitome of the highest, most sophisticated form of this situation. Johnson brings to ultraviolet exposure the malaise that haunts the US political economic system – one that we had hitherto thought was solely in the realm of the emerging market economy.

The state is captured by violence (crudest political system), money (emerging market economies), and lobbying (more developed systems) in less evolved forms. The US state, however is captured by an entire worldview: one where utopia is populated by “large financial systems and free-flowing capital”.

This makes sense – and how was this uncovered? Through a change in perspective.

Talk about Gramscian hegemony. While the capitalist West and “knowledge” multilateral institutions were busy doublespeaking to the lands that oligarchs called home, they did not notice the oligarchs amassing in their own back yard – legitimized through neo-classical economic theory and intertwined like ivy leaves into the trellis of the system through that porous membrane between corporate desks and public bureaus.

I wonder what John Gray has to say about all this.

After taking a tipple of the sweet nectar of macros on MS Excel here and there over the years, I decided a few months ago to go right ahead and take the plunge – use the rudimentary skills I learned making a reset button on my Imperia Excel sheet (set six cells equal to zero) at The Workplace.

This unleashed a Beast of frenzied, jerky self-teaching of VB for Excel. Getting right into it without a clue, I basically did this by recording macros, going into the code and copy-pasting all over the place. I recorded a copy, recorded a select-all, and pasted them into another macro I recorded to create one single macro. Then, I copy-pasted this main macro 12 times to do it every month for the entire year. I did what I needed to do, and got practical results.

No, I know that this is NOT the most efficient way to go about it. It’s like taking a club to the computer. And the code was the opposite of sexy.

Have made progress since those first few attempts, am more familiar with the code and have taken to consulting a book about it. There is an entire universe of things to learn still.

Perhaps I should learn loops next… Yes, I’ll do that soon as I’ve got the time… In the meantime, copy-pasting January – December will do just fine.

Serendipitously, I found this article this morning emailed to me by BNET on potential reasons why women don’t make it to “the C-suite”.

Here is the source from INSEAD Knowledge.

And another story – about a young woman making waves.

What prize, then, of an MBA?

Regardless of whether social entrepreneurs want to work for a nonprofit or for-profit, they need a “deep understanding of management principles as they apply across sectors and the globe,” says Tony Sheldon, executive director of the Program on Social Enterprise at Yale’s School of Management. In addition, the current economy demands MBAs with strong backgrounds in results measurement, performance management, financial models, capital markets, strategic planning, and savvy resource allocation. Experience interning or volunteering in a specific social sector doesn’t hurt either.

[From BNET.]

Basically, know everything and dip your toes in the non-profit business.

All set!

What I learned today:

1. The new BBG functions. Was still using the club (i.e. =blpsh etc.). Must know more.
2. If USD/PHP, appr/depr USD is (2-1)/1
3. If USD/PHP, appr/depr PHP is (1-2)/2

On the Fed’s unprecedented moves – http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12674961

On Thailand’s political woes – http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12674562

and democracy in Thailand and the Philippines – http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/asiaview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12672673

On xenophobic matters – http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12674895

and the income-education disparity in the world – http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12672414

Obama, the first African-American president of the United States of America. 5 November 2008, a historic date. True, aren’t all dates historic.

Meanwhile, here’s what the IMF had to say about the Philippines after its recent visit.

If only to keep some sort of record of this here…

September 2008 was bad, but… October 2008 has been a regular bloodbath so far. Records have been set all over the place, down and up. Unprecedented government intervention on a global scale is being undertaken.

We always think it’s the end of history, don’t we? But something comes back up and proves us wrong. Every time. I wonder when we’ll learn. If.

I wonder what’s going to happen.

More importantly, I wonder where to be positioned for when we get out of this Thing (as we will, eventually).

Onward and upward!