Someone must have gotten killed earlier this morning on Rt 80 eastbound in New Jersey. We ran into a wall of traffic before exit 27 a little after midnight. Then the state troopers made us move over to the shoulder and back up so they could squeeze through. Another dozen or so assorted police cars, ambulances, etc. followed, and a helicopter landed up ahead at the crash site. We were too far back to see anything, but we were stranded on the highway overpass for two and half hours, which suggests the cops were conducting a thorough investigation, which, in turn, suggests there were fatalities. Must have been a big disaster. We never drove past it though. The cops had everyone in the left lane, for a quarter mile back, back out and turn around, the wrong way on the highway. Then we exited the same way.
A little before 4am, we stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts on Rt. 46 (which goes roughly parallel to 80 in NJ) to use the bathroom. Afterwords, we felt we needed to buy something, so we shared a bagel. The girl behind the counter asked what we were doing out that late and I told her. Then she gave me a giant iced coffee with a shot of espresso in it on the house. I drank half of it on the way home. Now I’m downshifting with some diphenhydramine and a couple fingers of Macallan. With that preamble out of the way, a few links:
A couple of the smarter blog posts I’ve seen on the Goldman Sachs lawsuit over the weekend were by Eric Falkenstein. First, “Goldman busted on this one”. Excerpt:
Goldman fires back, disputing the main point of evidence for the SEC, that Goldman told Abacus manager ACA that Paulson was the equity owner. I think that is the most important fact in the case, and is either true or false. Goldman does note that since they lost $90MM on the deal, and ACA lost almost $1B, they actually did think it was a good deal, which makes sense. Even if they are not guilty, they were really short sighted, and Fab Tourre is either an idiot or a scumbag, and Goldman is stupid or scummy for hiring guys like that.
Second, “Empty Suits of the week: ACA”. Excerpt:
One interesting thing in the Goldman suit is how manager ACA was totally oblivious to Paulson’s intentions. Paulson & Co. were well-known shorts in this space at the time of their deal (first quarter 2007). For ACA to think Paulson was a long investor in this stuff, even if Goldman ever said this (remains in dispute) implies these people were insanely clueless about their industry. What proportion of executives are mindlessly going through the motions, getting paid to show up, and presenting themselves to family and friends as financial gurus in the arcane field of ’structured finance’. There may not be a law against being clueless, but these are the true frauds in the Goldman/SEC lawsuit.
And, for something completely different, Qabiz, an online yellow pages with promotional videos. Client and friend Craig sent me a link to Quabiz, after meeting with the founders. I keyed in my zip code, and found the video clip below, about Rutts Hut in Clifton, which has apparently been a local institution for three decades, famous for its deep fried hot dogs. News to me. Went there Sunday to try it out. Not bad. Deep frying FTW.
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