Italy is waking up to Facebook and I hate it

Well I left Sicily for a reason, I don't call my primary school mates for a reason, and it really pisses me off receiving those stupid messages as Hi- do you remember me? oh! do you live in London ? but is it you? we were at primary/secondary ( delete as appropriate) I'm now married, I have kids and I'm still studying at Uni.

Well yes, that's my picture, no I don't look like that in normal life, but there is no point of putting an ugly picture of me on my profile. yes it's me, yes I live in London, I have a job I'm about to lose and I'm as unhappy as I was then and to add to it, I even complicated my life adding a couple of twists here and there to unsettle my mind even more.

Investment banking in a nutshell.. The more Starbucks the more your country is fuked

My colleague gets fired, the other steals the Nurofen from his drawer as soon as he's out of the door...
Charming...

Very interesting article... or at least it proves that people can find analogies and correlations for almost anything

Remember Thomas Friedman's McDonald's theory of international relations? The thinking was that if two countries had evolved into prosperous, mass-consumer societies, with middle classes able to afford Big Macs, they would generally find peaceful means of adjudicating disputes. They'd sit down over a Happy Meal to resolve issues rather than use mortars. The recent unpleasantries between Israel and Lebanon, which both have McDonald's operations (here and here, respectively) put an end to that reasoning. But the Golden Arches theory of realpolitick was good while it lasted.

In the same spirit, I propose the Starbucks Theory of International Economics. The higher the concentration of expensive, nautical-themed faux-Italian branded frappuccino joints in a country's financial capital, the more likely the country is to have suffered catastrophic financial losses.

It may sound doppio, but work with me. This recent crisis has its roots in the unhappy coupling of a frenzied nationwide real-estate market, centered in California, Las Vegas and Florida, and a nationwide credit mania, centered in New York. If you could pick one brand name that personified these twin bubbles, it was Starbucks. The Seattle-based coffee chain followed new housing developments into the suburbs and exurbs, where its outlets became pitstops for real-estate brokers and their clients. It also carpet-bombed the business districts of large cities, especially the financial centers, with nearly 200 in Manhattan alone. Starbucks's frothy treats provided the fuel for the boom, the caffeine that enabled deal jockeys to stay up all hours putting together offering papers for CDOs, and helped mortgage brokers work overtime processing dubious loan documents. Starbucks strategically located many of its outlets on the ground floors of big investment banks. (The one around the corner from the former Bear Stearns headquarters has already closed).Like American financial capitalism, Starbucks, fueled by the capital markets, took a great idea too far (quality coffee for Starbucks, securitization for Wall Street) and diluted the experience unnecessarily (subprime food such as egg-and-sausage sandwiches for Starbucks, subprime loans for Wall Street). Like so many sadder-but-wiser Miami condo developers, Starbucks operated on a "build it and they will come" philosophy. Like many of the humiliated Wall Street firms, the coffee company let algorithms and number-crunching get the better of sound judgment: if the waiting time at one Starbucks was over a certain number of minutes, Starbucks reasoned that an opposite corner could sustain a new outlet. Like the housing market, Starbucks peaked in the spring of 2006 and has since fallen precipitously.

America's financial crisis has gone global in the past month. European and Asian governments, which until recently were rejoicing over America's financial downfall, have had to nationalize banks and expand depositors' insurance. Why? Many of their banks feasted on American subprime debt and took shoddy risk-management cues from their American cousins. Indeed, the countries whose financial sectors were most connected to the U.S.-dominated global financial system, the ones whose financial institutions plunged into CDOs, credit default swaps, and the whole catalog of horribles, have suffered the most.

