Bestiality

Lower Left: Is that a Bat? 

Lipton takes the fall

The International Monetary Fund granted Argentina a 57.100 million dollar loan a year ago, to save it from another default. I wrote then that they were crazy and Lagrade would pay with his head this imbecility.  u$s 57.100 million is the largest ever loan of the IMF and about the 60% of its capital.  

Well, Lagarde was kicked upstairs to head the European Union's Central Bank, and his second, David Lipton (pic) took the fall and was sacked. Kristalina Georgieva, the Bulgarian replacement of Lagarde, is reorganizing the IMF leadership. The Argentine loan intended to help pro-USA President Macri to win the elections, but the populist, irresponsible Peronist party returned to power and the loan will never be paid back. 

The Pangolin Virus

It appears that the bat coronavirus was transmitted to humans via the pangolin in Wuhan wet market. Pangolins are hunted and eaten for their erection enhancing (imagined) virtues.

The poor beast does not ruminate nor has other signs of being kosher. A normal, non-starving  person would not eat it.   

Shaar Benjamin

Yesterday I travelled to the Shaar Benjamin Industrial Park, a stone throw distance from the Qalandia Palestinian Refugee Camp. Twelve years ago, a Sepharadi baker from the nearby Adam settlement, was the first to move to the new business park, and contracted me to design a three floor building. He added a restaurant. There was nothing in that stony desert but a Rami Levy Supermarket, built - I think - for Ramallah Arab customers. He later rented the building to the police and built a larger bakery on the main street (pic). Planned by me too. Now he is expanding and called me. It seems to me that Arabic speaking Jews feel at home in the Shomron, bought land, started businesses, built large buildings and made money.

The GPS is not working well in the West Bank so I followed Google Map route that made me ramble all over Samaria. I arrived at midday dead tired. The place has grown but still is quite empty. The Palestinian contractor explained to me that Ramallah has developed and is full of supermarkets and shops which are cheaper and people do not need Shaar Benjamin. The man dreams of joining his brother in Sevilla, "for his children". There are five or ten very rich people in Ramallah, he said, the rest are poor.  A typical Middle East dictatorship. The next door Qalandia Refugee Camp is not a camp but a typical Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood, from the road it looks clean and well maintained. 

Look How Old I Am

My America.

Diversity in Swiss Banking

In order to inject new ideas into the uber-conservative Swiss banking, the country's largest bank handed it to Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, an athletic, talented Senegalese, who started a deep revamping of the organization.  The stock is down by almost half since Thiam took over in mid-2015, after he tapped shareholders for fresh capital. 

Worse, the bank's internal workings have been exposed as slightly un-Swiss, as its top wealth manager Iqbal Khan was spied on following an altercation between Thiam and Khan. Swiss bankers used to be dumb, boring and reliable. This is hardly good for business. In fact, a campaign for sacking Tiam is being fought, but that would look racist.  

Tunnels Under London

Under London there is a labyrinth of infrastructure: underground trains, WW2 antiair refuges, secret nuclear bunkers, power tunnels, Victorian era sewage tunnels and more. To install new infrastructure the bureaucracy is worse than the Israeli red tape, because under today's London there is the London of the Roman era, whose remnants are untouchable. The new sewage system had to be built under the river Thames and the paperwork comprised some one hundred large books. I have visited that work and shall write about it. But see the power infrastructure, which is most impressive. The English are still capable of large, complicated  projects.  I don't notice decadence.