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Wall Street Pay To Be Dictated By Washington?

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Obama administration is seriously contemplating changing compensation practices on Wall Street and throughout the financial services sector. The Journal’s Damian Paletta and Deborah Solomon wrote:

The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry, including at companies that did not receive federal bailout money, according to people familiar with the matter.

The initiative, which is in its early stages, is part of an ambitious and likely controversial effort to broadly address the way financial companies pay employees and executives, including an attempt to more closely align pay with long-term performance.

Administration and regulatory officials are looking at various options, including using the Federal Reserve’s supervisory powers, the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission and moral suasion. Officials are also looking at what could be done legislatively.

Among ideas being discussed are Fed rules that would curb banks’ ability to pay employees in a way that would threaten the “safety and soundness” of the bank — such as paying loan officers for the volume of business they do, not the quality. The administration is also discussing issuing “best practices” to guide firms in structuring pay.

At the same time, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) is working on legislation that could strengthen the government’s ability both to monitor compensation and to curb incentives that threaten a company’s viability or pose a systemic risk to the economy.

Just more posturing, or another nail in the coffin for Wall Street as we know it?

Some, like legendary investor Jim Rogers, would say it really doesn’t matter, as they argue a new financial center is being established in Asia. They might have a point, considering that’s where the money is flowing to these days.

As usual, time will tell.

Source:

“U.S. Eyes Bank Pay Overhaul”
Damian Paletta, Deborah Solomon
Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2009

U.S. Farmers Wary Of Recession

Here’s the latest on how American farmers are holding up during the global economic downturn, courtesy of AP business writer Josh Funk today:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that farm income will fall some 20 percent, or $18.1 billion, to $71.2 billion this year. The lessons of the 1980s farm crisis — when farmers learned the dangers of assuming too much debt when times are good — are about to be tested.

“People that took on a lot of debt — these are the ones I think are going to be in some trouble,” said Iowa State University economics professor Mike Duffy.

So far, it seems the U.S. farming industry hasn’t suffered too badly from the economic slowdown. From the piece:

“The strong farm economy has been a partial insulation from the effects of the recession,” Federal Reserve economist Jason Henderson said.

The Midwest and Plains states also missed most of the housing-related problems in the economy over the past year because home values didn’t boom or bust. And area economists have said rural bankers tended to be more cautious when lending, and were unlikely to invest in the risky mortgage-backed securities that have hurt several major investment banks…

Henderson, who monitors the rural economy within the 10th Federal Reserve District, predicts farm-dependent regions will see slower economic growth in 2009 because farm profit margins will be thinner. He said it’s hard to forecast how much of a hit agriculture might take over the next year because there are big questions about how the recession is affecting demand for commodities, food and exports.

Funk also brought up the topic of farmland values, which I last talked about in early March. He wrote:

Farmland values had soared as countries such as India and China bought more corn and soybeans and the ethanol industry expanded rapidly. Both those economic forces have shifted dramatically in the past year, and now values are in decline.

Source:

“Weak crop prices end feast in farm states”
Josh Funk
Associated Press, April 9, 2009

Related Post

From our sister blog Investorazzi.com this morning:

“George Soros: ‘Brace For Slower Economic Growth’”

In any case, the Chinese government can no longer be relied on to plough money into US government debt, he warns. “They will have less money to spend because their surplus is shrinking and their exports are falling, so they will have less to dispose of, so I think that there will be a definite shift.”

Related Posts

Lots of related material for you today from our sister site Investorazzi.com:

“George Soros’ Advice For Re-Starting The U.S. Economy”

“The stock market is pressing for an early decision by putting pressure on financial stocks. But the new team should avoid repeating the mistakes of the previous one and announcing a programme before it has been thoroughly thought out. The choice between the two courses is momentous; once made, it will become irreversible. It should be based on a careful evaluation of the alternatives.”

