They're Gonna Need to Outsource

Tough times, hard decisions. « The Jason Calacanis Weblog

While I anticipated and prepared for the ‘internet winter’ we’re now facing (you’ve read my posts and e-mails about the startup depression I’m sure), I failed to realize how bad the situation would get. It’s much worse than I thought it would be, and ignoring market conditions today would only mean deeper cuts down the road.

Tuff times ahead for startups. I suggest find small smart teams to outsource to. And I hear there's a new firm in town. ;-)

Secular Saviors

This post from Don Boudreaux makes me wonder how many atheists hold BigGovernment ideas. Personally, I'm willing to live without a belief in God or salvation by man.

Cafe Hayek: It's a Difficult Job Saving Society

And yet, so many people -- so many decent people -- believe in (or at least crave, child-like) secular salvation through secular saviors. It's no surprise, then, that persons unashamed to act deceitfully and disingenuously crawl out from under their rocks to pose as saviors.

Buenos Aires has a tradition of technology innovation...

Scioli - apparently suffering from the reality-distorting effects of telepresence - thinks BA is a technological innovator.

PRdomain.com | Cisco Systems | Governor of Buenos Aires and John Chambers Discuss Socio- economic Development over Cisco TelePresence

Buenos Aires Province Governor and J. Chambers
The leaders also discussed the impact of globalization and the fundamental role that network technologies can play in helping enable people from different geographies around the world to collaborate and work together.

"The province of Buenos Aires has a tradition of technology innovation, and today we have the largest connected government network in Argentina. Technology is a key aspect in my management as a facilitator to achieve an efficient and collaborative government with the response capacity to satisfy citizens' needs," Scioli said.

Coping With The Market Meltdown

I was just telling Julia that I plan to spend the summer with an ice bucket cap on my head like Brando in the Island of Dr. Moreau, when she suggest that:

Maybe we need one of these to ease our anxiety about the stock market : http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26974105/

Fake babies ease women's anxiety, sadness - Getting Personal - TODAYshow.com

It’s typical to think something is weird or creepy when it’s unknown, far from the norm, or common only to a different culture.

But there are cases when it is quite understandable for someone struggling with feelings of loss — possibly an empty-nester, a childless woman, or someone who has lost a baby — to fill the void with a realistic doll baby.

Okay. That's it. I'm getting a midget.

The Importance of Being Eton

Hitchens has a new piece on Eton.

The Eton Empire: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

The Etonian system is not designed to turn out a uniform product, in other words. “It also has one great virtue,” wrote the austere egalitarian George Orwell in 1948, “and that is a tolerant and civilized atmosphere which gives each boy a chance of developing a fair individuality.” Boys have their own rooms rather than sharing. Thus, though John le Carré—who taught there under his real name, David Cornwell—claims to be able to detect an Etonian in a crowded room 80 percent of the time, he told my Etonian friend Nick Fraser (author of The Importance of Being Eton) that the salient characteristic of his pupils was “cool impertinence.… The boys were adult, funny, a little removed from life even as they evolved effortlessly into the shrewdest operators. They were at once innocent and worldly.” This cultivated affect dovetails perfectly with the Niven-ish image of the deceptively polite and modest Englishman, outwardly unflappable and possessed of steely inward ruthlessness.

So, like... I attended the anti-eaton and turned out as you'd expect. Oh, well.

Burn The Speculators

Linsey McGoey: Marx is dead: don't resuscitate him | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Soros, together with market enthusiasts such as Nassim Nicholas Taleb, have long pointed out predatory behavior such as short-selling is not an aberration. It's the raison d'être of capitalism. "I call them crisis hunters," writes Taleb of those who profit from market volatility. "I am happy to be among them." Taleb wrote this in his bestselling Fooled by Randomness, a book that has become both a bible and an operating guide to many financiers and investors.

What's troubling about this is not the realisation that capitalists profit from speculating about – and therefore generating – the financial combustion of their competitors, but that this is striking so many people as shocking.

Let me get this straight, a financial failure can be created merely by making a bet? WTF?

BA Newbies - Next year in Jerusalem!

Since I didn't get invite to a Rosh Hashanah dinner, I thought I might blog a little something about the trouble being Jewish and an expat in Argentina.

Sometimes posters to BA Newbies can say things that seem insensitive. Like the following post that might be implying the existence of a secret South American banking system for Jews only. But wait, no one really believes that kind of crap do they? No, no. We must remember that not all posters speak English as their native language. So, let's test the waters and see what this person really thinks:

Poster :

There is private banking, among the Jewish community, or you have lot's of money.

Me :

I think I missed the memo. Can you say more about private banking in
the Jewish community?

I had no idea that I'd get a free checking account w/ my circumcision.
Frankly, I'd take a do over. ;-)

What the hell is private banking in the Jewish community? I never got an answer but I did get this:

--- Knock off the stupid comments...


There are predominantly Jewish Banking are there are Muslim Banking.

It's available in Central American & South American. There is a branch

here in NYC.

Oh, this really clears things up, genius.

I should also mention that after I sent this post, I got a private email from someone that seemed to be accusing me of being antisemitic. I suppose the emoticon wasn't a big enough hint. Next time I'll use a bigger font so you geezers can see it.

Oh, and for you gap-year kids that wonder what the big deal is, here's a hint. Antisemitism is as uncool as not voting for Obama.