SPORT IN JANUARY
Almost two years ago, on 31 January 2010, I started this blog with a post on the Australian Open. 602 posts later, it is fitting that the Australian Open again features.
In the longest Grand Slam final ever, Novak Djokovic yesterday won his third Australian Open title, his fifth Grand Slam tournament, and his third in a row. In beating Rafael Nadal 7-5 in the final set, he came back from 4-2 down in the fifth, and extended his winning run against the world's number two player to seven in a row, the last three of which have been in Grand Slam tournaments. Djokovic fully deserves his number one ranking.
As at the U.S. Open last year, the semi-finals came down to the top four players. Nadal beat Roger Federer in a match that I thought Federer would win. However, at 30, Federer no longer has the legs (or perhaps the desire) to run for absolutely everything, and that's what Nadal made him do for four gruelling sets. In the other semi-final Andy Murray had Djokovic on the ropes with two break points on Djokovic's serve at 5-5 in the fifth. But the Serb produced the sort of resilience that has been the hallmark of his game since the beginning of 2011, and that was that.
Comparisons will inevitably be made, but I think they are difficult. What separates the really top players in tennis is will. Djokovic has oodles of it; but he still only has five Grand Slam titles, so it is not surprising. Federer has 16, which means that he is not going to drag his aching body over the same sort of obstacle courses that the younger man does. Having said that, I still believe that Federer has the talent to win another one, not least because he husbands his body rather well.
In another arena, Denmark yesterday won the European handball championships (widely held to be the most difficult) in Serbia, beating the host nation 21-19 in the final. The Danes had a miraculous tournament, since they lost two of their opening three games, and entered the super 6 stage of the competition needing both to win their last three games, and to get help from other teams. They beat Macedonia on a goalie save with 8 seconds to go and a breakaway goal with 2 seconds to go; beat Germany and Sweden; and then watched as Poland beat Germany, after being two goals down with two minutes to play. That was enough to get them to the semi-finals, where they won comfortably over Spain, and then took the hosts in the final. The latter had survived a heated semi-final against arch-rivals Croatia, in which one of the Serbian players suffered an eye injury caused by a thrown coin.
Underdogs going into the tournament, Serbia showed how important playing at home in front of passionate fans can be. The big disappointment were France, reigning Olympic, world and European champions, who won only one of their games and finished a lowly ninth.
Walter Blotscher
Monday, 30 January 2012
Sunday, 29 January 2012
LIAR'S POKER
There are two reasons to read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, which I have just done, some 20 years after I first did. For one, it is extremely well written and very funny in parts, surprising attributes of a book about business (basically, the history of Salomon Brothers and the bond market during the 1980's).
Secondly, and more importantly, it is extremely prescient. First published in 1989, it has everything in it that any reasonably well-read regulator/bank CEO/politician would need in order to avoid the financial crisis that erupted some two decades later. True, the products, the companies and the people had changed in the meantime. In 1987 it was mortgage bonds and junk bonds, thrifts, Salomon Brothers and Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, John Gutfreund and Michael Milken; in 2007 it was collateralised debt obligations and sovereign risk, Lehmann Brothers and AIG, Hank Greenberg and Dick Fuld. Other than that, the problems were the same. If a trade was good for the financial institution, then it nearly always meant that it was bad for the client (and vice versa); there were no controls, so the obvious way to recoup a loss was to try to double your money; senior management had no idea what subordinates were doing; compensation was out of touch with reality.
But the most egregious problems came from two sources. First, Government meddling (the mortgage bond market took off in the U.S. because of a tax break misguidedly designed to support the savings & loan industry). Secondly, terrible management decisions by those in charge of financial institutions (all four of the above companies either no longer exist or had to be bailed out by the U.S. Government). Basically, the top people "running" large financial institutions have no real idea what their companies do, they are bureaucrats (in the true sense of the word), relying on systems. Those systems are in one sense incredibly sophisticated, being made up of high-powered computers spawning zillions of bytes of data. On the other, they are peopled by individuals whose interests vary wildly, and are only rarely in synch with the organisation whom they work for.
The current financial crisis was dressed up as being about markets, but ultimately, it was all about power. And, as Lord Acton once succinctly put it, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Until that changes, we are all in for another crisis in x years' time, no matter what anybody says.
Walter Blotscher
There are two reasons to read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, which I have just done, some 20 years after I first did. For one, it is extremely well written and very funny in parts, surprising attributes of a book about business (basically, the history of Salomon Brothers and the bond market during the 1980's).