“Warren Buffett Warns Of Significant Inflationary ‘Consequences’”

GHARIB: Are they creating new problems? How worried about you about these multi-trillion dollar deficits?
BUFFETT: You can’t just do one thing in economics. Any time somebody said I’m going to do this, you have to say and then what. And there is no free lunch. So if you pour money at this problem, you do have after effects. You create certain problems. I mean you are giving a medicine dosage to the patient on a scale that we haven’t seen in this country. And there will be after effects. And they can’t be predicted exactly am but certainly, the potential is there for inflationary consequences that would be significant.

“Financial World Shaken, Not Stirred, By Jim Rogers’ Comments”

“The money has left America. America is no longer where the money is. The money is in Asia.”

South Korean Prosecutors Indict Financial Blogger

Heads up, all you finance bloggers out there. Talk smack about the economy, and you could find yourself in the slammer. From Reuters today:

South Korean prosecutors indicted a blogger on Thursday who had warned of financial doom for the country with critics saying he was targeted because his gloomy forecasts upset the government battling an economic downturn.

The blogger, writing under the pseudonym Minerva, became a household name for his predictions of sharp falls in the won and the local stock market and the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. Prosecutors said he hurt the local currency by posting incorrect information online.

“The suspect in this case was indicted on charges of false information on two occasions,” an official at the prosecutors’ office said by telephone.

As South Korean markets tumbled late last year amid the global downturn, the main financial regulator warned it would crack down on what it considered malicious rumors and some economic analysts say they have come under pressure from authorities not to voice negative views on the economy.

“The prosecution hurriedly went ahead with its investigation and a court readily gave prosecutors a permit to conduct a witch hunt,” the liberal Hankyoreh daily said in a recent editorial, calling the case an infringement of freedom of speech.

Prosecutors identified the blogger as Park Dae-sung, an unemployed 30-year-old man who faces up to five years in prison if he is found guilty of violating communications laws.

Thankfully, this would never happen in America. Right?

“Oh my God, bear is driving, how can that be?”
Big American Party!
YouTube Video Link

Source:

“South Korea’s ‘prophet of doom’ indicted”
Reuters, January 22, 2009

Top Investment Strategist Predicts U.S. Depression

Back in 1997, investment strategist Albert Edwards angered Southeast Asian governments by predicting a currency meltdown that struck the following year. In 2009, Edwards is once again ruffling feathers by predicting a U.S. depression, along with a Chinese economic “implosion.” From the Dow Jones Newswires’ Ed Welsch today:

THE US economy is likely to enter into a depression and the “implosion” of the Chinese economy will cause disastrous consequences for the whole world, Societe Generale strategist Albert Edwards said.

Advising investors to “bail out” of their stock investments now, Mr Edwards, whose super-bearish stance on the global economy proved correct last year, predicted another 40 per cent decline in the S&P 500 index caused by dismal profit reports and poor economic data during the first half of this year.

“In 2009 it is not the mounting risk of depression in developed economies that will come as a major surprise,” Mr Edwards wrote in a note to clients, “it is economic implosion in China and the global and geopolitical risk thereof.”

Over a year ago, Mr Edwards had predicted the US would enter into a deep recession because of the excessive amount of debt it had accumulated.

Saying recent data points to “something far worse than deep recession,” Mr Edwards’ forecast for 2009 marked an even more bearish shift in his outlook for the global economy, and a further departure from the mainstream of economic strategists who expect a US economic recovery in the second half of the year.

In forecasting a depression in the US, Mr Edwards means that he believes the US will see a peak-to-trough decline in its gross domestic product of more than 10 per cent.

In China, Mr Edwards expects the worst domestic upheaval since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 may cause the Chinese authorities to undertake a “mega-devaluation” of the Chinese currency, the yuan, in an effort to stay in power, as “the very survival of the regime depends on growth”.

A devaluation of the yuan would cause the rest of the world’s economies to competitively devalue their own currencies in response, Mr Edwards said, sparking a “1930’s-style trade war” that “could see a rerun of the Great Depression”.

