In another blog post by Cameron Crise 'True Gotham' from The Hedding Property Group. LLC. again wrote a nice poem on the current mess by 'Broker Joe' and 'Collaterlized Det Obligations (CDO)'. For starters, CDO is a kind of Financial engineered product of various debts, Broker Joe is the lightly referred to the broker who sells CDOs to the clients for Investment Banks...."Joe" is the brainchild of Cameron Crise, a 36-year-old American currency investor working in London for Dutch-Belgian financial conglomerate Fortis. The narrator of his poem chides pesky bankers who try to sell clients collateralized debt obligations and other foul-looking securities
Enjoy this really interesting & humorous blog by Cameron Crise..

Broker Joe!
Show me some flow
I need the dough!
I’m Broker Joe!
That Broker Joe!
That Broker Joe!
I do not like
That Broker Joe!
Would you buy my CDO?
I do not like them, Broker Joe
I do not like your CDO!
Would you like it here or there?
I would not like it here or there
I would not like it anywhere
I do not like your CDO
I do not like it, Broker Joe
Would you like to sell some yen?
I do not want to sell the yen
The big fat tail just kills my zen
If you don’t sell now, then when?
I will not sell it here or there
I will not sell it anywhere
I do not like your CDO
I do not like it, Broker Joe

For the complete blogpost, please see -

http://www.truegotham.com/archives/fun-dr-seusss-green-eggs-and-cdos.html?referer=sphere_related_content

Holiday Special by David Resler from Nomura Securities

In a one of the recent economic reports by David Resler from Nomura Securities actually wrote a poem on the current economic and sub-prime crisis. Its quite interesting how always tough times give us chance to be really creative. In this case, guys this is David Resler for you...!!!


‘T was the night before Christmas, the moon shining bright
The fam’ly room lit by only the hearth-fire’s light
As flames from the embers like a jitter-bug danced.
I found myself, in a moment, taken entranced.
And in this dream-state my thoughts started to wander
To the past year’s events on which I would ponder.
For the year had been full of both good news and bad
And markets at times seemed to have nearly gone mad.
After seeming to stall at the turn of last year,
An upturn in growth brought us all something to cheer.
At mid-year growth surged with no rise of inflation,
Putting down fears of that most dreaded stagflation.
And just like the porridge from that childhood fable
The economy earned the “Goldilocks” label.
But lest we forget, Goldilocks was a mere thief
Whose breaking and entering brought her to grief.
S o tho’ the economy seemed healthy and strong,
Behind all the numbers there was much that was wrong.
It was clear the housing slump wasn’t over just yet.
Its problems compounded in the market for debt

’Twas the Night Before Christmas
(A Review & Forecast)
by
David H. Resler
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/poet-resler-12242007.pdf

Life is too short!!

Life is not going to make up for your lost dreams

When you wake up

Light is not going to make up for the darkness of the moon

When the night is on

Love is not there forever, if you don’t take

When given to you

Lust will disguise as love

When beauty over character is chosen by you

Success is the moment of the truth

When you think that you have arrived

Life is a fun and joy

When you add mysticism as a spice

Hope will recoup the failure

When you think you can win

You will be down and out

When you think you are the master

Life becomes the most fleeting thing on earth

When you don’t have time to live

So if you think, you love her

Telling her, would be the first thing for you to give

- C

Till the end..

Being voyeuristic about her has an appeal,

That edifies the aphrodisiacal world around me

Lust seem to be never on wane

With her face always coming around me

Her presence is the only thing that makes me feel alive

The shards of her memories, shreds my heart to death

Being far from her is a bane,

I just wish she too feels the same

Looking for her, all over the place

I find her in me as I rummage through my heart

The oxymoron lives on, as the hysteria sets in for her

Its joy or sorrow, its getting hard to decipher

I will wait, till the end of time,

Till the end, lest she is mine

- C

Buffalonean Summer!!