Secondly, and more importantly, it is extremely prescient. First published in 1989, it has everything in it that any reasonably well-read regulator/bank CEO/politician would need in order to avoid the financial crisis that erupted some two decades later. True, the products, the companies and the people had changed in the meantime. In 1987 it was mortgage bonds and junk bonds, thrifts, Salomon Brothers and Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, John Gutfreund and Michael Milken; in 2007 it was collateralised debt obligations and sovereign risk, Lehmann Brothers and AIG, Hank Greenberg and Dick Fuld. Other than that, the problems were the same. If a trade was good for the financial institution, then it nearly always meant that it was bad for the client (and vice versa); there were no controls, so the obvious way to recoup a loss was to try to double your money; senior management had no idea what subordinates were doing; compensation was out of touch with reality.
But the most egregious problems came from two sources. First, Government meddling (the mortgage bond market took off in the U.S. because of a tax break misguidedly designed to support the savings & loan industry). Secondly, terrible management decisions by those in charge of financial institutions (all four of the above companies either no longer exist or had to be bailed out by the U.S. Government). Basically, the top people "running" large financial institutions have no real idea what their companies do, they are bureaucrats (in the true sense of the word), relying on systems. Those systems are in one sense incredibly sophisticated, being made up of high-powered computers spawning zillions of bytes of data. On the other, they are peopled by individuals whose interests vary wildly, and are only rarely in synch with the organisation whom they work for.
The current financial crisis was dressed up as being about markets, but ultimately, it was all about power. And, as Lord Acton once succinctly put it, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Until that changes, we are all in for another crisis in x years' time, no matter what anybody says.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 28 January 2012
HUNGARY
Hungary has always been a bit different. Magyar, its language, is (along with Finnish and Estonian) a member of the Finno-Ugric family, making it unlike other European languages, which are almost all part of the Indo-European family. The Magyars were a terror to Christian Europe in the early 10th century, until stopped by Otto at the Battle of the Lech in 955, an event which marked the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. Thereafter they settled down on the Hungarian plain, where they remain. In 1000, Hungary was recognised as part of Christendom, when Pope Sylvester II awarded Stephen a royal crown.
For most of the Middle Ages, Hungary was the frontline protecting Christian Europe from the intrusions of the Ottoman Turks. After the disastrous Battle of Mohacs in 1526, the crown (and the mission) passed to the Habsburgs, who held it for the next 400 years. However, Hungary was not like the other lands run by the family, in that there was an extremely large class of petty nobles instead of the normal hierarchichal pyramid. Although many of them did not own land, they did have status, and ruled themselves through decentralised counties. As the Holy Roman Empire declined in the 18th century, and the Habsburgs increasingly tried to turn their collection of disparate territories into a coherent state, Austrian centralism clashed with Hungarian localism. After a Magyar revolution in 1848, the eventual compromise in 1867 was the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary; two realms with a common monarch. The compromise was however unsustainable. In the Hungarian part, other nationalities chafed under the imposition of Magyar rule; while in the Austrian part, other nationalities (Germans, Czechs, Poles) wondered why they couldn't have the same terms as the Magyars.
It took some time for the compromise to founder. But when Austria-Hungary and Germany were defeated in the First World War, the old Habsburg Empire splintered more than any other. Greater Hungary came to an end in 1920 with the Treaty of Trianon, under which the country lost 71% of its territory and 66% of its people. Roughly one third of the ethnic Hungarian population ended up as minorities in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia, where they remain. Both Hungarian nationalism (within Hungary), and anti-Hungarian discrimination (in those countries) are still live issues today.
I gleaned much of the above from two excellent books that I have read this winter. One is A.J.P.Taylor's history of the Habsburgs from 1800 onwards; and the other is Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. In 1934, aged 18, he decided - as one did in those days - to walk from London to Constantinople. In the first book, A Time of Gifts, he gets to the Slovak-Hungarian border; the second one takes him through Hungary and Romania and on into (what was then) Yugoslavia. Staying mainly in old castles and stately homes, he describes a world of polyglot minor aristocrats, conscious of family ancestry, yet struggling to cope with ending up in Romania, the "wrong" country. The Habsburg idea of different nationalities all living under a benevolent common monarch has been replaced by a harsher kind of nationalism, with penalties for those who are no longer top dog. And an even harsher kind of nationalism looms on the horizon as the 1930's draw to an end.
