Potpourri

More on Rosneft IPO: I just watched an interview on Bloomberg of a mutual fund manager talking about the Rosneft IPO. I admitted that the whole thing is ugly, but that "it is too big to ignore" so investors are holding their nose and swallowing. That is the sort of dangerous rationale that loses fortunes, but that is what global liquidity has brought us to. Beware.

Isreal-Lebanon: In the 1980s there was a really cool punk bar in NYC called Downtown Beirut, which attempted to be as scruffy as possible, I guess in an attempt to imitate a war zone. It was perhaps a bit shameful to commercialize the tragedy of Lebanon, but I was a young whippersnapper and I didn't care. It was a sign of the times, and blessedly so, that in the 1990s the bar became anachronistic and shut down. I hope it stays that way.

Finally, the world sure looks a mess. Iran is heading toward the bomb. North Korea is firing missiles at either Japan or Hawaii. The Middle East looks about to explode. Oil is rising. Stock markets are falling. Terrorism continues in the world's major cities. Remember, the time to buy is when the blood is in the streets. I leave it to you to detect the metaphorical red stuff.