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今天是无图style~~~
末日神马的~~~阅读才是王道啊！
大家加油！周末愉快~
难度、排版什么的有问题大家回帖的时候，吼下就好了哈~
【speed】
【time 1】
Monkey See, Monkey Buy
Soon we’ll be able to follow more than our friends’ latest escapades on our favorite social networking site. Facebook has announced new look-at-me-looking-at-you feature (they call it “frictionless sharing”) that will allow you to see what others are watching, hear what they’re listening to and check out what they’re reading, in real time, making consumer behavior more visible than ever before. And if you think that knowing what your friends are consuming will have no impact on you, think again.
We might be hesitant to admit the degree to which others influence us, but we most certainly are all influenced. We need only look at the number of lists and recommendations that are the first thing you encounter on any e-commerce site, which make us think that a team of experts has spent the past month parsing through every book, movie, song and testing every coffee maker, handbag and diaper pail, when in fact the only function of all these recommendations and lists is to get you to buy more. And even though most of us are aware that some of those online product reviews are fakes written by friends or company employees or marketers, we purposely overlook this. We want to trust these messages, even when we may be deeply skeptical.
To gain further insight into the degree to how suggestible we are, I managed to convince a local restaurant to conduct a small experiment on my behalf. Over the years, I’ve had many conversations with waiters regarding how people order, and almost invariably, at least one diner withholds their menu selection until they’ve heard what everyone else at the table will be eating. What’s more, waiters are quite adept at altering orders to accommodate diners who change their minds after hearing what someone else is having.
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【time 2】
This is a restaurant scenario I’m sure you’re well familiar with. However, what I really wanted to see was to what extent one table’s dissatisfaction would influence another’s. So we set up a table in the middle of the restaurant, and four actors were hired to pretend to be friends sharing the conviviality of a meal. They all ordered the soup, since it was the only starter on the menu, thus allowing an element of control. After breaking some bread and taking his first mouthful, one of the actors called for the waiter and proceeded to deliver a three-minute rant about the scalding temperature of the soup. As the soup continued to be served to the other tables, the complaints began rolling in. By the end of the dinner, 26% of the guests had made similar complaints. Each bowl had come from the same pot, so either they had extremely sensitive tongues or they had all been influenced by the initial complaint.
In another experiment conducted in 2008 by researchers at Leeds University, 200 people were asked to walk randomly around a large hall. A few moments into the experiment, five volunteers were instructed to move in a clockwise direction. They were told to do so without making any announcements or drawing attention to themselves. Within seven minutes, everyone was walking in the same direction. One of the conclusions drawn by the scientists was, like animals, humans tend to flock. And during times of insecurity, our need to seek refuge in the larger group is that much greater.
Which leads me back to Facebook’s latest look-at-me-looking-at-you initiative, which might prove to become the most powerful marketing mechanism of the 21st century by enabling Facebook to systematically pick out which members exert the most influence on others. Imagine movie studios, magazine publishers and fashion outlets having access to this information and creating mass demand by using small, highly influential groups. In the end, who’s influencing who?
【325】
【time 3】
Wall Street & Markets
LIBOR Scandal: Yep, It’s as Bad as We Thought
By Christopher Matthews Dec. 20, 2012 7 Comments
When the LIBOR interest-rate fixing scandal broke wide open over the summer, I asked whether it was “The Crime of the Century.” The answer to that question relied on whether banks were understating their LIBOR submissions in order to appear stable at the height of the financial crisis, or whether LIBOR manipulation was a more widespread phenomenon involving collusion across financial institutions in order to profit off of derivative trades.
With the announcement yesterday of a $1.5 billion dollar fine, paid to regulators in the U.S., U.K., and Switzerland, against Swiss bank UBS., we have our answer. The British Financial Services Authority published a 40-page notice announcing the action, and it is rife with damning evidence that UBS employees were colluding among themselves and with traders and brokers at other institutions to manipulate interest rates for their own profit. The FSA found that compared to Barclays, the transgressions at UBS were worse:
“UBS’s misconduct is, although similar in nature, considerably more serious than Barclays’ because it was more widespread within the firm . . . More individuals, including Managers and Senior Managers, participated in or knew about the manipulation and there were more instances of individual manipulation, across more currencies. Furthermore, the extent to which UBS colluded with others was significantly greater and involved financial rewards being paid to Broker Firms.”