Hungary is now part of the E.U., an architecture designed to stop those sorts of things. However, as the recent spat over the illiberal aspects of the new Hungarian constitution shows, they are not completely dead and buried. Furthermore, Hungary's "get lost" reaction demonstrates clearly that it is one thing to sign up to treaties, it is another to believe them. Hungary continues to be a bit different from the rest of Europe.
Walter Blotscher
Hungary has always been a bit different. Magyar, its language, is (along with Finnish and Estonian) a member of the Finno-Ugric family, making it unlike other European languages, which are almost all part of the Indo-European family. The Magyars were a terror to Christian Europe in the early 10th century, until stopped by Otto at the Battle of the Lech in 955, an event which marked the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. Thereafter they settled down on the Hungarian plain, where they remain. In 1000, Hungary was recognised as part of Christendom, when Pope Sylvester II awarded Stephen a royal crown.
For most of the Middle Ages, Hungary was the frontline protecting Christian Europe from the intrusions of the Ottoman Turks. After the disastrous Battle of Mohacs in 1526, the crown (and the mission) passed to the Habsburgs, who held it for the next 400 years. However, Hungary was not like the other lands run by the family, in that there was an extremely large class of petty nobles instead of the normal hierarchichal pyramid. Although many of them did not own land, they did have status, and ruled themselves through decentralised counties. As the Holy Roman Empire declined in the 18th century, and the Habsburgs increasingly tried to turn their collection of disparate territories into a coherent state, Austrian centralism clashed with Hungarian localism. After a Magyar revolution in 1848, the eventual compromise in 1867 was the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary; two realms with a common monarch. The compromise was however unsustainable. In the Hungarian part, other nationalities chafed under the imposition of Magyar rule; while in the Austrian part, other nationalities (Germans, Czechs, Poles) wondered why they couldn't have the same terms as the Magyars.
It took some time for the compromise to founder. But when Austria-Hungary and Germany were defeated in the First World War, the old Habsburg Empire splintered more than any other. Greater Hungary came to an end in 1920 with the Treaty of Trianon, under which the country lost 71% of its territory and 66% of its people. Roughly one third of the ethnic Hungarian population ended up as minorities in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia, where they remain. Both Hungarian nationalism (within Hungary), and anti-Hungarian discrimination (in those countries) are still live issues today.
I gleaned much of the above from two excellent books that I have read this winter. One is A.J.P.Taylor's history of the Habsburgs from 1800 onwards; and the other is Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. In 1934, aged 18, he decided - as one did in those days - to walk from London to Constantinople. In the first book, A Time of Gifts, he gets to the Slovak-Hungarian border; the second one takes him through Hungary and Romania and on into (what was then) Yugoslavia. Staying mainly in old castles and stately homes, he describes a world of polyglot minor aristocrats, conscious of family ancestry, yet struggling to cope with ending up in Romania, the "wrong" country. The Habsburg idea of different nationalities all living under a benevolent common monarch has been replaced by a harsher kind of nationalism, with penalties for those who are no longer top dog. And an even harsher kind of nationalism looms on the horizon as the 1930's draw to an end.
Hungary is now part of the E.U., an architecture designed to stop those sorts of things. However, as the recent spat over the illiberal aspects of the new Hungarian constitution shows, they are not completely dead and buried. Furthermore, Hungary's "get lost" reaction demonstrates clearly that it is one thing to sign up to treaties, it is another to believe them. Hungary continues to be a bit different from the rest of Europe.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 26 January 2012
THE HONOURS LIST (3)
It is nice to see that I am not the only one who dislikes the U.K. Honours List. The Government has just been forced (under the Freedom of Information Act) to list all of the names who declined an honour between 1951 and 1999, and who have since died. Apparently that information used to be so secretive that it was not even included in official papers released under the 30-year rule. Which just goes to show what a nonsense the system had become.
It is however surprising that the number is so few, just 277 over a period of almost 50 years. The Brits are a sucker for gongs.
Walter Blotscher
It is nice to see that I am not the only one who dislikes the U.K. Honours List. The Government has just been forced (under the Freedom of Information Act) to list all of the names who declined an honour between 1951 and 1999, and who have since died. Apparently that information used to be so secretive that it was not even included in official papers released under the 30-year rule. Which just goes to show what a nonsense the system had become.
It is however surprising that the number is so few, just 277 over a period of almost 50 years. The Brits are a sucker for gongs.