Before this space becomes defunct, before I get lost in this corporate jungle, I realized that I should write and not let this place become like an antediluvian deserted house! I apparently don’t even like to get lost in the world of my own because I am not as obsessed with myself as was Narcissist. I am but enjoying every bit of my life right now, learning so much as I haven’t learned all my life and of course professionally.

Earlier, Buffalo seemed to be a forlorn place to me! I mean “Do humans exist here?” use to be my reaction. That has now changed after I have moved around the city a bit and found where the hell the buzz is! The stroll down the Buffalo downtown is few of the best things you can do in Buffalo in summertime. The anonymous bands with some apocryphal name which play music in the downtown are the real treasure of Buffalo downtown. If you go further ahead to Allentown St., you are prone to get a feel of European town with the taverns around and rightly so, buffalo was a European colony (with its geographical advantage). The downturn started with the construction of Erie Canal and due to the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which made the supply of goods easier to north, negating the advantage of Buffalo. Buffalo is a fun and peaceful city if you have commutation for places around. However, the weather gives you tough time in winter…but if you are determined to see through it, trust me…you will be fine!!

C

Anomaly in America..

It was April 16, 2007. The place was Blacksburg, VA., southwest of Roanoke where Virginia Tech, commonly used name for the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is located. By 9:30 that morning, something horrendous had taken place in the campus of Virginia Tech. 32 people including 5 faculty members were massacred at Virginia Tech.

As it would seem the incident was really shocking and gross, and most importantly something on such a large scale had happened in the United States. I think something really moving after the 9/11 attacks. Having stayed in the United States for close to a year now, I knew that this is a ‘skewed society’. The anomaly is deep embedded in the USA culture and surprisingly not completely inculcated by the Americans themselves but something which is contributed by the third world countries as well.

The random shootouts and killings are not something which is really out of order, especially in the USA and I guess its part of every society today. But very less than often it happens in campus of any University and that too by an ‘International student’. (Infact, there was one shootout very close to my place where a shopkeeper was shot when he refused to give some items for free to some African Americans, this was within few months of my arrival to Buffalo, NY).

Among the few things which standout about Virginia incident, one of them which really strikes me (as to others) is the killer Cho Seung-Hui. Of course there are other obvious issues of security, the Fire-arm laws and lapse on the part of homeland security that failed to stop the massacre but I don’t think I can comment on them that well. As being written by all the newspaper around the world, Cho was a Korean. I would like to refute that statement with greasy ease. If a person has arrived in the USA at the age of 5 and stayed in here for over 13 years he is more of American than of any other nationality. Cho arrived in the USA in 1993 (with his family) and has stayed here since then. The loneliness and grudge which Cho was harboring all his life was not something ‘uncommon’ in Americans (especially African Americans) or expatriates in America. It is the difficult assimilation in the culture of America that makes the transition very tough, and even more difficult for expatriates from the third world countries (American are racist to some extent and believe me they are partially responsible for this massacre).

You will find many victims of this identity crisis in the USA, like Cho, who are ready to prove that the world is wrong and they are nemesis to this injustice. The problem of identity crisis is very common with kids of expatriates who we famously call American Born Confused Desis (not only Indians but desis comprising expatriates from all other countries). I don’t know who coined this word but whosoever said that, I will bet my life on him. I have observed this aspect of Identity crisis very closely among the Indians students who were either born here or were brought up here in the USA. For them, even talking to Indians is something which is deplorable, so they keep a distance with Indians because they don’t consider themselves Indians but American. But the paradox is that Americans keep distance with these ABCDs as they think these brats are still Indians. Hence they end up being nowhere!

The problem is much more profound than it looks on the surface and it encompasses various aspects of upbringing kids including the apprehensions of the parents about their kids growing up in this weed culture. It is very easy for a kid who comes here in his teens to get lost and even if he is born here, it is very difficult for that kid to survive the stark difference in environment at his home and external environment. The future looks even grimmer when I think that I might end up being a part of this culture and real victims would be my kids. So couple of more years of my life here and then, India Calling!!

- Ch!ntan

Ezekiel 25:17 and more...

