Wednesday, 28 September 2011
BBC financial expert Alessio Rastani: 'I'm an attention seeker not a trader'
The interview contained such gems as "Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world [and] Goldman Sachs does not care about the rescue package."
But on Tuesday night the BBC was left facing questions about just how qualified Mr Rastani is to speak about the markets.
In the interview Mr Rastani described himself as an independent trader. Elsewhere he claims he's an "investment speaker". Instead of operating from a plush office in Canary Wharf Mr Rastani works and lives with his partner Anita Eader in a £200,000 semi in Bexleyheath, south London. The house, complete with a mortgage from Royal Bank of Scotland, belongs to her not him.
He is a business owner, a 99pc shareholder in public speaking venture Santoro Projects. Its most recent accounts show cash in the bank of £985. After four years trading net assets are £10,048 - in the red.
How a man who has never been authorised by the Financial Services Authority and has no discernible history working for a City institution ended up being interviewed by the BBC remains a mystery.
The incongruity led to some commentators speculating Mr Rastani was a professional hoaxer. The BBC denied the allegation: "We've carried out detailed investigations and can't find any evidence to suggest that the interview with Alessio Rastani was a hoax."
However, the BBC declined to comment on what checks, if any, it had done prior to the interview.
Mr Rastani was a little more forthcoming.
"They approached me," he told The Telegraph. "I'm an attention seeker. That is the main reason I speak. That is the reason I agreed to go on the BBC. Trading is a like a hobby. It is not a business. I am a talker. I talk a lot. I love the whole idea of public speaking."
So he's more of a talker than a trader. A man who doesn't own the house he lives in, but can sum up the financial crisis in just three minutes – a knack that escapes many financial commentators.
"I agreed to go on because I'm attention seeker," he said on Tuesday. "But I meant every word I said."
Jonathan Russell @'The Telegraph'
The incongruity led to some commentators speculating Mr Rastani was a professional hoaxer. The BBC denied the allegation: "We've carried out detailed investigations and can't find any evidence to suggest that the interview with Alessio Rastani was a hoax."
However, the BBC declined to comment on what checks, if any, it had done prior to the interview.
Mr Rastani was a little more forthcoming.
"They approached me," he told The Telegraph. "I'm an attention seeker. That is the main reason I speak. That is the reason I agreed to go on the BBC. Trading is a like a hobby. It is not a business. I am a talker. I talk a lot. I love the whole idea of public speaking."
So he's more of a talker than a trader. A man who doesn't own the house he lives in, but can sum up the financial crisis in just three minutes – a knack that escapes many financial commentators.
"I agreed to go on because I'm attention seeker," he said on Tuesday. "But I meant every word I said."
Jonathan Russell @'The Telegraph'
Sly & The Family Stone - Live on Music Scene (1969)
Hot Fun - Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey - I Wanna Take You Higher
Everyday People - Dance to the Music
JamesWolcott James Wolcott
If Roger Ailes is claiming to steer Fox News less "hard right," I'm guessing that the phone hacking scandal must be about to hit home hard.Roger’s Reality Show
Country star back at 'old stand' (Stars & Stripes Sept 23 1959)
He is Johnny Cash, who has three golden records, each for selling over a million copies. The singer is in Europe to make a few television appearances and line up a tour of military bases next year.
Cash enlisted in the Air Force after high school graduation and was stationed in Landsberg, Germany, for three years.
"I had a small country music band;" he explained. ."We used to play at the, base or in German gasthauses. But I was in a security unit and I couldn't get around much."
After leaving the service, Johnny used his GI Bill to attend a radio school in Memphis, Tenn. While at school he auditioned for a small record company. A month later he cut his first release and it was the beginning of his career as a recording star,
Lately, Cash has been writing his own songs which have been included in an album called "Songs of the Soil." Since he doesn't read or write music, Johnny composes with a tape recorder.
"After I get an idea for a song I cut a tape and listen to it," he explained. "When I finally get it the way I want I turn the tape over to a composer who takes the song and puts it into sheet music."
One song, "Five Feet High and Rising," was inspired by a 1937 flood in his home town of Dyess, Ark.
"I was 5 years old and my dad sent mother and me up to the hill country," he recalled. "I never saw the flood but my dad used to tell me about it."
Another song called "The Man on the Hill" was inspired by a plantation owner who lived in a big white house on the hill in Johnny's home town.
"All the sharecroppers used to refer to him as `the man on the hill,'" Cash said. "They depended on him for money to get seed, or to live on till the crop was in.
"They used to say, if the man on the hill treats us right we'll have a good year."
Johnny has come a long way from picking cotton on his father's small farm. Today he owns a music company, has a contract with Columbia Records, and has just completed two TV films. He will return to Hollywood, where he is now living, to star in a Western.
Just for old time's sake, Johnny will take over as guest disc jockey next Friday morning at 6:05 on AFN's Hillbilly Reveille. It was his favorite program when he was here in the service.
Johnny's kid brother, who also plays the guitar and sings, is in Europe. He is stationed at the 225th Station Hospital at Pirmasens.
For those in the service who want to be entertainers in the country and Western field, Johnny has this advice: "I think a singer should develop an individual style.
"He should sing the kind of songs he has a feeling for. Then when you know what you want — work your fingers off for it."
Ernie Weatherall @'Stars & Stripes'
Thom Yorke on Remix Culture
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Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Facebook vows privacy fix 'in 24 hours'
Mr Cubrilovic said engineers at the social networking giant had made the commitment to him during a 40-minute conference call that ended early this afternoon.
He has spoken with US-based engineers and communication staff at Facebook during the call.
Mr Cubrilovic sparked a major privacy debate after posting a blog late on Sunday which demonstrated that Facebook was still collecting identifiable information about users after they had logged out from the social network.
This afternoon, Mr Cubrilovic posted a table which further details the personal information Facebook was collecting after logging out.
The information includes a Facebook user ID, which makes it possible for the social network to personally label computer usage information that it collects from PCs.
"They're sending the information to their servers, even when they (users)are logged out.
"It's a question of what they do with it. They may not do with it now, but in two years' time, they might introduce a new feature that accesses it."
Mr Cubrilovic confirmed that, instead of deleting or deactivating browser cookies at logout, Facebook instead extended the life of cookies stored on a computer for several years into the future.
He said Facebook also had promised to address three other cookie-related issues during the call.
"They aim to fix it (the logout issue) by tomorrow," Mr Cubrilovic said.
"There will still be cookies, but they won't be identifiable. That's within 24 hours.
"We can only take them at their word."
Chris Griffith @'The Australian'
Shouldn't have happened in the first place though...
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Noam Chomsky Announces Solidarity With #occupywallstreet
Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street -- financial institutions generally -- has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called "a precariat" -- seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity -- not only too big to fail, but also "too big to jail."
The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.
Noam Chomsky
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