Walter Blotscher
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
DATA DUMP (2)
I must admit I was feeling pretty depressed after my hard drive crashed last week. Not only was there a fair chance that I had lost a lot of valuable data, but I had nobody to blame except my stupid self.
However, that was before Q-data got going. They have some pretty nifty techie stuff that can help in this sort of situation, and the upshot is that they have managed to retrieve all of the data on the hard drive.
So, I now have all my data, plus a back-up hard drive that I can use as and when I get a new computer. And all for the low price of kr.1.599. It is probably the best investment I have ever made in my life.
Walter Blotscher
I must admit I was feeling pretty depressed after my hard drive crashed last week. Not only was there a fair chance that I had lost a lot of valuable data, but I had nobody to blame except my stupid self.
However, that was before Q-data got going. They have some pretty nifty techie stuff that can help in this sort of situation, and the upshot is that they have managed to retrieve all of the data on the hard drive.
So, I now have all my data, plus a back-up hard drive that I can use as and when I get a new computer. And all for the low price of kr.1.599. It is probably the best investment I have ever made in my life.
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
E.U. MATTERS
It's worth stepping back from the endless discussions about the "imminent" collapse of the Euro/Greek default/spat with the U.K. (take your pick), and looking at longer term trends with regard to the E.U. Two recent developments stand out in that regard.
The first is Sunday's referendum in Croatia about whether to join the E.U. Although turnout was low (under 50%), those who voted were clearly positive, by a 2 to 1 margin. If ever there was a time not to join the European club, a decision which includes a legal commitment to join the Euro at some point, then it is now. So the fact that ordinary Croats still choose to do so is important. Being part of the largest single market in the world obviously still counts for more than the restrictions on individual countries' freedom of manoeuvre that come from bowing to majority voting. U.K. politicians of a Little England, Eurosceptic ilk, are fond of calling for a renegotiation of their country's status within the E.U. rather than outright withdrawal, ending up in a similar position to Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. However, the latter are all, in one way or another, both special and small, which the U.K. is not. The biggest problem with that position is "why on earth would the other E.U. countries agree to it?". After all, new countries (and after Croatia comes - possibly - Serbia) are perfectly happy to sign up to the existing arrangements, warts and all.
The second is the law passed by France's Parliament, making it a crime for anyone to deny that the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule was genocide. A number of countries have come close to this position in the past (the Armenian diaspora is very influential); but this is the first time that it has been put on the statute book. Turkey is furious.
The E.U.'s relations with Turkey have long been difficult. Turkey has been trying to get into the E.U. or its predecessor bodies since 1959, and the standard response has always been "yes, but not yet". Although negotiations have progressed, opinion in recent years has gone into reverse, and both France and Germany nowadays favour a position in which Turkey is outside the E.U., but closely associated with it. Recent unrest in Syria (which would be on the E.U.'s border if Turkey were let in) has probably hardened that position, which is why President Sarkozy will almost certainly sign the genocide bill. Apart from the immediate quarrel, the long-term consequences are likely to be that Turkey gives up trying to join the E.U. and looks to become one of the leaders in the Middle East instead.
So, the E.U. will become both a bigger club, and a more European club. Some would say a more Christian club, but I think that that is both oversimplistic and wrong. As I said in my earlier post, I just don't think that the southeastern border of Europe lies close to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; nor has it ever done.
Walter Blotscher
It's worth stepping back from the endless discussions about the "imminent" collapse of the Euro/Greek default/spat with the U.K. (take your pick), and looking at longer term trends with regard to the E.U. Two recent developments stand out in that regard.
The first is Sunday's referendum in Croatia about whether to join the E.U. Although turnout was low (under 50%), those who voted were clearly positive, by a 2 to 1 margin. If ever there was a time not to join the European club, a decision which includes a legal commitment to join the Euro at some point, then it is now. So the fact that ordinary Croats still choose to do so is important. Being part of the largest single market in the world obviously still counts for more than the restrictions on individual countries' freedom of manoeuvre that come from bowing to majority voting. U.K. politicians of a Little England, Eurosceptic ilk, are fond of calling for a renegotiation of their country's status within the E.U. rather than outright withdrawal, ending up in a similar position to Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. However, the latter are all, in one way or another, both special and small, which the U.K. is not. The biggest problem with that position is "why on earth would the other E.U. countries agree to it?". After all, new countries (and after Croatia comes - possibly - Serbia) are perfectly happy to sign up to the existing arrangements, warts and all.
