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Little Britain, the UK comedy show, made a character that you may think is extreme.  Her name is Carol, and she works for a fictional bank, Midwest.  The way the sketch works is that each time a customer comes into the bank, she rattles away on the keyboard and then delivers the punchline: "Computer says…

In an interesting article in the NYTimes, IBM’s optimistic and upbeat assessment for a 15%+ rise in profits in 2008 is questioned.  Answer: IBM’s not reliant on the depressed American economy but is making shedloads in the BRIC economies and from banks.  Here’s the bit that piqued my interest in particular: "The questions from Wall…

Absolutely nothing to do with banking but, with all this doom and gloom around, I just thought this plea for help was so funny that it was worth sharing.  It’s apparently a true email exchange between a witty but sarcastic member of the public and the Scottish Lothian & Borders Police force. Subject: Your automated…

Absolutely nothing to do with banking but, with all this doom and gloom around, I just thought this plea for help was so funny that it was worth sharing.  It’s apparently a true email exchange between a witty but sarcastic member of the public and the Scottish Lothian & Borders Police force. Subject: Your automated…

Wolfgang Munchau writes in the Financial Times today that the issues we faced in subprime in 2007 are just a mere drop in the ocean, and that this is more than just a subprime crisis: “If this had been a mere subprime crisis, it would now be over. But it is not, and nor will…

I don’t, but Tom Hodgkinson of the UK newspaper The Guardian does.  Fascinating article on Facebook’s ownership starring Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal, and statistics on usage which is approaching 60 million worldwide, mainly in the USA, Canada and UK. Read it and start socialising in the real world as Tom summaries…

Stonewall have just released their annual ranking of the best employers for gay people in Britain.  Interesting to see who’s who in our community.  For example, of the Top 100, we have quite a few nominations of good gay places in Retail and Investment Banking (position in Top 100 given first): 6   Lloyds TSB 92% …

News just in that Tony Blair’s first job since being dumped (ed: leaving office) is with JPMorgan as an advisor.  Wonder when JPM will invade (ed: open a branch in) Iraq then? Oh, they already have.

News just in that Tony Blair’s first job since being dumped (ed: leaving office) is with JPMorgan as an advisor.  Wonder when JPM will invade (ed: open a branch in) Iraq then? Oh, they already have.

I thought I should balance the books after picking on Citi, SocGen and HSBC yesterday by performing a quick look at the IT industry using Yahoo’s message boards, another favourite.    I love the message boards of Yahoo for seeing what investors really think about firms through trader’s messages and employee’s gripes.  The only thing…