The FSA’s most damning evidence against the bank is a series of electronic messages sent between bank employees and traders and brokers outside the firm, in which fraud is overtly agreed upon. In one exchange, a UBS trader begs an outside broker to help him influence a particular Japanese Yen LIBOR rate. According to the FSA notice:
【279】
【time4】
“In the course of one campaign of manipulation, a UBS Trader agreed with his counterpart that he would attempt to manipulate UBS’s submissions in “small drops” in order to avoid arousing suspicion. The Trader made it clear that he hoped to profit from the manipulation and referred explicitly to his UBS trading positions and the impact of the JPY LIBOR rate on those positions. He offered to “return the favour” and entered into facilitation trades and other illicit transactions in order to incentivise and reward his counterparts.”
The notice goes on to quote an exchange between the trader and broker in which the trader explains, “if you keep 6s [i.e. the six month JPY LIBOR rate] unchanged today … I will f—ing do one humongous deal with you … Like a 50,000 buck deal, whatever … I need you to keep it as low as possible … if you do that …. I’ll pay you, you know, 50,000 dollars, 100,000 dollars… whatever you want … I’m a man of my word.” Subsequent trades between UBS and this broker generated more than $250,000 in fees to the broker, according to the FSA notice.
The forty page report is filled with such exchanges, making it clear that these practices were widespread at the firm, directly involving 45 employees, 11 of whom were managers. “At least two further Managers and five Senior Managers were also aware of the practice of the manipulation of submissions to benefit trading positions,” the report said.
【250】
【time 5】
But there is a silver lining in all of this corruption, in that these transgressions are so egregious that financial regulators have been forced to take the issue very seriously. The $1.5 billion fine is a big number, more than a third of UBS’s 2011 profit. But the more important development is that regulators are pursuing criminal proceedings against the bank and its employees. U.K. authorities have already made several arrests in relation to the case, and U.S. authorities may follow suit. In addition, the U.S. Justice Department got a Japanese subsidiary of UBS to plead guilty to wire fraud. It has been rare for regulators anywhere to criminally prosecute banks, as they fear such actions could harm stability in the financial system. Perhaps the action against UBS is the first crack in this dangerous point of view. As an op-ed in Bloomberg News argued yesterday:
“Criminal indictments, though, would do more to change the culture among the individuals who performed, aided and abetted deceitful acts, and to restore faith in markets. Authorities should also force banks to divulge information on their true borrowing costs over the period in question, so the financial effect of their transgressions — and the required compensation to investors – can be calculated.”
For the global financial industry, this ruling is just the beginning. Several other large banks should still expect enforcement actions brought against them, and any bank involved in the scandal should expect to be fighting lawsuits involving LIBOR for years to come. On October 15, The Financial Times reported on a lawsuit brought against 12 of the world’s largest banks by five Alabama homeowners, which alleges that rate manipulation increased the interest they had to pay on their mortgages by thousands of dollars. Given how widely used LIBOR is to price financial instruments, homeowners are just one group that could have potentially lost money due to rate manipulation. In light of these suits and regulatory actions still to come, expect the financial crime of the century to be with us for years to come.
【341】
【obstacle】
ECONOMY & POLICY
Do We Have Another Financial Bubble On Our Hands? Or Three?
By Michael SivyDec. 19, 20125 Comments
More than two years ago, economists started talking about a bubble in Treasury bonds that would eventually burst, just as the dot.com bubble and the housing bubble had. If that happens, the prices of long-term bonds could fall by 10% to 20%. So far, that bond bust hasn’t materialized. But one of the characteristics of bubbles is that they often go on longer than anyone expects. What is most troubling now is that the problem is spreading beyond Treasuries. Excessive borrowing and ultra-low interest rates are now distorting all the debt markets. As a result, there is no longer just one bubble – there are many.
