Commentaries
Now raising intellectual capital
Third person spells trouble in politicians
Beware of politicians who speak about themselves in the third person. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are paranoid. But it is usually an indicator of some kind of trouble.
More than a decade before he was forced out of the White House for lying, destroying evidence, bugging his political opponents and covering up a crime in the Watergate affair, Richard Nixon (right) famously told journalists at what he said was his last press conference: “You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more.”
Now Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (left) has taken to referring to himself in the third person as the victim of left-wing judges and the media (at least the parts of it that he doesn’t own or control). His response to the Italian Constitutional Court’s ruling on Wednesday overturning a law that granted the prime minister immunity from prosecution during his term in office was to declare:
Without Silvio, the country would be in the hands of the left and you all know what would happen. The trials that they are going to throw against me are a farce. Long live Italy! Long live Berlusconi!Â
Own goal
For titans of new money, owning a sports team can be an appealing addition to a portfolio. So it was not surprising several years back to see American hedge fund and private equity executives buying baseball and basketball teams and Russian oligarchs acquiring English soccer teams. But in a global downturn, there aren’t many in a strong enough position to step up as the next nouveau riche in the world of professional sports.
For recession-proof new money, there is always organized crime
People working on behalf of the Camorra mafia clan based outside Naples tried unsuccessfully to acquire a controlling stake in the publicly traded Roman soccer club Lazio, say Italian police, which has arrested four suspects in connection with the attempt.
The danger of a lost generation
– Christopher Swann is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own —
NEW YORK, July 24 (Reuters) – For the first time in three generations, Americans across the nation are facing the threat of long-term unemployment. Already more than one in four jobless Americans have now been out of work for more than six months, the highest level since records began in 1948.
from Neil Unmack:
Pain in Italy
Ouch! Moody’s has just downgraded some Italian asset-backed debt parcelling leases made by UniCredit to its clients, called F-E Gold. One of the downgraded bonds took a rather nasty dive from A3 to Ba1, but aside from that the rating cuts aren’t too brutal. Moody’s report does give a quick snapshot of how corporate Italy is faring in the economic downturn. (Leasing is a core source of funding for the small and medium-sized companies that make up the economy’s backbone.)
So far about four percent of the companies that borrowed by leasing real estate or equipment have defaulted since the deal was sold three years ago – the same amount Moody’s was expecting over the life of the deal. The agency has now doubled its default assumption to 8.6 percent -- let’s hope it’s just being conservative.
-
The Wall
