Feeder Frenzy

No!

This is not about the band, who might still be around, as I've not bought any of their CDs since oooooh 2010? which was "Pushing The Senses".  Art!

     No, I've no idea what the cover is supposed to be either.  It does have a few belting songs on it, suc

     ANYWAY you might - just might - be thinking that this is Conrad pushing his pro-shark agenda again, because Sharks Really Are Our Friends even when they do let their manners slip and fall into a feeding frenzy.  

     Nope.  

     Come on, does the title say "Feeding Frenzy"?  NO IT DOES NOT.  Pay attention.  How can you possibly expect to solve murder mysteries if you're not able to read a title properly?  Art!

     Just so we're clear, this is probably Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and it's what came up when I put in the search term "Georgian Folk Music".  I like what I've heard so far, even if I cannot understand a word - 'Georgian' was not a language option when I was at school - and it seems to share a love of the flute with Eastern European folk music.  Art!

Sharky party hearty

     No, Dougal, today's Intro is about predators, yes, but of the Hom. Sap. kind, who prey on the credulous, gullible and trusting.  For Lo! we are back on the subject of Bernie Madoff again.  Not going to apologise for returning to this theme, as a $40 billion scam has long legs.  The Madoff Victim Fund has only just finished making payments to the investors who were bilked by this crook.  Art!

     

From CBS

     The thing about this part of the report is that the CBS reporter doing the presentation is not named on-screen, which is pretty unfair.  Conrad has done some digging with no results.  He said that the story shifted to Greenwich Village, in the as-hard-to-pronounce-as-English-towns location of Connecticut.  This town, for reasons obscure to me, is the Hedge Fund Capital of South Canada, and guess who made a beeline for it when he needed more sheep to fleece?  No, Dougal, not Melvin Kaminsky; Bernie Madoff.  Art!

Art!

     Dog Buns, you are going to get - what's that?  Yes, that is a young Mel Brooks, under his actual name.  Yes, he served as a Combat Engineer in the Second Unpleasantness, where he said the two things he liked least in the world were 'Combat' and 'Engineering'.

     ANYWAY if we can move on from Art's hijacking of the Intro?  Thank you so much.  Really appreciate it.  Art!

Definitely not Melvin Lewinsky

     You see, this is where Ol' Bernie's fraud acquired an international aspect.  Here there were lots of hedge fund management companies who had billions of dollars of client's money to invest.

     You may be ahead of me here.

     Who did they do business with?  Why, none other than Ol' Bernie.  One of the biggest companies that did business with him was Fairfield Greenwich Group.  In what sounds as if it ought to be illegal yet isn't, Ol' Bernie would pay these 'Feeder Funds' companies an annual retainer, in return for which they would invest their client's money with him.  FFG got hundreds of millions of dollars annually FOR TWENTY YEARS in this criminally-complicit deal.  Art!

     FFG's CEO and wife abruptly vanished when Madoff turned himself in, hiding on the island of Mustique so as to be out of the eye of the press and burned investors.

     Mystery Un-named CBS Reporter then tracked down a very prominent South Canadian lawyer, David Boies, who was representing the FFG investors who had lost $4 billion between them when Madoff went under.  MUNCBR then listed a tranche of things that FGG ought to have done to protect their clients: portfolio composition analysis; portfolio stress-testing; risk management; asset verification.  Art!

Dave

     He agreed that FGG essentially did 0% to protect their clients, instead simply handing the money over to Ol' Bernie and doing so for two decades, whilst also enjoying very luxurious lifestyles thanks to the money he paid them.

     This came back to bite FGG on the bottom with ten-inch diamond-tipped teeth.  They were alleged to have <deep breath> committed: fraud, negligent representation, gross negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and unjust enrichment.  They had to settle with the class action lawsuit for about $400 million and the senior executives had to sell various assets such as yachts and houses.  Boo hoo.  Poor them.

     What is the onus on hedge fund management?  Harry Markopolos put it well: invest with the best financial managers and ensure that they're NOT RUNNING A PONZI SCHEME.  Sheesh.

There Is A Saying

'Cutting off your nose to spite your face', which Conrad has modified into 'Cutting your throat to spite your neck', which is admittedly a little more extreme.   Here we see this curious phenomenon in real life.  Art!

     'Kadi', a proud Estonian and hater of all things Ruffian, put it well in her Tweet. 

No pipelines, no LNG terminals, no ports or railways that aren't controlled by Moldova or Ukraine .. So what are they waiting for? An e-mail?

     Transnistria is a strip of territory between Moldova and Ukraine, which is controlled by rabidly pro-Ruffian politicians.  Art!

     I think the technical term is 'exclave' because it has no physical contact with Modern-day Mordor.  Since Ukraine cut off their gas supply things are getting parlous: no heating or cooking, schools being shut down, factories stopping, and rolling blackouts being introduced.  It's highly likely that a significant proportion of the population will decamp into Moldova, where many have relatives.

     Remember, three years ago it was Bloaty Gas Tout's aim to physically occupy Ukraine and thus link up with Transnistria.  0% chance of that happening now.  Hey, Gazprom, how's that film about Ukrainians eating their hamster faring at present?

Our Journey With Bernie The Right-On Wrightson

Can't have people misunderstanding whom the Bernie here is.  Time to look at #57, 'Lost In The Woods', and yes, it is available on teh Interwebz.  Art!

     Fascinating insight, Bernie, but I have no idea what I'm looking at here.  Or is that the point?

It Sounds Awful Outside

Your Humble Scribe did his usual Sunday constitutional into Lesser Sodom this afternoon, and boy was it treacherous underfoot.  Inches of slush to negotiate.  Now, with the curtains firmly drawn, I can hear the wind rushing outside as it drives rain onto the windowpane.  Art!

     It never rains but it monsoons, does it?  Conrad profoundly grateful at times like this that he now works from home.  If it's bad here, how much worse must it be at Hebden Bridge?  That's the market town where the local river runs through the town centre, which is picturesque in summer.  In winter .....

Finally -

You may not be aware,  but there is a thing known as "Tunis Cake", and yes, it is known after the capital of Tunisia.  The legend goes that the recipe was discovered by a British soldier in that country in 1943, who also happened to be a Master Baker NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK! and who copied it and took it back to This Sceptred Isle.  It was seen as an acceptable substitute for Christmas cake, which requires a lot of dried fruit, a tough ask in wartime.  Art!

     It's a sponge cake that also uses ground almonds, and is topped with ganache.  Conrad would be happy to make it, apart from the fact that he'd need to eat it all himself <the horror the horror> and I've barely made a dent on the Barm Brack.

     Perhaps in time for Quiet Tom's birthday visit?

     I will let you know.