Alex's posterous

Mark Cuban = smart guy

When Bernie Madoff was arrested, it set billionaire blogger and Dallas Mavs owner, Mark Cuban, off on a whole heap of posts about the massive fraud. One of the most interesting things he wrote was this:

"Im taking a flyer here, but if they were to put me on the case, the first people I would talk to are the software developers. Somewhere along the line there was a software program written or modified that allowed Madoff to enter the numbers he made up, who they were paying out cash to and would print the checks and  statements.  

"Its very unlikely that it was off the shelf software because it would be impossible for all the numbers to balance, or he would need to use suspense type of accounts that would raise red flags for even the smallest of accounting firms.... Maybe I have missed it, but I have yet to see an article written or any commentary about the software Madoff Investments used or read about any programmers that have come forward that worked for him. 

....Find the programmers who wrote the software and you will find out how the whole thing worked."

Well, hey hey, here's a story today on ZDNet: 'Bernie Madoff Software programmers indicted': 

"Bernie’s not the only one heading to the big house it would appear. Two Madoff Investment (BLMIS) employees are facing up to 30 years in jail for designing special software programs that contained fraudulent financial records and data. 

The FBI announced that two software programmers have been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury."

In hindsight it seems obvious that these guys would be a major part of things, but as Cuban said at the time, nobody else seemed to call it. 

The iPhone is a terrible mobile telephone

It's an amazing device, and one that is genuinely revolutionary, but I'll be completely honest and say the iPhone is actually a pretty terrible mobile telephone.
Dropped calls, poor and inconsistent signal strength and bad call quality and low volume... It's not just my phone either, it was the same with my original 2G one and a fair number of others have said the same, not to mention the appalling time a lot of users have had in the US, with AT&T lumbered with a large amount of the blame. Perhaps that blame isn't quite fair. What have your iPhone phone call experiences been like?

A posterous about posturing

The Baseline Scenario blog has been a 'must read' site for me during the year of global financial turmoil. Its writers are deeply cynical about the actual benefits of events like the G20 meetings, so much so that they more or less hold them in contempt. In a post yesterday, Simon Johnson said the next round of financial discussion get-togethers will amount too.... not much.

As we wade through a long line of international economic meetings – G20 ministers of finance last week, G20 heads of government in Pittsburgh coming up, IMF-World Bank governors meeting in Istanbul early October (and all the associated “deputies” meetings, where the real work goes on) – it seems fair to ask: where is regulatory reform of our financial system heading?

Long documents have been produced and official websites have become more organized.  Statements of principle have been made.  And the melodrama of rival reform proposals has reared its head: continental Europeans for controlling pay vs. the US for raising capital vs. the UK not really wanting to do anything.  But what does all of this add up to, and what should we expect from the forthcoming summit sequence?

Nothing meaningful.