The Smalrus Web Site

i’ve finally got clearance on the FIN 700 global finance seminar in london.  it’s taking place may 9-23 at the london school of economics and the list of presenting speaker visitations is tba.  however, past visitations included kkr, goldman sachs, financial times, economist intelligence unit, canary wharf, jpmorgan chase emerging markets, barclay’s and more… as of now, i am flying out of newark airport at 310 on may 8, changing in charlotte, nc, and arriving at gatwick airport at 830 on may 9.  the final exam is on the morning of may 24, but my return to the states is on may 24 at 1030am from gatwick to charlotte and arriving at newark at 550pm.

in other news, as i have been touting for the past month, i’m anticipating my premiere thesis posting in the next couple of days.  i’m currently reading 5 books at a time (so that way the ideas are posed to me non sequitur, allowing me more opportunity to synthesize ideas.  as ive been reading (so far i estimate about 4-500 pages), i have identified three different subjects i would like to comment on and open up to any readers for discussion. keep reading…

moe.
The Conch
[Fatboy; 2007]
Rating: 8/10

i recently got the new studio release from moe.: the conch

it’s a rather interesting release, using bits and pieces from both studio works and two nights of live shows from portland, me. that makes me a little perplexed. apparently they tried the technique on their last studio release, 2003′s wormwood, however they really didn’t capture everything the way they wanted to until this release.

im not perplexed in a negative way, on the contrary, im really curious as to how they integrated live elements and studio elements into a single recording. i grasp the concept of wanting to capture the raw energy and power of a live recording, and for a long time, bands have always wanted to showcase this interesting dynamic to their audiences. at the same time, there is a polished, familiarity that exists in the studio recording as we know it. we defer to a series of sounds that are now replicable in the modern live performance, sounds that were apparently only illiciting a creative environment in the studio.

and yet, the live show has always forced bands to be more creative and for moe.’s genre of music, the art of improvisation is showcased heavily, serving to stoke the fire of creative genius. to meld the two atmospheres into one recording is truly a feat that should be followed by more bands in the future. i shutter to think of what some of these pre-fabricated bands these days would truly come up with if forced to produce on the basis of the live show.

im always kind of interested in who’s visiting my website.  since i switched to wordpress, i installed a new stats manager, firestats on the new pages. firestats offers a few different sorts of things that i really wasnt used to looking for, particularly since the stats are integrated into the wordpress dashboard.

so ive noticed a couple of repeat visits coming from france, a couple from the netherlands, a couple from chile, one guy in belgium from his psp, even japan, romania, korea, and taiwan.  and of course theres the stats like 5.6% of visitors use linux, 0.3% use debian, 19.2% use firefox to browse and 3.5% use konqueror.

so if youre surfing through, feel free to drop a comment and let me know where you’re at and what you think, im interested in dialoguing…

now that the presidential race for 2008 has opened up, i thought id weigh in with my own thoughts. first of all, this past weekend has hearkened us with the news of exploratory committees formed by hillary clinton and barack obama, the two front-runners for the democratic party. the rest of the field is distinguished among chris dodd, john edwards, mike gravel, dennis kucinich, tom vilsack, joe biden, and bill richardson.

if i may… there has been a lot of discussion this time around of first and second-tier candidates – those who are in the election to present a balanced approach to the creation of party platforms as opposed to those who actually stand a substantial chance of winning the elections (let alone any sort of showing in the state primaries).

quite obviously, obama and clinton are the first-tiered candidates for the democrats. as i see it, obama stands the best chance of winning a general election. not only is he a smart man who was not in office to be criticized for involvement with the iraq war, but he holds massive ‘electibility’ (see: buzzword of the campaign) among red state and other republican voters. they see him as a pragmatic democrat who is above the insider politics of mrs. clinton. obama is oft quoted as being charismatic, but the charisma transcends the usual party politics and is, in fact, merely an extension of his personal intellect. (more…)

as many newspapers and magazines are headed toward premium memberships, there is no doubt that the links i post here to articles from papers and magazines that i receive may not work in the future without subscription.

i read an interesting editorial in the financial times today by peter haass, president of the council on foreign relations.  in essence, mr haass analogized foreign policy to financial portfolios, and asked of us to perform our annual assessment of our portfolio.  mr haaas claims that as an investment, the war in iraq cannot be completely abandoned, or else we sell that part of our portfolio with a loss instead of breaking even.  from a portfolio management standpoint, he claims that president bush has done exactly what most fund managers would do.  however mr haass’ prescription for our foreign portfolio in the upcoming year is to reduce our investment in iraq and eventually diversify the portfolio to include greater investment in iran and north korea.

i find this to be an interesting analogy for haass to make, given the fact that president bush has an mba and a lot of pundits tend to agree that he manages the country like a business manager, rather than a politician.  as such, it would seem reasonable or feasible that president bush’s actions may carry out in such an fashion.  from a financial perspective, a manager who is facing greater losses will choose to wait until the losses even out, before accepting such a divestment of funds.  in addition, the manager would also want to make sure there still remains enough capital to invest in such other funds.

from a political standpoint, this doesnt seem to be overly acceptable however, as we do not equate the cost of human life the same as we do monetary figures.  kenny rogers once said “you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em” and to that extent, there is even some financial truth to that.  knowing when to cut your losses is a crucial element to the political game in washington and the 2006 elections seemed to lock in that reality. finance isnt politics but in the approach to running a country, the analogies can easily become relevant, as evidenced by mr haass.  the faster mr bush is willing to accept these strategies, the faster the united states will find itself back on a more solid foreign policy track.