The details vary, but debt bubbles have two things in common. First, there is a big increase in borrowing often promoted by government policies and sometimes accompanied by a decline in lending standards. Second, there is a huge increase in the amount of money available that keeps interest rates low. Sometimes the cash comes from the government and sometimes it is provided by the banking sector, as it was during the housing bubble. The current debt market bubbles are largely the result of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s decision to pump huge amounts of money into the banking system.
Because of the recession, interest rates would probably have fallen somewhat anyway. And because bond prices normally move in the opposite direction from rates, prices would have risen. But the Fed’s policies over the past couple of years have depressed interest rates and pushed up bond prices far more than normal. Only trouble is, the Fed can’t keep this up forever. Rapid money growth can be absorbed if the economy is slack. But once a recovery picks up speed, consumers start spending more exuberantly and businesses become more willing to invest. Excess cash then begins to encourage inflation unless the Fed turns around and drains money from the banking system. Interest rates are likely to rise either way, whether the Fed allows inflation or restrains money growth.
Higher interest rates cause the value of existing debt to fall and also make it harder for borrowers to get new loans. In other ways, though, the major debt bubbles are likely to play out somewhat differently. Here’s a look at the three most important:
Treasury bonds. Because the deficit has more than doubled over the past four years, the Federal Government has been forced to borrow more and more money by selling Treasuries. Ordinarily, the government would have to pay higher interest rates to convince investors to keep lending it money. But instead, yields on long-term Treasuries have fallen to 50-year lows, and the prices of those bonds have run up by about 30% in just the past two years. A large part of the reason is the Fed’s easy money policy, known officially as quantitative easing. Basically, the Fed is authorized to create money, essentially out of nothing, and then use it to buy bonds sold by the Treasury (thereby lending money to the government). Buying all these bonds drives up their prices, and that reduces the bonds’ yields. If the Fed stops buying Treasury bonds in such massive amounts – stops artificially holding down interest rates, in other words – yields would likely jump up and the prices of Treasury bonds could plummet like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff.
Municipal bonds. Many State and local governments are borrowing a lot, too. But their bonds carry an additional risk that Treasuries don’t. The Federal Government can use the Fed to create enough dollars to meet any obligation. But lower levels of government are not able to create money and so it is possible for them to be forced to default on loans if they borrow too much. Some states manage their debt better than others: Texas has a stellar credit rating, for example, while several cities in California have gone bankrupt. The muni borrowers with the biggest problems tend to suffer from runaway public-sector spending, especially on pensions and other benefits. And even if they go bankrupt, they may not have the legal right to cut those benefits. For munis, therefore, the risks include not only a price drop caused by an upturn in interest rates, but also the danger of default. Bond prices could also be hurt if credit-rating agencies warn that an issuer’s finances are getting worse.
Student loans. The cost of a university education has risen 60% or more over the past decade, and the average college senior now graduates with debt of $27,000 – and as much as $55,000 at the most expensive private colleges. Graduate or professional school can push that sum into six figures. The share of young people going to college has nearly doubled, and government policies have boosted the funding available. The result: Total student loans outstanding are around $1 trillion and, more ominously, the delinquency rate is up to 11%. This bubble won’t burst, exactly, because student loans are much harder to escape than credit card debt, say, even in bankruptcy. So there will probably have to be a long painful deflation of the bubble. Moreover, experts have been warning that the burden of making payments on these big loans is forcing many young people to delay buying homes and cars – or taking entrepreneurial risks – and thereby acting as a serious drag on the economy.
To gauge the likely impact of these three debt bubbles, one has only to look at what happened in the aftermath of the housing boom. When the market went bust, the value of mortgage loans fell, as did the value of the assets they were used to finance, namely houses. Afterwards, the amount of available funding was reduced and lending standards were tightened, locking many potential borrowers out of the market. In the case of today’s debt market bubbles, the same risks exist if there’s a bust – higher borrowing costs, more demanding lenders, and intense pressure for cost cutting.
Some economists argue that it’s a mistake to worry about debt while the economy is still weak and jobs should be a greater concern. But initial steps need to be taken to bring these bubbles under control now, before the recovery accelerates and demand for funds creates tighter debt markets. A deal on the fiscal cliff would be only a down payment.
【1047】
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发表于 2012-12-21 23:41:42
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