What does this have to do with the price of coffee? Well, when you start poking around Starbucks's international store locator, some interesting patterns emerge. At first blush, there's a pretty close correlation between a country having a significant Starbucks presence, especially in its financial capital, and major financial cock-ups, from Australia (big blow ups in finance, hedge funds and asset-management companies; 23 stores) to the United Kingdom (nationalization of the nation's largest banks). In many ways, London in recent years has been a more concentrated version of New York—the wellspring of many toxic innovations, a hedge-fund haven. It sports 256 Starbucks. In Spain, which is now grappling with the bursting of a speculative coastal real-estate bubble (sound familiar?), the financial capital, Madrid, has 48 outlets. In crazy Dubai, 48 Starbucks outlets serve a population of 1.4 million. And so on: South Korea, which is bailing outs its banks big time, has 253; Paris, the locus of several embarrassing debacles, has 35.

if you want to keep reading

Propose career change ideas

So far I have

Olive picking and looking after Maremma

Apple pie making ( maybe I could expand the business and go into apple smoothies) 

Suggestions please... 

It's here, it's now... The new MACBOOK Pro

yay

See here

Back at work: my rage is in full swing

CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE FIND ME A JOB? 

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASE

and no I don't want to move to Geneva or to Singapore or to China

London

Why does everybody complain if I remove them from my distribution list, but nobody ever ever is willing to help me. 

because I'm not diplomatic.. Fuck that.. Diplomacy doesn't tell you what moves the market

I do...

pww

Generation X

Hello me again... long time..
managed to pack in quite a bit of activities since I last wrote.
Wednesday saw A, his first visit since his move to Milan ( about a week earlier)
Met the community at this new( to me) place in the hood, where the chef apparently cooks food only produced within the M25 ( my taste buds were disappointed and my stomach upset)
Anyhow Thursday wake up at 4 to live from Milan the market crash. Highlights were
theatrical show imitating me the Sicilian ( starred by 10 of my clients)
me falling asleep dressed in my hotel room
lunch cut short by Bank of Italy asking funds for liquidity
me arriving 1 hour earlier at client appointment ( due to abuse of alcohol the night before)
Friday- surprise arrival at Gina's. She was so delighted, she cried.
Lasagne from Pina were awaiting.
Morning after, shirts were already washed dried ironed and folded and stored in plastic sleeves.
A cake was immediately baked in my honour by neighbour, dinner invitations proposed already 7. Consider I arrived at 10.30 pm and this was only 10 am.
Only had 1 hour for shopping in my favourite shop, still managed to grab few things. Also discovered that the nice lady from the shop dumped the husband to " rumour in the street say" engage in a lesbian relationship with one of her shop assistants... Thrilling...
so...
Anyway it's now Monday, the world is a safer place and I'm back in London and once again need to unpack and tidy up.. this seems to be a neverending job. Why do I spend half of my life tidying up and my flat looks always like a bomb exploded, it's always beyond me.

On the flight back I was reading an interesting article about Generation X, basically me.. well.. and the majority of people I know.
We are basically defined as a generation that loves organic, has divorced parents, it's sad and doesn't have sex.
Let's start with the study about sex, because you know, this is a subject I have particularly at heart.

For the baby-boomer generation, sexual opportunity was opened up by the pill. Those born after 1985 are rediscovering sex as sport largely because of the internet. But, according to Edward Laumann, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, the emergence of Aids and the divorce boom gave Generation X insecure emotions and more restricted sex lives.“There was a backlash against their parents’ attitudes, a crisis of confidence,” said Laumann, author of The Social Organisation of Sexuality, a college text-book in America. His study, based on thousands of interviews, is expected to be released next year. “It’s clear that, while Generation X has sex, obviously, it’s probably not as much or as varied in styles as their parents or today’s teenagers and students,” he said. ( can somebody please find me the varied styles previous generation used to entertain with??) . According to Laumann’s preliminary findings, about 30% of Generation X-ers have distinctly different sexual habits from their parents or today’s Generation Y; they have “substantially” fewer partners and reject adultery.

I know feel a saint.

Gen X-ers are those born between 1964 and 1980 and they can be divided into 3 main categories:

Cruisers here are those fun-loving free spirits who relish in living outside of the mainstream, like their '90s-era TV heroes. They revere Nelson Mandela, abhor McDonald's and the Pope, and have a predilection for urban, independent and specialist brands. And it looks as if Cruisers are still trying to relive the glory days. They like partying and casual relationships and, the study found, only 34% of respondents who fit into this category are happier now than they were at 18.

