Category: Humanity

Yet Another Book Review: The Official Filthy Rich Handbook

I like a book that starts out in the following way:

Remember when having a couple of million dollars meant something?  Neither do we.

Thus begins The Official Filthy Rich Handbook (How the other .0001% lives), by Christopher Tennant.  Very few of us have been in the position of having to decide which island to buy, or how to throw an over-the-top society party.  And with the economy in the dumper, fewer of us are likely to get there any time soon, but when we do, this is the book to have.  It includes all sorts of fun directories, like private clubs, personal travel management, and realtors.  While not every restaurant mentioned is out of reach of us mere mortals- I have been to Il Fornaio often, and it is very affordable to working people – certainly I look forward to the day when I get to decorate my first private jet.  Did you know that Tom Cruise has a hot tub in his?  Talk about physics challenges.

Perhaps the best way to describe this book is to borrow from Tom Wolfe who has a splash on the back cover:

Reading this handbook is like eating 12 baked Alaskas in a row…

Ah glutony!  Those looking for charity should look elsewhere.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009, Everyone!  We brought in the new year with coverage of Times Square by NBC.  After having mentioned in a previous post how we would have a leap second this year, NBC in fact brought it up, and then didn’t show the clock going to 23:59:60.  Booo!!!

I wish you and yours a much happier and a healthy 2009!  Many changes are coming to all of our lives.  There will be a new administration in the White House, and with it new priorities, and perhaps a new discussion about how we can all make our lives better.

Maybe we will also see new inventions, and the rise of new artists.  We will see the new Harry Potter movie, with any luck.  And we’ll see new places.  Although who knows where, just yet.

In Memory: Malvina Douglas

My great aunt died yesterday at 1:00am localtime.  Born Malvina Simon, my aunt Mal was a force to be reckoned with.  A brilliant woman, she met her husband Kenneth at the University of Chicago, and it was love at first sight. He was a well regarded translator of books and poetry critic.

They married relatively late in life, and did not have chidren.  This turned out to be somewhat fortunate, as he was killed in a freak accident, when a curtain rod fell from an apartment in New York City, where they lived.  Even more freakish, the curtain rod belonged to former governor Averell Hariman.  (On that same day, my younger sister was running a high temperature, and my next door neighbor had just broken my brother’s arm.  It was a truly freakish day.)

My aunt settled into a 5th avenue apartment on Museum Mile, after having convalesced at the home of friends in England.  In a way, tragedy followed her life.  In the early 1980s, her younger brother had a stroke, and it fell to her to manage his care.  Even in this a story can be told.  Malvina found a caregiver who was remarkable, and dealt with my great uncle’s every need.  This woman, Priscilla, passed away from a long illness on the same day her charge died.

She too suffered from ailments.  Her life was probably shortened by contaminated drug packaging.  But even then she took the time to write about her brother and Priscilla.

Malvina is survived by a three nephews, a niece, two great nephews, two great nieces, and her older brother, my grandfather.

We will all miss her.

What the heck is a target price?

You often hear analysts say that they have a particular target price for a stock or a commodity.  That means that in their heads they expect the value of that thing to hit that price over a certain period of time.  But now we have OPEC saying that they have a target price of $75 per barrel of oil.

YEAH RIGHT.

One of two things is the case here.  Either OPEC has no price control, or they are simply lying, and they really just want the price as high as it will go, as it did go in the summer.  I tend to think both.  For one thing, the statement may be a sap to Iran and Venezuela, who have been publicly pushing for a cut in order to get prices back up to stabilize their own oil-based economies.

What seems to have happened with oil is that the speculators had their day both ways.  First they drove the price up, and then they drove it down.  They were helped a little bit by demand having first climbed, and then fallen. Once prices were clearly dropping, they piled on and just drove them down further.

So where is OPEC’s role in setting the price?  How many millions of barrels will they have to cut in order to have a significant impact on prices?  The general economic answer would be that they would have to stop supplying the world with enough oil to meet current demand, a shrinking target, as we speak.

So why have prices stablized at $50 or so?  Who can say?  Perhaps traders believe that demand has leveled off and is now stable.  Perhaps there is simply a consensus view as to what production and the econony will be 90 days from now, and it is reflected in that price.

Two things have happened this weekend that should make Monday trading very interesting.  First, Black Friday has come and gone.  This will give some indication as to the state of U.S. retail, and hence a good portion of the economy.  Second, OPEC has said that they will not cut current production levels.

If Black Friday turns out to have run red, then we may well see yet a larger drop in demand, based on lower production.  Butt his depends on whether or not producers have already anticipated a miserable Christmas season.  Even so, Monday will be very interesting.  When you see reports about this weekend’s retail sales, think of oil.