Prepare yourselves . . . for sarcasm.
The Cyprus deposit theft is egregious. Anyone who read what I wrote yesterday knows this is bad and that natural gas as bailout collateral would have been a far less damaging option. If you read about what I did with my money today, you'll know I believe this bailout-theft is a marker on the road to the euro's dissolution. Eurocrats wargamed the tamest possible parameters in their bank stress tests because they are afraid to model a six-sigma event like a retail bank run or a chained series of popular revolts.
The IMF's push for a European banking union is an effort to close the barn door after the horses have escaped and the barn has caught fire. There may not be much of a European banking system left after the events set in motion by the Cyprus debacle this week have run their full course. The IMF might have more credibility if it renamed itself "Impossible Missions Force" because that is the task it is setting for itself.
Stupid institutional investors rushed into U.S. Treasuries out of fear. The point of seeking security from deposit confiscation in an asset class that cannot keep up with inflation escapes me. Professional money managers will be stuck on stupid until their portfolios are devastated and they are starving in the street.
It's cute that young students want relationship management roles in financial services. I'd tell them that wealthy clients don't want them but the youngsters won't listen. The only relationships most of them will handle in a wealth management office involve answering phones and fetching coffee. Clients want one and only thing from a relationship manager, and that is wealth. Whipper-snappers fresh out of college don't have wealth unless they come from wealthy families, in which case they will be handed all the relationship management work they ever wanted without lifting a finger. Mommy and daddy's little broker makes the country club geezers proud.
Are you prepared yet? Don't answer me. Just prepare for more sarcasm.
