Odds Sods And Mods

1) Excellent news. In my new office I'm sat three feet from an HP 4250 Laserjet Printer, now with added cancer-causing hotness.

2) I'm quite fond of the whimsical statues at the 8th Avenue and 14th Street A/C/E subway stop. I can't yet claim they helped me get through cancer, though.

3) Ah, the endless train of amusement that is Macquarie Bank, the Australian bank that buys things, particularly bits of infrastructure, and then alternates between borrowing against them like crazy and shuffling themm between the funds it manages.

The above article, which is not the only one in its genre I've read, suggests that the bank's approach might be heading for disaster, on the back of trouble in fund whose investment focus, investing in high-yield debt, is not even a related discipline. We hear also from it that decreased supplies of equity and debt may make it hard for the bank to keep making so much money.

Here's my only contribution to the debate. No one, and I mean no one, produces ideas for things to buy as well as Macquarie. It doesn't mean they'll make as much money at what they do, especially if their returns do not benefit from cheap debt. But they'll keep making more than their peers.

Right, I'm off to watch Transformers. Have a good weekend.