This Is How You Get Got

So apparently pirates now have spokespeople, and it turns out they're pretty damn articulate.

This Times article made me think of the Mos Def song "Got". I.e., this is what happens when you sail an "estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry" down the coast of one of the most beleaguered, ungoverned countries in the world. It gets gaffled.

Was the arms deal really part of a secret shipment to southern Sudan? Hopefully, we'll find out.

Syria Bombing

A car bombing killed 17 in Damascus this morning. Before we all start wild speculations as to who did this, based entirely on our prejudices and political convictions and no facts, let’s first express some sorrow for the dead. This is a heinous act. I am thinking of all Syrians today. Keep your head up, Syria… peace will come.

Learning to Live New York

I was walking home about 11pm on 123rd Street near St. Nicholas. I passed the little jazz bar on the corner. It was about half full, and a live band's melodies murmured out. People were having drinks and talking; the night was cool.

A spontaneous smile grew on my face, even though I wasn't a part of the scene, and couldn't be, because I had to hurry home and read for class.

For me, that's learning to live New York City: appreciating and being aware of everything that is going on around you, without feeling you are missing out.

It's impossible to partake in everything this city has to offer. So I try to savor the aroma of its little blossoms even if I can't possibly pick them all.

Multimedia Activism in Palestine

My friend Willow made this clip during a summer in the West Bank. I'm really impressed. Makes me want to be a new media booster -- with just a little bit of training and relatively inexpensive equipment, anyone can be an effective documentarian.

A Space Station Called Dubai

I have come to think of Dubai as a space station: a place-less city in the middle of nowhere whose semblances of community, culture and soul are imported at great expense from elsewhere. The malls, bars and restaurants are of high enough quality to give the illusion of location, but the heart feels far away from earth.

Michael Slackman put it perfectly in this excellent Times article from today: "Dubai has been built along roadways, 6, 12, 14 lanes wide. There was no central urban planning and the result is a city of oases, each divided from the other by lanes of traffic. The physical distance between people is matched by the distance between nationalities. Dubai has everything money can buy, but it does not have a unifying culture or identity. The only common thread is ambition."

One of the reason's Slackman's article is great is that it shows the positive side of Dubai from an Arab perspective: finally, there is a place where young Arab men can get paid, and their ability to work is respected. That's a good thing. The dynamics Slackman describes are exactly those I observed talking to Palestinians who are now working in Dubai, having left the various countries of their diaspora. I was happy to see some of my friends finally getting paid like they deserve to be.

On the other hand, Dubai is a major destination for human traffickers, and the situation of the indentured South Asians of the labor camps is none too encouraging. Neither are the relationships between Western or richer foreigners, Arabs and South Asians. From what I observed in a brief four days, these groups didn't mix a whole lot, and the comments tossed around by some Arabs about South Asians are hard to swallow. The men-to-women ratio is out of control. (An omission of Slackman's article is an explanation of why he only interviewed men.) There's a lot lurking below the surface.

That's why I see the positive sides of Dubai not so much as a triumph of that bizarre, binging city, but more as a reflection of just how bad things are in the rest of the Arab world. There are no good reasons why the same opportunities cannot exist, in their appopriate contexts, in places less artificial than Dubai. What's more, Dubai cannot sustain the whole region indefinitely.

Anyway, the story of Dubai is still unfolding, and I don't think anyone knows what the phenomenon really means yet. Glad to see good reporting on it.

Financial Crisis: Quotes from a Columbia classroom

The last couple days have shown that there are fundamental problems with the way we finance everything in this country. David Leonhardt's column in the Times is a thoughtful summary of the long-term changes that need to take place to make sure this doesn't happen again. No bailout, he writes, can solve the problems of regulators thinking Wall Street can police itself, or households taking out "wishful-thinking loans" they can't afford.

While no one official has put forward a new long-term financial strategy, people seem to be agreeing about some fundamental issues in this crisis. (And some of them were saying these things years ago. Why didn't more people listen?)

Here are some comments from a lecture by a professor teaching a class in international finance at Columbia University. I'm not naming the prof, since the classroom -- even though it is effectively open to the public and had about 150 students -- is only a semi-public place and not a press conference, but I'm sure plenty of folks will find these comments interesting. This prof has years of experience in the finance world.

• "The last time I felt like the bottom was falling out [like this] was October 19, 1987."
  