Nesters are those who delight in a cozy life filled with a smaller group of friends than the Cruisers, and are focused on chic home furnishings, design and fashion. They like aspirational brands and lionize Madonna, Audrey Hepburn and ET.

Super-breeders are the ones who honestly believe that their children will change the world, and for such reasons, go to extreme odds to protect their loveables from perceived threats (such as sugar and TV). They're also the ones always talking about all things "green," "organic" and "sustainable." They want brands that live up to their ideals of a perfect world. ( I know a couple of these... but they have not bred yet! )

I must say, no idea which one I fit into, maybe the cruisers... ( more in another meaning) because you see despite I'm not happier than I was at 18 ( or for that matter at 4) and I like Spiderman and don't really live outside of the mainstream ( I'm actually drawn in it).

oh well I'm back.. and you must be happy I have only mentioned briefly the financial crisis ( even if this weekend will remain in history.. but you get bored of it).

A couple of days have passed

well.. it's late.. but I thought I update you on the latest couple of days. In maybe sort of chronological order since Friday:

Broke my front tooth.. again.. while at work... they say that banking is not dangerous.. And no.. don't worry didn't end up in a work fight, was eating a chip while typing ( maybe was the punishment for me getting more and more similar to an arancino) and answering phone and all the rest, and half tooth just broke...
Panic, dentist, £45 later, superattack applied and 10 minutes later I'm back at the desk. I clearly chose the wrong career
Game night where I got absolutely drank playing some advanced model of pictionary with etch a sketch or itchy sketchy as I refer to, and trivial pursuit.. and blablabla... you know that apparently scrabble is back in fashion and the latest frenzy after sudoku it's online scrabble.. mind you still a better game than using numbers like chickens and making feel people as if they are learning math.
oh well...
Saturday was moving day, M found a flat.. it's sad, not the flat, but that it means going back to the sporadic time together.

60 boxes later, from storage to van from van to 2nd floor, Wish was awaiting. superhero night.
Very cool people like usual. Wow 10£ can buy jumping of toilet queue and 2 people in the cubicle.... credit crunch... well
Sunday didn't leave the sofa really. H came by with IM and we watched the X factor, playing a bit with the arieal, as thunderstorm had really eliminated digital images, on guess exactly which channel..
Monday... back at work.. another massive fall in stock, new record since 1987, soon will exchange COD for Euros instead ISK and there you go...
Hamleys ,the floral shops ( i.e Monsoon, Oasis et similar) Iceland ( the frozen peas shop) Harvey Nick, West Ham football club, House of Fraser and 250k savers...just in the UK.. Yes, because Iceland, was a great country model, small, ticking along, a success, well till ....
this week... This week proved globalisation wrong, because makes the world more prone to systemic risk, it's like promiscuity really but at market level.
or all started way before when the greedy decided.. oh well Iceland is small, let's destroy it, a bit like Risk.. but takes time and you start with the small ones.. I mean notice that choosing S. Marino or Lietchestein ( or that is the artist... nevermind, you got it) it would have been a bit ridiculous, the Vatican, would have been unfair, after the Pope today said the only solution is praying, also he's runnyin a bible reading marathon, people in turn read a page of the bible... apparently it takes 2 weeks.. It was unclear to me if they stayed awake for 2 weeks or what? F must know the answer, I wouldn't be surprised if she was joining in for a page or two with a thermos of broth.
I also received a message on facebook from my desk mate in secondary school.
Married with kid. I pressed delete. Couldn't cope with the hi how are you what are you doing now. .......and bla....
Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllll can you reply to my texts. It's two weekends that I try to invite you to cool places and you never answer.
Roll the dice.. Let's see whose round is next in the world demolition.
Yes it was boring I know... try to do better next time, not in the mood today... but found a cool cheery picture for your amusement.

Wanna play BUSH saving the DOW?

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