The second is the law passed by France's Parliament, making it a crime for anyone to deny that the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule was genocide. A number of countries have come close to this position in the past (the Armenian diaspora is very influential); but this is the first time that it has been put on the statute book. Turkey is furious.
The E.U.'s relations with Turkey have long been difficult. Turkey has been trying to get into the E.U. or its predecessor bodies since 1959, and the standard response has always been "yes, but not yet". Although negotiations have progressed, opinion in recent years has gone into reverse, and both France and Germany nowadays favour a position in which Turkey is outside the E.U., but closely associated with it. Recent unrest in Syria (which would be on the E.U.'s border if Turkey were let in) has probably hardened that position, which is why President Sarkozy will almost certainly sign the genocide bill. Apart from the immediate quarrel, the long-term consequences are likely to be that Turkey gives up trying to join the E.U. and looks to become one of the leaders in the Middle East instead.
So, the E.U. will become both a bigger club, and a more European club. Some would say a more Christian club, but I think that that is both oversimplistic and wrong. As I said in my earlier post, I just don't think that the southeastern border of Europe lies close to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; nor has it ever done.
Walter Blotscher
Sunday, 22 January 2012
SCOTTISH FOOTBALL
Scottish football is very dull. Teams come and go, but there are only two that really matter, Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers. Since the Scottish league started in 1890, only 11 clubs have ever won it. Rangers have won it 54 times, Celtic 42. The next highest number of wins is 4, by Hearts and Hibs (the two Edinburgh clubs) and Aberdeen. When one of the Glasgow clubs wins, the other is usually the runner-up. In the current season, Celtic lead with 59 points and Rangers are second with 55; the next three clubs all have 35 points, and so are out of contention already.
Since 1965, when Kilmarnock won, either Rangers and Celtic have won in every season except 1980, 1984 and 1985, when it was Aberdeen (under Manchester United's current manager Sir Alex Ferguson). Both have had runs of 9 years in a row. In the 1986 season Hearts, needing a draw from the last game away to Dundee, were 7 minutes from winning for the first time since 1960; but they let in two late goals and lost the title to Celtic on goal difference.
There is a Scottish Cup; but the "Old Firm" tend to win that as well. Rangers have in fact won the double 17 times in their history. What is the point of supporting any other club, when all you get is guaranteed disappointment?
Other countries (eg Spain, with Real Madrid and Barcelona) sometimes have football oligopolies, and there are only half a dozen or so clubs, that could win the English Premier League today. Nevertheless, Scotland does seem to be in a league of its own, if you forgive the pun. The way forward in my view is to extend the geographical coverage of the English leagues to include Scotland and Wales, something that the Glasgow clubs have long wanted. However, that would run up against the Scottish independence issue, which is presumably why it won't happen any day soon.
Walter Blotscher
Scottish football is very dull. Teams come and go, but there are only two that really matter, Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers. Since the Scottish league started in 1890, only 11 clubs have ever won it. Rangers have won it 54 times, Celtic 42. The next highest number of wins is 4, by Hearts and Hibs (the two Edinburgh clubs) and Aberdeen. When one of the Glasgow clubs wins, the other is usually the runner-up. In the current season, Celtic lead with 59 points and Rangers are second with 55; the next three clubs all have 35 points, and so are out of contention already.
Since 1965, when Kilmarnock won, either Rangers and Celtic have won in every season except 1980, 1984 and 1985, when it was Aberdeen (under Manchester United's current manager Sir Alex Ferguson). Both have had runs of 9 years in a row. In the 1986 season Hearts, needing a draw from the last game away to Dundee, were 7 minutes from winning for the first time since 1960; but they let in two late goals and lost the title to Celtic on goal difference.
There is a Scottish Cup; but the "Old Firm" tend to win that as well. Rangers have in fact won the double 17 times in their history. What is the point of supporting any other club, when all you get is guaranteed disappointment?
Other countries (eg Spain, with Real Madrid and Barcelona) sometimes have football oligopolies, and there are only half a dozen or so clubs, that could win the English Premier League today. Nevertheless, Scotland does seem to be in a league of its own, if you forgive the pun. The way forward in my view is to extend the geographical coverage of the English leagues to include Scotland and Wales, something that the Glasgow clubs have long wanted. However, that would run up against the Scottish independence issue, which is presumably why it won't happen any day soon.
Walter Blotscher
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