Of vice and men
Taki
Gstaad There’s fear and loathing around here, and it has nothing to do with lousy snow conditions. Fear that UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, is in trouble, loathing for those whose greed brought this about. ‘Reckless’ is now a synonym for ‘banker’ as the financial system teeters on the brink. UBS has denied it is in trouble, but then so did Bear Stearns just before it collapsed. In other words, there is a credibility problem, one that dwarfs Fayed and the Mills woman put together. Asset write-downs and credit losses will continue, according to the greatest financial expert of our times, Professor Taki, OBE, MBE, UBS, JPM, and job cuts and asset sales are a given, always according to the professor.
So what else is new? Bear Stearns is roughly 30 per cent owned by its staff, but it’s the top dogs who brought the place to its knees. A $70-billion company sold for two bucks a share, oy veh! But there’s help on the horizon. Just kidding, of course. Sovereign wealth funds, those state-backed funds flush with oil moolah, are staying away in droves. Foreign investors like this Alwaleed fellow — he’s big in Citigroup — have already seen their investments fall by roughly 38 per cent, so they’re staying away with a vengeance. What does the great financial professor Taki see in his crystal ball? That’s an easy one. More pain, fewer options for the Federal Reserve, overpriced housing becoming underpriced, and, as always, a bailout for the truly greedy. Ah yes, I almost forgot. China, Dubai, Kuwait and other such great democracies will end up owning large chunks of American financial institutions, which means that the next time you see American banking big shots they will be wearing a chequered tablecloth on their heads.
As we all know, human greed has no frontier, but the Bush administration is unique in its ignorance and incompetence. Where were the federal regulators when all this reckless lending was taking place? In Iraq, I suppose, getting kickbacks from Halliburton and Cheney. Incidentally, as I write this, there are 80,000 Sunnis spread all over Iraq who were paid ten dollars per day to fight against al-Qa’eda — the only way we could get anyone to fight on our side — and these 80,000 suckers have not been paid for the past three months or so. Which means they’re turning against us quicker than you can say Halliburton. What I’d like to know is if there are other American contractors who have not been paid. A little birdie tells me no way. Yet Bush insists the corner has been turned and we are about to pronounce victory in Eiraq, as he calls it.
Poor fools that we are. Bush was elected twice, and Blair three times, which means the only good thing Brown has going for him is that he’s unelected. And he is, needless to say, doing a fantastic job. Along with those morons in Parliament. But I’m being a bit rough on morons. The freeloaders in the House of Commons seem not to have paid attention to what’s happening in the money markets — much too busy getting free furniture and taking free trips to exotic places, I suppose. They want more public spending. They remind me of the fat crook Robert Maxwell during his last days. He went throwing money away in a cheap casino. They see belt-tightening the way Heather Mills views a chastity belt. And it gets better. While snarling youths attack an Anglican rector and scream that his church should be a mosque, a liberal research group demands that Britons must do more to help Muslims feel at home. Why not turn the country over to them and be done with it, says poor little me.
These Labour and Liberal MP clowns who insist on more public spending are the equivalent of the Steve Schwarzmans and Henry Kravises of this world. Schwarzman managed to take out close to 8 billion last year, now worth only four billion, but it’s his numerous investors who have been left holding the bag. I once went to his house for dinner, twice, in fact, and noticed not a single book anywhere, and the house is the biggest triplex in the Bagel.
Schwarzman may be illiterate but he can count up to one hundred billion. Hence it is ironic that he pledged $100 million to the New York Library, a place he has not spent much time in except at gala fundraisers. His friend George W. Bush has managed to deracinate 1.5 million Iraqis to Syria, 2 million to Jordan, 3.5 million desperately poor people who could use 100 million greenbacks. Instead, they go to a library which none of Schwarzman’s friends, family or acquaintances ever uses. Go figure. I have. The library will name a wing after this greedy slob, so the next time you’re in the Bagel, make sure you go to the Schwarzman wing and look at some DVDs.
I was in Rome last year, at the Valentino goodbye extravaganza, and saw Steve Schwarzman among the beautiful people. He himself is not very beautiful; in fact, he looks like what he is, a bald and greedy little money-shuffler. What was amazing to me was how many people went up to him in order to kiss his Coriolanus.
Schwarzman is not unpleasant like Henry Kravis, another midget with a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood. Kravis once had an altercation with a writer friend of mine, Billy Norwich, a peaceful soul born Billy Goldberg in Norwich Connecticut. Every time I see Billy, whom I love, I ask him why he changed his name and why he didn’t call for help that night. (I was on the premises.) Billy said that he did the former because he thought it improved his employment prospects in New York. On the latter question, he was not aware that I would loved to have taken on Kravis.
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