Ran Jak Diary

E. Europe broke

Eastern Europe is flat broke and the $24.5 billion bailout agreed to Friday by international organizations is not going to put things back together again. In fact, 12 Eastern Europe countries say they urgently require ten times that amount just to mop up the mess they are in.

Things got that way when banks (yes, banks again!) foisted bullshit mortgages on unsuspecting East Europeans. The deals may have sounded good - 1% interest loans on mortgages in Japanese yen - but they smelled awful. For example, bankers didn't do much to explain that the loans would become impossible to pay back when the yen climbed.

This is an opportunity for the world to declare it will not provide a cent more to banks anywhere, since the recipients are those that mismanaged their banks. 

Pope Hack

Most remarkable about the damage Pope Rat's bungling has wrought is that it is now very difficult to take the Church seriously about anything. At first it seemed a simple enough tale: Rat aka Ratzinger aka Benedict XVI appeared so impressed with his own authority - some would call it drunk with power - that he gave in to a couple of subliminal prejudices from, ah, someone, with his swipe at gays and that anti-Jewish embrace of Holocaust belittler Richard Williamson (photo). 

  

But when the pope reacted to a phone call with German chancellor Merkel by pivoting 180 degrees on the anti-Jewish issue, he did so in the style that a cheap and lowly political hack might act. The pope seemed a puppet, but he didn't come across as contrite. Oh yes, the Germans aren't done with him yet - they are now considering ordering Williamson's arrest for fanning religious bigotry.

Crisis graphically

This is from BBC News. It says a lot.

Flasher waits

I agree with so many of you who write and ask when we can see Flasher in a major launch and hope it will be soon. The original concept was already fairly good, and all the improvements and revisions convince me it will be a brilliant success. It is not a question of whether to launch, but when. The worldwide crisis is savaging online sites, in case you were not aware. Investors including some who are red hot for Flasher warn bluntly that this is not the climate to start new concepts, no matter how great they are. And so we wait.

Diarist recovering

I've lost my voice and am getting over a fall on an icy sidewalk. I am being given medicine to bring back my voice and to knock out infection.

Diarist p.s.

That TV interview is behind me now, freeing my ego to wonder why I had stressed about what I might say. My answers to television's questions were no problem, but seeing me was an experience I could have done without. 

I looked bloated -- as if a team of sadistic surgeons had injected me with several huge butterball turkeys an hour before filming began. The one thing that saved my vanity was that the director chose to cut, several times, from close-ups of me to close-ups of Brian Wilson. When stills of Brian appeared, I looked almost thin by comparison.

The edited interview is okay but very superficial. I'm pleased that my answers were factually correct and often enthusiastic too. A pity that little of the Holland project's essence was included in the broadcast. 

Ran Jak 'Official Portrait'

Your vote may count

Treasury chief Bubble declared economic recovery could start "within hours" if opposition leaders sign on for his multi-trillion-dollar total-self-governance plan to revive the banking industry. Bubble received strong support from Feudal Reserve chairman Baubles, whose three-dimensional financial charts have won him a design award. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Blip said President Babble will "consult the people" during tonight's three-hour live television town meeting with leaders of the financial services industry.

Almodóvar

We are Almodóvar devotees, and we can hardly wait to see his new motion picture Broken Embraces.

Center of the world

China has become the most important country in the world. Its ascendance comes years before many observers expected, in part because of the dramatic economic and financial decline of the US since it ignited the global economic crisis.

This week alone, China made $41 billion in oil project investments around the world.

Happy Birthday Jim!

Rat? Fink? Betrayer?

Here's a question for you about UBS, the giant Swiss investment bank. Which of those three letters -- U, B and S, means "fink."? No answer, no worry. Try the same three letters and say which one means "informer." 

UBS has agreed to divulge the names of rich Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud US tax collectors and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.  US prosecutors have been examining about 19,000 accounts at the bank. It is not known how many of this total UBS will eventually turn over to American authorities.