I’ll stress caution and checking. Or checking and caution.<\/p>\n
If you already run a business, get on the phone. Call your ex-customers and sell them something. I wish someone would call me, flatter me and sell me something fun.<\/p>\n
If you don’t already own\u00a0 a business, buy one. I’m starting to look at 4 to 8 unit building rentals in nice places.<\/p>\n
I feel wonderful today. Some of my private equity funds recently paid out a few sheckels (after selling some of their investments at a good price — remarkably good for the “lousy” economy).<\/p>\n
Our new little bank is doing so well that it’s about to do a secondary offering. And most of the original stockholders seem to be excited: they’re ponying up.<\/p>\n
Zippy’s house: Why you should buy a house now. <\/strong>My friend Zippy bought his townhouse for $130,000 in September, 2007. He borrowed $120,000 — or 92% — from a local bank. He stopped paying the bank back in April. He still owes the bank $120,000. He’s about to sell the place for $47,650 — 37% of what he paid.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n That 63% drop in the price of his townhouse suggests the buyer got a deal.\u00a0 There are others around.<\/span> The postscript to this story: The bank will pay Zippy as much as $3,000 in “moving expenses” (a bribe not to trash the place and let the sale go through). The bank won’t pursue him for the monies he still owes — approx $72,350, since Zippy doesn’t have a job. <\/span><\/p>\n When he bought the house, he was making $85,000 a year. So, why did the bank feel it necessary to lend him 92% of the purchase price?<\/span><\/p>\n Who knows? They were different times then.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, they were different times. <\/strong><\/span>From today’s New York Times.<\/p>\n Rogue Trader at Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale Gets Jail Term Mr. Kerviel, 33, was also ordered to pay restitution of \u20ac4.9 billion, or $6.7 billion \u2014 the entire amount the bank lost in unwinding his trades in early 2008. …<\/p>\n Caroline Guillaumin, a spokeswoman for Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale, said the damage award was a \u201csymbolic\u201d sum that the bank did not expect would be paid.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it is important, and we are satisfied, because it recognizes that the entirety of the bank\u2019s losses are attributed to J\u00e9r\u00f4me Kerviel\u2019s actions,\u201d she said. …<\/p>\n Mr. Kerviel\u2019s rogue bets \u2014 the largest ever attributed to a single trader \u2014 exposed one of France\u2019s most prestigious financial institutions to risk greater than its own market value and brought it precariously close to collapse.<\/p>\n The unwinding of an estimated \u20ac50 billion in unauthorized open positions on Mr. Kerviel\u2019s trading book in late January 2008 cost Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale \u20ac4.9 billion, the equivalent of about $7 billion at the time.<\/p>\n Mr. Kerviel acknowledged at his trial that he had falsified documents and entered fake trades to hide his activities, but he maintained that his bosses had deliberately turned a blind eye to what he was doing and had tacitly encouraged him as long as it was profitable. ..<\/p>\n During the trial, he described himself as \u201csomeone who tried to do his job the best he could, in the interests of the bank.\u201d He added: \u201cMy objective was to help it make money.\u201d<\/p>\n In a newspaper article last year, he was quoted as saying that he had taken \u201ccrazy risks\u201d for \u201castronomical gains that brought me, sometimes, great joy.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Bouton, the former chief executive and chairman of the bank, has described Mr. Kerviel as \u201ca crook, a fraudster and a terrorist\u201d who acted alone and nearly destroyed the bank.<\/p>\n Mr. Kerviel had been placing bets outside his trading limit for more than two years. The bank has said it booked \u20ac1.4 billion in profit in the fourth quarter of 2007 from his unauthorized dealings.<\/p>\n But when the market turned against him, eight large transactions entered into the bank\u2019s computers in mid-December exposed the bank to \u20ac50 billion in risk. His last and, by far, biggest gamble was discovered Jan. 18, 2008. It was the unwinding of those trades, from Jan. 21 to Jan. 23, that led to the loss of \u20ac4.9 billion.<\/p>\n In the aftermath of the scandal, Mr. Kerviel spent five weeks in pretrial detention and became something of a French folk hero. Much was made of the fact that someone from such a modest background \u2014 his mother was a hairdresser, his late father a metal-shop teacher \u2014 could dupe so many of his bosses, many of them well-bred graduates of France\u2019s best schools.<\/p>\n There’s always a gotcha.<\/strong>This is the cabinet some moron designed for the kitchen of the house we built several years ago. Notice the microwave oven space with absolutely no ventilation. To Wolf’s credit (Wolf made the oven), the microwave lasted three years before the lack of ventilation and the overheating finally killed it. We replaced the $500 Wolf with a $149 GE\u00a0 — thank you Lowe’s. And it fitted perfectly (once we’d removed three sticking-out screws holding the top). But no ventilation. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Susan’s brilliant solution. Cut a hole in the left wall where the oven vents; drill some holes at the top of the cabinet. That way we have created a vent. We were lucky.<\/span> There’s a moral to this story. But it’s the same old one — CHECK, CHECK. CHECK. Why would anyone\u00a0 put a microwave oven in a completely confined, unventilated space? Clearly, because it looks good. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And by the time it blows up, they’ll be long gone. But you’re still be living there. Tough. <\/span> Four favorite cartoons from this week’s New Yorker. <\/strong>They’re wonderfully sick.<\/span>
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\n<\/strong>PARIS \u2014 J\u00e9r\u00f4me Kerviel, the former Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale trader whose rogue dealings almost brought about the French bank\u2019s demise, was convicted of breach of trust and other crimes Tuesday and sentenced to at least three years in prison.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/MicrowaveOven.jpg\" "\\"MicrowaveOven\\"")
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