Here comes Santa

Jim, Ian in Santa hat, Regina, Frank and Sue from Seattle, Lynne, Bill, Ray, Edgar, Glenn, Bob, Jeanette, Steve L, Andy
Dec 15

A big hello to all my loyal (and the disloyal) readers after two weeks' absence: will we ever find out what happened on those two Missing Mondays?
And apologies for filing slightly late, but I've had a code in de doze. I can't tell you what it does to my keyboard...
It was great to see Andy back after a long absence, as opinionated as ever. Ian wore a bright red Santa hat with white trim, but as far as I know no one referred to it. Don't worry, Ian, we did see it and appreciate the seasonal gesture.

As our gathering prides itself on being up to the minute, the evening would not have been complete without theories from both ends of the table as to how Bernie Madoff got away with it for so long.
Jim came up with the idea of the Golden Child, in that people believe in and act upon improbable things because they believe in their gut that they are exceptional in some cosmic way.
He explained: 'It goes back to our infancy when large beings shower us with love and attention all the time. The odds of winning the lottery may be greater than being struck by lightning, but that little internal golden child assumes that it will buck the odds--because it deserves to. A guy will believe in a God "whose eye is on the sparrow," i.e., omniscient, because his internal golden child assumes that he is being watched and looked after. Ditto for UFOs. Sure, you're a hillbilly with an eighth-grade education living in Bumfuck, W.Va., but when that superior intelligence flies 50 light years to Earth, is it going to land in front of the White House? Of course not, It will hide in the boonies, despite its superior technology, and contact only some hillbilly in a rowboat. Only a golden child could believe that scenario.'
I prefer the notion of the golden father figure, which Madoff fits, all-seeing, all-knowing, promises to take care of you and see you right. As there is more than a hint of insider trading about his remarkable investment returns, there may be something in that on this occasion. He also played around with options on the shares he bought, which is enough to make the most hardened stock market analyst glaze over.
At the kitchen end of the table, Steve had no doubts: it was thoroughly justified punishment for greed, and of course he's right up to a point.
Madoff had the aura of the charmed circle about him, and existing clients only had to drop hints over the dinner table about this guy's magical abilities and everyone else wanted to get in - the classic pyramid or Ponzi scam.
Lots of people are staggeringly naive, taking too much on trust, at the same time regarding investment as a cross between boring and incomprehensible, so there is an overwhelming temptation to trust someone who seems to know what they're doing. Big mistake.
I also suspect that the whole thing got too much for Madoff. Every successful fund manager knows that feeling, when his or her fund gets too big to be able to nip in and out of promising situations without the rest of the market knowing what you are doing. Some funds have even turned away investors for that reason. I think it got too much for Madoff and he didn't want to admit it.
Happily, though, no one at Conrads was admitting to having any money with the old rogue.
The chat turned to TV quiz shows, started by Ian telling the old joke 'I've started so I'll finish.' It was a catchphrase of Magnus Magnusson, an Icelander who used to host a pretentious UK quiz called Mastermind. Contestants got two minutes to answer general knowledge questions, and another two minutes on a subject of their choice. If Magnusson was in the middle of asking a question when the two-min buzzer sounded, he would sonorously declare: 'I've started so I'll finish.' This gave rise to ribald jokes about him having sex with his wife when the phone goes. Fill in the blanks for yourself.
America led the way with quiz shows in the 1950s, partly because the powers that be imposed a limit on the top prize UK TV stations could offer - something pathetic like 1,000 pounds, while the 64,000 Question was handing out exactly that, $64,000. Eventually the UK limit was seen to be absurd and was abolished. Then, ironically, British independent producers started inventing shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? that were franchised round the world
Bob, Steve and, yes, I took great delight in recounting the sufferings of Sam Zell now that he has had to get Tribune Company to file for bankruptcy, including the LA Times. So that is probably the end of Zell's grand scheme to get his hands on $8 billion of assets for $300 million.
Trouble was, he wouldn't sell the LA Times when there were buyers because he thought he was going to make a fortune out of it, and now he can't sell it for anything like what he regards as a tolerable price.
Meanwhile, as Steve pointed out, Zell sits in a vast Malibu spread that he has carefully kept well away from his newspaper business, what there is left of it.


CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I got 4 cats and no pension
You're here to sing: why else do you think we invited you?
There's not enough people on the council to vote for anything - it's totally corrupt
My entire life I've been ruled by women. I like it that way