  
• The roots of this crisis were ten years ago. Despite all the complex balance sheets that seemed to cover risky debt, something was ignored: "There is a fundamental concern that if you want to sell something [debt], it means you don't want it anymore."
  
  
• What people thought about Bear Stearns: "These balance sheets look suspicious, but you know, they [Bear Stearns analysts] are just so smart! But then they play 20 straight days of golf and smoke marijuana in public .... Hmm, maybe they're not so smart."
  
  
• "These guys [i-banking leaders] are not that smart, they're not in touch and they don't know what they're doing."
  
  
• Bear Stearns has been hyped as a bailout more than it actually was. "The press calls it a $29 billion bailout. But ... it's not obvious that the Fed is going to lose money on this."
  
  
• "A world without i-banks: is it one we want to live in? I have personally thought for a long time that the existence of these banks is fraught. Individuals can trade stocks without Lehman. Investment management -- you can get that without Lehman.... Sales and trading -- that's why God created hedge funds. They have built-in incentives, they are unregulated and the investors can afford to lose." [LGD aside: Not sure I agree with this last one, but I don't know enough yet to argue with someone who has decades of experience.]
  
  
• "These behemoth i-banks combined all these things under one roof. Not only did they breed conflicts of interest, they are hard to manage -- look at the changeover of leadership."
  
  
• "I don't know why AIG insured so many subprime loans. My guess is that when they first did it, it made a profit, and they continued. It was a titanic error of judgement."
  
  
• "I predict that Goldman will be bought by the end of the year.... But maybe they're so special that they're really unique."
  
  
• "I kind of think it's a good idea to have fewer stand-alone i-banks, but I don't think they should all go down at once like this."
  

REGULATORS.... Mount up!

We need a fiscal Nate Dogg and Warren G to take control of these wild days on the Street.* But this time they need to be on Wall Street, not 21 and Lewis.

I have to admit to feeling a kind of sick glee watching the coverage of Lehman's demise this week, and I'm not alone. Wall Street observers are saying this is a necessary step in realizing the full depth of the financial crisis.

Of course, the glee is unfounded, right? Isn't it terribly naive to feel this way, since this crisis is going to rattle the economy thoroughly, and eventually directly affect me, along with everyone else?

The thing is, the Lehman disintegration is just a symptom of a crisis that has been brewing for much longer, so the glee is more about the depth of the crisis coming to light, and not about all the lost money.

Also, while I feel sorry for anyone who lost jobs or big money in the last few days, this is something of a case of the chickens coming home to roost. Long before summer 2007, I heard stories of people piling into houses in poor neighborhoods to try to pay their way out of subprime mortgages and keep their homes. Meanwhile, the hot housing profits in the credit markets were built on the use of these mortgages and the derivative schemes that made them seem viable. The geniuses in private equity who came up with these ideas operated outside the constraints and oversight of regulation -- I guess because the government trusted them, as rich people (rich=competent and good, right?) and because no one fully understood the mechanisms they were using. Now, the house of cards has collapsed.

It goes without saying, at this point: These capital markets need regulation, just like any market where greed can trump prudence. Which is probably any market under the sun.

So as soon as the bailouts and bankruptcies blow over, we need action from lawmakers, preferably under the guidance of a president who is not an idiot.

Regulators, mount up.

*In case you lived in a cave in the early 90s, Warren G and Nate Dogg sang the hugely popular 1994 hit, "Regulate", in which Nate Dogg describes saving his friend from muggers -- "regulating" -- on the streets of Long Beach.

Ramadan in My Neck of the Woods

The muezzin's call rises above the tenements in the deepening dusk. The crowds of faithful hurry to wash, pray and then, finally, to break their fast. The days have been long and warm this Ramadan, but work must continue as usual in this city where a day's rest from the hustle can mean no food at all.

Nope, this is not a nostalgic Beirut or Damascus flashback. I'm talking about my new place near 117th and Adam Clayton Powell in the heart of Harlem. Around the corner is what must be one of the most vibrant Senegalese neighborhoods in the United States. It's so dominated by Senegalese culture that Bambara and French are the languages that murmur from the stoops in the night, and men and women often wear their African clothes to hang out in.

My grandfather grew up around here, and used to camp out in Morningside Park with his copy of Peter Pan. I try to imagine that, and think it's strange and wonderful that the neighborhood has changed so much since then, and I want to find out how it all went down.

Until then, I'll enjoy the call to prayer. And the immense, $12 plates of lamb and couscous on 116th Street.