Pulp fiction is one of the most thriller movies I have seen (Tarantino at his best), with some really interesting and thoughtful confabulations running thru -out the movie. Here are couple of my favorites...
By Vincent (Travolta) "Jules you give this F*ng nimrod fifteen hundered dollars and I'll shoot him on general principle"

Jules (Samuel Jackson) says

"There's a passage I got memorized.
Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the
righteous man is beset on all sides
by the inequities of the selfish
and the tyranny of evil men.
Blessed is he who, in the name of
charity and good will, shepherds
the weak through the valley of the
darkness. For he is truly his
brother's keeper and the finder of
lost children.
And I will strike down upon thee
with great vengeance and furious
anger those who attempt to poison
and destroy my brothers. And you
will know I am the Lord when I lay
my vengeance upon you." I been
sayin' that shit for years. And if
you ever heard it, it meant your
ass. I never really questioned
what it meant. I thought it was
just a cold-blooded thing to say to
a motherfucker 'fore you popped a
cap in his ass. But I saw some
shit this mornin' made me think
twice. Now I'm thinkin', it could
mean you're the evil man. And I'm
the righteous man. And Mr. .45
here, he's the shepherd protecting
my righteous ass in the valley of
darkness. Or is could by you're
the righteous man and I'm the
shepherd and it's the world that's
evil and selfish. I'd like that.
But that shit ain't the truth. The
truth is you're the weak. And I'm
the tyranny of evil men. But I'm
tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard to be
a shepherd.

If you get a chance..do watch it..its a masterpiece!!

Proud to be an Indian!

I am a big fan of Thomas Friedman, one of the elitist writer of the present generation. His books, 'The Lexus and the Olive tree' and 'World is Flat', are really impressive and I savored them 'to the T'. He is also a columnist with The New York Times. This is what he had to say in a recent article...

When we were young kids growing up in America , we were told to eat our vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my children: 'Finish your homework. Think of the children in India who would make you starve, if you don't finish.'

Aren't you proud to be an INDIAN?

Du Hast Mich

By the time I write this blog, I believe love would still be in air (post-valentine effect) and all those lovey-dovey couple would still be figuring out the cryptic riddles of love. It (V-day) was not really special for me because I am not seeing anybody right now, so my only date was my studies. Anyways, I thought this would be the right time to write about something which I wanted to write for a long time, but couldn’t write because I was busy writing something else. Haah…too many writings, don’t worry, later part of my writing is not as confusing as the first one!

Often people would come and ask me “What the heck is this ‘Du hast Mich’, apparently some kind of a German dish which you like, isn’t Chintan?” I tell them that if you like music, you should know it! But probably very few people hear to this fiery band ‘Rammstein’ and even fewer who would make an effort to listen to German music. So read on to find out!

‘Du hast’ is the song by the German rock band Rammstein and it is one of the best known tracks of the band, more so as the soundtrack of The Matrix. It has also been featured in other films such as ‘CKY2K’ and ‘How High’. There are two versions to this song, one with first three verses in English and another completely in German. And as many say the English version is not the translation of the lyrics in German. It goes like this…

* Du - You

* Du hast - You have (you hate)

* Du hast mich - You have me (you hate me)

* Du hast mich gefragt - You have asked me

* Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt - You have asked me and I've said nothing

So precisely it means two things in this verse, one is “You hate me but still want to marry me” and the other being “You want to marry me but I don’t want to”. The whole song looks more of German wedding vows. The refrain "Willst du, bis der Tod euch scheidet, treu ihr sein für alle Tage?" roughly translates to "Do you want to remain faithful to her for all days, until death separates you?" and the singer ends up saying “No”. The literal meaning in english is not what actually it comes in German version! "Hast" is a conjugation of the base form "haben" which means "to have." To hate, would be the verb "hassen" which would be conjugated as "Du hasst mich" (you hate me) and not “Du hast Mich” (you have asked me).

So this Valentines if you proposed your crush and she said nothing, you rather listen to this song!

Du Hast Mich….

'C'