What I Learned Over The Weekend

They say every joke has a little bit of truth to it, they say. I personally found out this weekend that stereotypes (not all, but in my experience , some) are very true.


First I found out that it's better not to have an argument or raise an issue on your anniversary weekend, no matter how correct or important the issue seems. Secondly, I've found out that this rule applies to most every other day as well. I also found out, (in my case any way), it seems best to try to get her to think it is her idea and that it will end in a shopping spree at Victoria's Secret (mental note-be careful what bait you use as it will be cashed in on).


On stereotypes, I've mentioned this to a few members in emails and might as well put it out there. When returning from a 3 week trip to Eastern Europe, I had a very quick connection flight in Milan, I ran to the concourse to only find out about another stereotype, flights are perpetually late and my quick connection turned out to be an 8 hour wait in Milan. I also found out in 3 of perhaps 6 trips overseas, the airlines really do lose your luggage, I had to spend 3 days without my clothes and spent a ton of money buying new clothes while I waited as it was the dead of winter-alah "Meet the parents".


Back to my trip, this isn't a stereotype so much as an interesting aside. In Eastern Europe, you wouldn't expect to see many African Americans, in different airports I've connected through, I have seen a lot of true Africans, they always have interesting, colorful robes and very uncomfortable looking, oddly shaped shoes. In any case, after 3 weeks in Eastern Europe, I hadn't seen anyone other then caucasians so when I was running through Milan to the concourse, I noticed a man of color. It was then I realized, "Wow, I haven't seen anyone other then caucasians for 3 weeks" so I took a quick glimpse, the man was wearing huge black sunglasses, a blind man's walking stick and had a smile from ear to ear as his head swung left to right, I suppose this was a personal stereotype as the man was Ray Charles!  


After finding out about my 8 hour delay, I sat on the floor staring at my ticket. A very young woman who weighed 90 pounds or so asked me in English if I was also on the flight to Miami. I knew right away she was a model. What I didn't know was how true the stereotype of models actually were, at least in this case. You'd think a young guy (at the time) like myself would have enjoyed her company. However, it was literally 8 hours of who she knew, how her boyfriend was the hottest photographer in Milan-30 years her senior (I think there's another stereotype in there). She offered to pay for first class tickets on a flight leaving sooner, of course I could never accept and she really didn't mean it as she sat the entire 8 hours as well. After hearing everything about her, especially the often repeated "My friends all hate me because I'm so beautiful" -she really said that, many times as well as, "If I had breast enhancements, I'd be as popular as Gisselle", I finally decided to make a break for it. "Well, nice to meet you Gina Marie, but I'm going to the news stand", to which she replied, "Oh, I'll come with you, I want to show you something"; there she was on the UK version of Glamour on the front page.  Then I tried to escape to a cafe, to which she assured me that I wouldn't be able to order anything if I didn't speak Italian, so she ordered for us in Italian, although the girl at the counter spoke perfect English. I'm not really doing the story justice, because you can't describe 8 hours of someone talking about themselves the entire time, suffice it to say she didn't even ask my name, nor did she ask anything about me.


Continuing with what I've learned this weekend and stereotypes. The Greek government came out with a denial of the Spiegel article. The whole thing is now being dismissed as a way for the Europeans or someone else interested, to lower the value of the Euro, which is of course a benefit to the Euro-zone. However, I find this logic hard to swallow. The Friday emergency meeting planned to deal with this threat DID take place. In the news this weekend, Junker, the head of the Euro Group  said after a meeting of finance ministers last Friday, "we believe that Greece will need a further program". This is the meeting that was denied or side-stepped by numerous finance ministers to deal with the Greek threat. So I suppose we have another stereotype, that of the dishonest government (Greece in this case as well as every other country involved in the meeting who denied it and Friday's story). Junker also said something along the lines of "Greece leaving the E.U. is absurd", which again side steps the question of whether they threatened it, but in any case, it seems Friday's meeting is the start of  Greek debt restructuring, and Ireland wants to talk about the same as well.


The Stereotype of Wall Street manipulation I've know to be true, I just didn't realize that when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market by taking delivery of the majority of silver out there, that the Comex, who raised margins then much like now to kill the Hunt Brothers attempt, had 9 of 23 board members short 38 million ounces of silver as they hiked margins when the Hunt's went for physical delivery-that would have been a cumulative position of $1.88 billion dollars of short exposure the 9 Comex Board members had. The margin hikes thy voted for killed the Hunt Brothers attempt and protected the 9 board members.


Here's another stereotype or lie that seems to be gaining some credibility. Iraq just cut their 5 year estimate for oil output nearly in half. The idea is that the Saudis will come to the rescue and offer to boost production as they did with the Libyan crisis, however, with the Libyan crisis, they never actually did boost production. So it seems the myth of Saudi reserves is exactly that, a myth.


One final noteworthy event, last week some of the world's largest energy hedge funds took a double digit loss to their portfolios with Crude's drop. So it seems that smart money is not always that smart or ahead of the game, at least as of right now.