Source:

“Super bear warns on US and China”
Ed Welsch
Dow Jones Newswires, January 15, 2009

Jim Cramer Says U.S. Will Not Have Another Great Depression

Ever notice CNBC television personality Jim Cramer is big on making bold statements? From CNBC’s web editor Tom Brennan yesterday:

“Enough with the hysteria,” Cramer said during Tuesday’s Mad Money, we’re not going to suffer another Great Depression.

Sure, there are plenty of things to worry about: We need the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to make big interest-rate cuts. Friday’s unemployment number should be dreary. And jobless homeowners equal more foreclosures. Commercial real estate, too, is a problem. There’s also a weak China, which has all but disappeared since the Olympics. But we’re nowhere near the devastation seen 75 or more years ago.

There’s no 33% unemployment nor are we in danger of massive bank failures. Housing prices have fallen far enough to, in addition to the decline in building permits, signal a bottom by June 30 of next year, which is what Cramer’s been saying all along. Washington has taken the necessary steps to save our financial system, most recently with Citigroup, hopefully the model going forward. And with Fannie and Freddie , AIG , Lehman Brothers, Wachovia and Washington Mutual all taken care of in one way or another, so there probably are no more surprises to be had.

Another thing to keep in mind: We still have the safeguards put in place as part of the New Deal the prevent another Great Depression, like the FDIC, Social Security, unemployment insurance and the Federal Housing Authority.

So forget all the talk you’ve been hearing lately. If these talking heads wanted to worry about a Great Depression, they should have followed Cramer’s lead a few thousand Dow points ago. There are things to be concerned with – the ECB, China, etc. – but we’re not in the dire straights we were before.

What lead is that? Telling “Mad Money” viewers on July 29 that the stock market bottomed July 15, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 10,962.54 and the S&P 500 at 1,214.91? After all, it WAS a few thousand Dow points ago.

Source:

“Cramer’s Problem With Doom and Gloom”
Tom Brennan
CNBC, December 2, 2008

China Now Largest Foreign Creditor Of United States

Creditors have better memories than debtors.

-Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac (1758)

The term “who’s your daddy?” came to mind when I read the following from the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) yesterday:

China is now officially the US government’s largest foreign creditor after overtaking Japan, in a development that signals Washington’s increasing reliance on Beijing to save its economy.

China became the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries, owning $US585 billion ($A897.1 billion) worth as of September, according to US Treasury Department figures.

Kenmore Dishwashers Ad

The Herald staff noted that China continues to buy more Treasuries. From the piece:

China’s ever-growing trade surplus, a major source of its massive foreign exchange reserves that is mostly made up of US dollar assets including Treasuries, hit a monthly all-time high of $US35.2 billion ($A53.98 billion) in October.

Throughout the third quarter, China piled more than $US81.1 billion ($A124.37 billion) into Treasuries – the safest US assets it could find – while dumping bonds from government-affiliated agencies, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said Brad Setser, an economist at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations.

That contrasted with the second quarter when China bought only $US13 billion ($A19.94 billion) of Treasuries while buying $US17 billion ($A26.07 billion) in agency bonds and $US20 billion ($A30.67 billion) of corporate bonds.

Methinks Washington will try not to anger China anytime soon…

Source:

“China tops US govt foreign creditor list”
Sydney Morning Herald, November 19, 2008

Financial Professionals Look Overseas For Jobs

Coming as no surprise to anyone following the latest financial developments, the search for financial jobs is shifting away from Wall Street as the domestic job market for financial professionals continues to sour. From the Wall Street Journal’s Dana Mattioli earlier in the week:

The Wall Street meltdown has already left tens of thousands of American financial professionals unemployed, and thousands more may face the same fate. The crisis, a weak economy and increased competition for available jobs are sending some professionals running for the border.

Executive recruiters say more professionals, especially those in finance, have been inquiring about opportunities outside the U.S. in the past few months. Some undergraduate finance and M.B.A. students are refocusing their job searches from Wall Street to overseas. And it’s not just the typical globetrotter — the young and unattached — looking for work outside the U.S. In a number of cases, people with families say they are willing to uproot the entire clan for the sake of job stability.

