complicated simplicity

I got a text message a 5pm with this message today.

Quotable quotes of today:

Go Big: Don’t just risk your company, risk the entire world of Finance. Modest incompetence is insufficient — if you merely destroy your own company, you won’t get rescued. You have to threaten to bring down the entire global financial system. The fear and disruption caused by a Bear collapse is why it was saved. (AIG has the right idea on this)

[The Big Picture]

If you want to screw up, screw up so big that the world cannot live without you that they will have to rescue you. Don’t be half-baked. No one will save you.

Lehman’s gone to 11th heaven. Merrill’s got a new owner in the Bank of America. Wall Street has woken up to a new harsh reality. Every market is going (or gone, depending on your time zone) into the realms of 9.81m s^-2. (If you didn’t understand that, it is the acceleration of free fall, and this will be the conditions of the markets this week.)

Pray a little harder. Things might just get worse. I think more firms are over-leveraged than they care to admit. Just need to pull that bottom card out from the castle of cards. Or a stronger gust of wind.

Lehman needs to learn from Bear. Die first, at least people will notice. Someone might actually stick another 2 dollar note on the main entrance this time round. Ok, maybe a penny.

Will AIG be next?

[Disclaimer: This post was written in jest as I await my emails to be replied. I have many friends working in the big banks over in Euro-America, with a few of them in Lehman. It hurts to lose your job.]