Back at Stern Again for Year 3... or is it year 4??????

1. BACKGROUND ON TRIBECA FF - HOW AND WHY WAS IT FORMED, EVOLVED

Why?

Original Goal:  Bring People Back Downtown, Start the Healing Process

Business Plan? (Yeah Right)  A Leap of Faith

2. TFF GOALS IN THE US and Beyond

Create a Global Media Company-- year-round/global/24/7

Expansion:  Ambition or Necessity?

12 day event in New York doesn't work

is independent film model  broken?  needs tweaking or a whole new mind?

The world has changed:

What is the purpose and job to be done?

Disrutpive Innovation Theory

Google  Professor Clayton Christensen

Read Innovator's Dilemma

Triangle Below Canada

3. TFF GOALS INTERNATIONALLY - QATAR

Cultural Diplomacy

Why Doha?  Why Not.

4. WHY THE REALTIONSHIP WITH STERN

We love community and education

5. STUDENT PROJECTS

Filmanthropy

Founded by Aaron Kinnari

•          NYU Undergraduate Senior & President, Stern Cares

•          Stern Cares: Sponsoring Organization

•          Enrolled & excelled in Al Lieberman’s Tribeca Film Festival Class last Spring

§  The idea for “Filmanthropy” was born out of Aaron’s positive experience at TFF ‘09

§  The strength of the Tribeca brand in the education space

•          Active in CGI

6. GEOFF GILMORE MOVING TO TFF

Changed the Landscape

7. FILM FESTIVALS IN GENERAL

New Distribution Model

8. POLITICAL- SOCIAL- ECONOMIC AGENDA

We're here from Tribeca and we came to help, really.

Can there be a civic minded media company that is for profit yet philanthropic, and creates a meaningful brand?

9. THE FESTIVAL ITSELF - STRUCTURE, BOARD

For Profit/ Not For profit

Walnut Hill became an outside investor

10. ANYTHING CRAIG WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK ABOUT

Disrutptive Innovation

Open Source

Cathedral and the Bazaar

Palindrome

A True "We're Not Going to Take It Any More" Moment from MSNBC. 

Reminds me of  the quote my father use to tell me: "I never learned anything while I was talking"

U.S. Treasury Decision to Push Global Banking Bohemeths Set U.S. On a Collision Course with Inevitability of Financial Irresponsibility

U.S. Treasury Wants REALLY BIG Banks  (click here to read  entire 1987 article )

TREASURY NOW FAVORS CREATION OF HUGE BANKS

WASHINGTON, June 6— Top officials at the Treasury Department have concluded that the Government should encourage creation of very large banks that could better compete with financial institutions in Japan and Europe.

The Treasury plan, which would permit the acquisition of banks by large industrial companies, was also endorsed by Alan Greenspan, in an interview before President Reagan nominated him this week to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Mr. Greenspan said the plan would provide multibillion-dollar pools of investment capital for a banking industry that was ''severely undercapitalized.'' Mr. Greenspan has declined to be interviewed while he awaits confirmation by the Senate.

No formal policy or legislative agenda has been adopted by the Administration, but George D. Gould, Under Secretary of the Treasury, said in interviews that he favored creating 5 to 10 giant banks that would rival in size the largest banks in Japan, West Germany, Britain and France. The Two Laws Involved

Formation of such large banks has been hampered by two of the nation's principal banking laws: the Glass-Steagall Act of 1934, which separates underwriting and commercial banking, and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, which prohibits nonbanking companies from owning banks.

The only avenue left open to banks has been to merge among themselves. But state laws have historically prohibited interstate banking, and only recently have state legislatures begun to open their borders to out-of-state banks. These deals have usually involved a large out-of-state bank's buying a smaller institution. Mergers, interstate or otherwise, among the giant banks could raise antitrust questions, and none of the few such deals attempted ever progressed very far.

In the Administration, the hope is that Congress can be persuaded to loosen the regulations. The banking industry, which has considerable political influence, is divided: The largest banks strongly support the changes while smaller banks fear they would be put out of business.

Thirty years ago the United States had 15 of the world's largest banking institutions, but global dominance by American banks has slipped dramatically. Only two United States banking companies, Citicorp and BankAmerica, are now ranked in the world's 25 largest. Japan has 14, including the world's four largest banks. Two German, three British and four French banks complete the list....  to read entire article click here.

Harvard Derivatives Hedging Strategy Backfires to the tune of $500 million

 Larry Summers Hard at work.  It's very tiring to be a genius, your mind never rests

 

   

 

                "Bozo The Clown"--Genius

Transparency, schmansparency.  Not even the  high-Q of Larry Summers is enough intelligence to avoid looking like a schmuck... at least in hindidght.  Seems the geniuses at Harvard had a conviction that interestes were heading north.  So to hedge their interest rate exposure, they entered into a series of interest rate swaps to synthetically "lock-in" a fixed rate against their anticipated Capital Projects Campaign that would be funded trough floating rate bonds.  A pretty intelligent and "correlative hedging" startegy and an apprpriate use of derivative proucts. But they still managed to talke a $500 million hit (that we know about) to unwind it's position.

SO WTF  happened.  I'll tell you what.  The wheels came off the car driving down the highway at 70 mph.  Or at least one  leg fell of the stool.  I'll let the investigative pundits try to reconstruct or deconstruct how even the smartest guys can't manage the risk of products they don't really understand.

Lest you think I am not clairvoyant, I will predict that this  was a combination of not only rates dropping precipitously (due tot he fianancial crisis), a cancellation of the projects (due to the fiancial crisis)  massive investment losses in the alternative investments portfolio (due to the financial crisis)  and something known as basis risk (hedge variable rate demand products that have weird results when spreads go wild (due tothe fiancial crisis).

So it's a good thing that Harvard was able to remove the risk manager , Larry Summers -- he was kinda like the CEO. Glad he is watching the economy and the finacial markets on behalf of all of us instead of just the Harvard Treasury.

Q:  Ho do you sit on a three legged- stool when one of the legs breaks off?

A: You just turn it upside down.

Back to Business As Usual on Wall St.

(We've even devalued the value of the financial crisis)

Death by a thousand paper cuts,  a million bad policy decisions, the $9 trillion financial bail-out (including guarantees), $700 trillion in nuclear derivatives outstanding, the Iraq War,  Vietnam Redux (aka Afghanistan), Iran,  California tanking, health care mess, deferred pension liabilities,  endless deficits, inability to create jobs etc

This week saw two major devaluations: the dollar continues is tortuous slide into oblivion in economic terms and  and stature but the Nobel Peace Prize going to a shocked Obama is pretty hard to wrap your head around. Probably the most massive unilateral devaluation in history  While getting the prize was not Obama's fault (although he probably lusted in his heart)  now it's his problem.  Hint Mr. President: read Tom Friedman's proposed peace(keepers) acceptance speech.

                                                            Help me....I'm shrinking      

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