With your FREE My Monster Account, you can: Set up job search agents and have your dream job emailed to you!

Mattioli noted that financial job opportunities abroad seem to be holding up. She wrote:

Although non-U.S. markets are suffering as a result of the spreading credit crisis, the financial job market elsewhere hasn’t been damaged as severely as it has been in New York and other U.S. financial hubs. American employers cut 159,000 jobs in September alone, and that figure doesn’t take into account the newest wave of job losses on Wall Street.

Recruiters say that although many major markets are facing similar fates to the U.S., job opportunities for finance professionals in Asia, the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe still abound.

If I were one of these job seekers, I’d be on my hands and knees praying right now that the theory of decoupling holds water.

Madness, “Night Boat To Cairo” (1979)
YouTube Video Link

Source:

“More Americans Vault Overseas to Search for Jobs”
Dana Mattioli
Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2008

Former Top IMF Economist Predicts Large U.S. Bank Failures

When it comes to the credit and banking crisis here in the United States— you ain’t seen nothing yet. That’s according to a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Bloomberg’s Shamim Adam wrote yesterday:

Credit market turmoil has driven the U.S. into a recession and may topple some of the nation’s biggest banks, said Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

“The worst is yet to come in the U.S.,” Rogoff, a Harvard University professor of economics, said in an interview in Singapore today. “The financial sector needs to shrink; I don’t think simply having a couple of medium-sized banks and a couple of small banks going under is going to do the job.”…

“Like any shrinking industries, we are going to see the exit of some major players,” Rogoff told Bloomberg, declining to name the banks he expects to fail. “We’re really going to see a consolidation even among the major investment banks.”

The Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University pointed out that bank failures might not be all that bad of a thing. Adam wrote:

“The only way to put discipline into the system is to allow some companies to go bust,” Rogoff said. “You can’t just have an industry where they make giant profits or they get bailed out.”

Rogoff noted that the credit crunch and banking crisis is taking place during an economic recession and a major housing slump. From the Bloomberg piece:

The world’s largest economy is already in a recession, and the housing market will continue to deteriorate, Rogoff said. The U.S. slowdown will last into the second half of next year, he said, predicting a faster recovery in Europe and Asia.

Source:

“Large U.S. Banks May Fail Amid Recession, Rogoff Says (Update5)”
Shamim Adam
Bloomberg, August 19, 2008

Merrill Lynch Economist Warns Of Multiple U.S. Recessions

According to the Financial Post (Canada) from July 9, David Rosenberg, the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, is warning of the possibility of not one U.S. economic recession, but a series of them. The Post’s Jacqueline Thorpe wrote:

Rosenberg has consistently held one of the more pessimistic views on Wall Street, arguing the housing slump and credit crunch will exact a heavy toll on U.S. consumer spending. He believes the data will eventually show the recession started in January.

But he adds it’s not the peak-to-trough decline in real GDP that’s important but the duration. Trouble is, the duration could be Japanese-like (about a decade).

Just like Japan, he says a series of rolling recessions is possible for the next three to five years, making it extremely difficult to time the market. Japanese equities got trashed through the process. At the 1998 post-bubble lows, Japanese bank, construction, real estate and transport stocks were all down 80%, retail stocks were down 50%. The only place to hide was bonds, notes the bond bull.

Rosenberg told the Canadian publication:

We are nervous that we have ended up following in Japan’s footsteps due to the inept fiscal response to the problem. A temporary tax rebate from Uncle Sam to buy iPods tackles a real estate deflation and credit crunch as effectively as the LDP’s (Liberal Democratic Party) “solution” in the early 1990s to build bridges and pave river beds that nobody needed.

