The snarl is gone…

The UN has left the building, or least the island of Manhattan. My take, after reading the coverage in a number of newspapers over the last week or so, is that nothing was accomplished other than snarling midtown traffic . Of course, I didn’t expect much – which is a sad reflection on the power and prestige of the United Nations today. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like a body whose time has come.

The big news this past week was, of course, The BernankeTwist. Not to be confused with a children’s game or theChubby Checker song, this is an effort by the Federal Reserve Chairman to spur the economy. Looks a lot like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to me but, hey, I am not some expert on this stuff, just an observer. Needless to say, something has to be done to fix the economy. Perhaps this will be the start of the great fix. Let’s hope so – we need it.

In a few short weeks we will be re-launching theHEDGEAnswers website and rolling out our community and portal into the hedge fund industry. The new site comes with lots of bells and whistles, all geared toward increasing your, my and our knowledge of hedge funds. I encourage you to register and become a part of the community and get in on the discussion. Stay tuned for the official launch date.

THINGS THAT DRIVE ME CRAZY:

Every day, sometimes twice or three times a day, I get an email, a call, or a letter from a bank, credit card company, utility or other vendor asking me to stop getting paper statements in favor of email billing. Now I understand how this helps the environment and how it helps the company , but how does it help me? I don’t think it does. In fact, I think it will cost me more to do it their way. Let me explain: If I get an electronic statement, I’m still going to have to print it out to read and store. This means more money spent by yours truly on ink, paper and eventually a new printer. They get a decrease in paper costs, postage and fulfillment, as well as a couple of other things that I’m probably missing. They win – we lose.