Rain Man In Trouble

 The Unraveling of Tom Hayes, Pt. One :

Ms. Tighe printed out the settlement documents and went through them with a yellow highlighter, with Joshua balanced on her lap. She was relieved. They made it clear that Libor manipulation was widespread. Her husband wasn’t even named.

That evening, as she prepared a joint of roasted lamb for dinner, Mr. Hayes sat nearby, puttering on his Apple laptop. A news alert popped up. Mr. Hayes clicked the link. A video of the U.S. attorney general at a news conference in Washington started playing.

“Sarah, I’ve been charged by the U.S.,” Mr. Hayes announced.

Credit : Peter Mlekuz, Janko Klavora

→ The Wall Street Journal

How Europe Crushed Greece

Op-Ed by Yanis Varoufakis :

The fact that few people ever got to hear about the Greek plan is a testament to the eurozone’s deep failures of governance. If the “Athens Spring” — when the Greek people courageously rejected the catastrophic austerity conditions of the previous bailouts — has one lesson to teach, it is that Greece will recover only when the European Union makes the transition from “We the states” to “We the European people.”

Across the Continent, people are fed up with a monetary union that is inefficient because it is so profoundly undemocratic. This is why the battle for rescuing Greece has now turned into a battle for Europe’s integrity, soul, rationality and democracy. I plan to concentrate on helping set up a Pan-European political movement, inspired by the Athens Spring, that will work toward Europe’s democratization.

Credit: Death of Euros, Goin

→ The New York Times

The Deadly Disunity of the Europeans

Instead of mutualising, or sharing, risks, EU member states only share procedures and follow common rules. But the risks remain within member states. There are many areas where this approach is pragmatic and sensible. A sudden spike in immigration is not one of them. A quota system is far too crude, and politically as unsustainable as fiscal transfers between countries. Such policies breed resentment, and ultimately fail. In a quota system you do not kick cans down the road, but people.

→ Financial Times

Fluid Coupling

The enterprise stood as a place of “legacy” and “security” which prevented mobile or other forms of computing. Paradoxes emerged wherein an administrative assistant had more computing power in his pocket than the CEO had in her data center; where the same assistant would know what was happening faster than any of the bosses. Homes had better connectivity than offices and productivity at small firms increased faster than at big firms. Incidentally, even the slowest enterprises were faster then the government. The bigger the firm, the slower and stupider it seemed. Were large firms employing dumb managers or did being a manager in a large firm make you dumb?

→ Asymco