The Vapours, “Turning Japanese” (1980)
YouTube Video Link

Source:

“Rosenberg on strike, fed up trying to pinpoint U.S. recession”
Jacqueline Thorpe
Financial Post (Canada), July 9, 2008

Congress Approves National Colosseum

Not really. But Capitol Hill politicians might as well allocate funds to build one, complete with chariot races and gladiators to keep us happy, considering the way they’re pandering to the masses these days. When Congress only has a 20% approval rating (Gallup), what else would you expect? Something like what happened today. Hoping to sooth the economic pain (and gain the electoral support) of Joe Six-Pack and Suzy Soccer Mom, both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, in a direct challenge to President Bush, voted to temporarily halt the shipment of thousands of barrels of oil a day into the government’s emergency reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a system of underground salt domes on the Gulf Coast, was created by the U.S. government in the seventies as a precaution against major interruptions of oil supplies. With 701 million barrels in storage, it is currently 97% full, yet the equivalent of only two months of oil imports.

The Senate voted 97 to 1 in favor of suspending the shipments, which average about 70,000 barrels a day, until the end of the 2008. Only Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado voted against the measure. Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton also voted to halt the shipments as well. John McCain was not present for the vote. Mirroring the same bipartisan support as in the Senate, the House voted 385 to 25 in favor of halting the program.

For some time now, Congress has wanted to tinker with the SPR, jawboning on and on about how curbing deliveries to and/or drawing from the emergency reserve (by the way, what part of “emergency” don’t you get?) can ease tight oil supplies, curb market speculation, and possibly lower crude oil prices. Case in point. MSNBC’s John Schoen wrote back on May 19, 2004 (that’s right, 4 years ago):

With oil prices stuck above $40 a barrel, attention has turned to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a vast stockpile of oil stored underground that the U.S. continues to add to. While Democrats call for releasing some of those reserves to help ease oil prices, President Bush Wednesday repeated his long-standing position that the stockpile should only be used in the event of a critical cutoff of fuel needed to maintain the country’s national defense…

“Since the price of oil is so closely tied to inventory levels, filling the SPR under these market conditions both depletes private sector inventories and pushes up prices for America’s consumers,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in a floor speech in April defending an amendment to defer SPR purchases.

More recently, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer has introduced an amendment to draw 1 million barrels a day from the reserve for the next 30 days.

“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”

And Congress’ assertions that curbing shipments to and/or drawing from the SPR could help with our supply problems, dampen speculation, and lower oil prices? Wrong, wrong, and wrong, according to the experts (or, at least, people who know what they’re talking about). Regarding the supply problem, the 70,000 barrels that are being sent to the reserve on a daily basis represents only 0.3% of the 20 million barrels consumed by Americans each and every day. 0.3%? Can anyone tell me how this could possibly help alleviate tight supplies? Regarding the perception that high oil prices are caused by speculators, legendary energy investor T. Boone Pickens told attendees at the Oklahoma State University’s Energy Conference on April 23:

Only 5 percent of oil is in the commodity pool. If you did run it up, it would be briefly. Speculators cannot move it that much.

He would know. Finally, a number of politicians believe (or want us to believe) that halting shipments and even drawing from the SPR will somehow lower oil prices. CNN Money’s Steve Hargreaves wrote today:

A statement from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said it could bring down gas prices by as much as 24 cents a gallon.

Or so she claims. The CNN Money staff writer also wrote:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts oil prices would fall by only about $2 a barrel – or shave 4 to 5 cents a gallon off the price of gas – if the president suspended deliveries to the SPR.

“It’s a very small amount” of oil going into the reserve, said EIA oil market analyst Doug MacIntyre. “And it’s very transparent to the market.”

Should I believe House Speaker Pelosi or the EIA? Tough call, right?

Here’s something to think about. A possible explanation for the high price of crude oil is that global demand is running at 87 million barrels per day, while the global oil supply is at 85 million barrels per day. Furthermore, while older oil fields are starting to go dry, no suitable replacements are being found. Finally, even though the U.S. economy is slowing, for every 1 barrel of reduced American demand there are 14 barrels of increased demand from developing countries like China, India, and Brazil.

Oh, but this just in…

“Middle East Oil Cut Off By Coordinated Attacks Throughout Region” and “Gulf Oil Infrastructure Destroyed By Category 5 Hurricane”

Well done. Thanks for saving me that nickel.

Sources:

“Senate votes to halt oil reserve shipments”
H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press, May 13, 2008

“House votes to stop adding to oil stockpile”
Tom Doggett
Reuters (UK), May 13, 2008

“Debate flares over strategic oil stockpiles”
John W. Schoen
MSNBC, May 19, 2004

“Oil stockpile a drop in the bucket”
Steve Hargreaves
CNN Money, May 13, 2008

“Pickens: Oil to go to $150 a barrel”
Jerry Shottenkirk
Journal Record, April 24, 2008

Boycott Chinese Goods? Get Real

Earlier today I came across the following comments on a blog post about “saving” the U.S. dollar:

Boycott chineese goods, all of our good paying jobs are being shipped over sea’s mostly to china and how do the expect us to buy anything when we have no good paying jobs beside we have nothing to sell back which weakens our currency.

Stop buying products made from China! American jobs and money is being shipped to that country everytime you purchase those cheap and substandard products.

Hey, I’m all for “Buy American” and do it whenever I can. But, the reality is that it’s darn near impossible. Don’t believe me? Back on August 19, 2007, I happened to read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a Louisiana family who tried to go without Chinese-made goods for an entire year. Sara Bongiorni of Baton Rouge came up with the idea on Christmas Day 2004 when she noticed that 25 of the 39 Christmas gifts were made in China. It was then she decided to boycott Chinese goods for the entire 2005 calendar year. She eventually went on to write a book about the experience.

The mother of three had this to say of her family’s boycott of products made in China:

It was really all-consuming… You realize the inconvenience factor was tremendous. We totally take advantage of these things from China.

When local stores didn’t have a non-Chinese product that she needed, she was forced to turn to catalogs and the Internet, which ironically didn’t make things easier, as she often had to make phone calls to see if “imported” stood for “made in China.” Customer service agents would place her on hold for an eternity as they researched the origin of products she inquired about. Even a task as simple as shopping for sneakers turned into a nightmare. Mary Ellen Podmolik, special to the Tribune, wrote:

… when Bongiorni found that her 4-year-old son had outgrown his sneakers, her hunt for a replacement pair took her to a children’s shoe chain, two department stores and a discount shoe warehouse, all to no avail.

Two weeks later and fearing that her son’s toes were starting to curl in his too-small shoes, she found a pair of Italian-made sneakers online for $68. Before ordering them- in a size one larger than he needed- she found herself running outside to get a neighbor’s opinion on whether $68 was too much to spend for children’s shoes.

Often, the family of five had to improvise to avoid buying Chinese goods. Podmolik wrote:

When they needed a mousetrap, for instance, they tried fashioning one from an empty milk jug and broken pieces of cookies and chocolate. The mouse won.

At the time the article was written, Sara Bongiorni said:

I absolutely could not do it permanently. You’d have to be able to give up a telephone and a cell phone, computers.

She noted that her family’s experiment was somewhat easier because she had small children. It would have been different, she surmised, had her kids been teenagers with their need for electronic gadgets.

So, the next time someone blurts, “Boycott Chinese goods,” you may want to tell them, “Get real.”

Source:

“A family tries 12 months without ‘Made in China’”
Mary Ellen Podmolik
Chicago Tribune, August 19, 2007

Dave Barry On Economic ‘Stimulus’ Payments

Well, it looks like the first of the economic ‘stimulus’ payments are arriving in the mailbox (and being spent at the gas pump). The other day I noticed that Dave Barry had added his two cents on the tax rebate checks. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Dave Barry, he is a humor columnist whose work appeared in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad for 25 years. In 1988, he even won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

Barry wrote in the Miami Herald on April 13:

…this year, filing taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.

Source: Hong Kong Tourism Board

Source:

“Dave Barry: How your taxes turn into manure”
Dave Barry
Miami Herald, April 13, 2008