Happy New Year December 31, 2009March 16, 2017 Well, it’s been a great year — at least in some ways — and here’s to the even better one upcoming. Resolutions include: back up your data, eradicate disease, embrace diversity, keep hope alive (stem cell research could work a miracle for you, too!) – and more (be even nicer to those around you, although in your case, there’s virtually no room left for improvement). DROPBOX.COM This is certainly the weekend to be sure you’ve got a good system for backing up your data, and happy as I am with Mozy, I am thinking of switching to Dropbox. That’s largely because I own more than one computer, and in more than one physical location. Dropbox lets you put any or all your documents or folders under one giant folder which it then keeps synched across all your computers. Writes the estimable Bryan Norcross: “I put almost everything in the Dropbox and use that instead of the Documents folder. I then put the Dropbox and some key subfolders on my Start Menu and/or tray for fast access. The files physically reside on all computers, so no more Mozy.” Check it out. DEPT. OF HOPEFUL SIGNS James Musters: “Man in UK gets eyesight restored after stem cell treatment.” What a great story! I’m telling you: Ray Kurzweil is onto something. DEPT. OF HOPEFUL SIGNS Twenty-five years ago there were, worldwide, more than 3 million cases of guinea worm. Today, just 3,500 – headed quite possibly to zero. It’s something we Americans – who have never suffered its misery – can feel very good about, as it is largely our leadership (most particularly Jimmy Carter’s) and our resources (significantly including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) that have made it possible. DEPT. OF HOPEFUL SIGNS “I think this generation has grown up with the realization that the planet is dying and that its survival is a little more important than whom people sleep with.” – Matthew Fox, Episcopal priest quoted in The Advocate. GOOGLE APP Ted Graham: “As you may have figured out [since you wrote about this yesterday], you don’t even have to touch the microphone button. The motion of bringing your phone to your ear triggers voice search; you’ll hear a beep and then you speak. Wow!” ☞ I am having so much fun with this. I got to show it off to Jim Wallis. I showed him my iPhone as I touched the Google icon, then jerked the phone up to my ear, got the beep, and said, “Jim Wallis,” whose new book, Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street, just came out. The common spelling would be “Wallace” – that’s how it sounds – but within seconds, Google was showing us this list of info on Jim Wallis. “How does it do that?” marveled the theologian. “It’s a miracle!” replied the atheist. (Later, wanting to know the nearest FedEx location, I jerked the phone to my ear and said “FedEx Locations.” The phone, knowing where Charles and I are, almost immediately came up with the address and phone number of the nearest location, its hours of operation, and a map to get there.) # Lots more to say; another year ahead to say it. Whether you’re celebrating tonight quietly alone, reorganizing your back-up system and contemplating our collective good fortune (we have hot water!), listening to Beethoven’s Eroica* – or noisily, in the thick of the mayhem (also a good choice if you’re unable to avoid it) – have a safe, happy, healthy New Year. *I thought it was spelled with an H, and the name of his Ninth Symphony, but jerked my phone to my ear, said “Beethoven’s Heroica,” and three seconds later found out the truth.
Reasons Enough to Buy an iPhone Plus! Dictatorship! Insanity! December 30, 2009March 16, 2017 Yesterday, I offered Moxie, the free (or 99-cent deluxe) iPhone app that has me strategizing where to put the Q and – hint alert – always to put the first E at the end, preceded by the first S, to set myself up for GOOSE, MOOSE, LOUSE and MOUSE (when I’m playing with the Animal words) for 1,200 bonus points. My highest score so far has gotten me to 29th in the world ” but only among those playing in the preceding 24 hours. I’m not even close to the 250 Moxiest of all time. But one thing for sure: I’ll never again be bored standing in line. Today, another free app – and a very pricey one. GOOGLE MOBILE Until a couple of days ago, if I needed to settle a bet at dinner, I’d reach for my iPhone, go to the Safari web browser, pull up Google, and type in what I needed. Worked reasonably well. Now, having downloaded the free Google Mobile app, here’s what I do. I touch the Google icon on my phone, touch the microphone, say “Charles Nolan – and three or four seconds later get this. (It worked equally well for “Charles de Gaulle.”) A . . . MAY! . . . ZING!!! Yes, we’re in a terrible recession, and yes there’s lots to be worried about. But for those of us fortunate enough to eke by in, say, the top two-thirds economically, who can (stretching) afford an iPhone and free apps like this, it is still an awesome time to be alive. NAVIGON This one is $60 (on sale from $80 until January 11) plus another $25 if you want real-time traffic alerts, and that’s by far the most expensive “app” I’ve encountered. But what it is is your very own talking GPS – like the Hertz “NeverLost” lady. (I’ll save $12.99 a day, plus tax, right there.) It syncs with your iPhone contact file, which syncs with your Outlook address list, so if your destination is in your phone, you don’t even have to enter it the way you would with Hertz; just touch the screen a couple of times. Check it out. DICTATORSHIP George Hamlett: “You wrote [of the health care sausage-making]: ‘It almost makes you yearn for a dictatorship.’ Maybe you should read more Mencken. He was a shrewd (and cynical) observer of the political animal.” ☞ George provided these quotes: Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right. Democracy is the theory that the common people know that they want and deserve to get it good and hard. Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. ☞ Cynical indeed! Preposterously so. But fun to quote.* * “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.” – H.L. Mencken INSANITY She aspired to be a heartbeat away from the most important human on the planet – and may now aspire to be that human – not, presumably, out of ego or power-lust, but because she honestly thinks she is (all things considered) better qualified than anyone else to lead the world at this pivotal time in human history. (Or maybe just because it’s kinda fun, like ice fishin’.) That’s my take. Here, a month and some after Going Rogue hit the stands (but she hasn’t gone away, so it’s still timely), is conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan’s.
Moxie December 29, 2009March 16, 2017 I recognize that these items might have been more appropriate last week, but in hopes that the Christmas spirit lasts all year . . . REINDEER ANTLER GIRLS Did you know that reindeer are caribou and can run 48 miles an hour? (“Reindeer” because, unlike caribou, you can put reins on them and they pull your sleigh.) Someone sent me a photo taken just a week ago of a reindeer buck with a full rack of antlers. This was disappointing, because I had bought into the notion – which even Snopes does not entirely dispute – that Ruth and the others are all girl reindeer. (On Donna! On Blitzanne!) And yet here was this photo, taken December 21, 2009, virtual moments before the big night’s work, of a buck with impressive antlers firmly in place. Plus, as Snopes notes, Santa’s team may be steers, not bulls, which is to say all bells and no b—ls, castrated for just this purpose. So now, frankly, I don’t know what to believe. HOW HANDEL ORCHESTRATED A CLASSIC FINANCIAL PORTFOLIO My very talented pal took 8 minutes to explain last week on The News Hour. (Did you know that “handel” means “market” in German?) GREEN LIPPED MUSSELS I have zero idea whether this stuff could get a grandparent’s joints moving less painfully, but I thought ut was worth asking – have any of you tried it? (I suppose if you tried it and it killed you, you would not be able to warn us. But any less severe side effects?) Does it work? (I saw just one review on WebMD.) MOXIE Word Warp, the free iPhone app that consumed most of my summer and fall, has the advantage of being mindless. You can actually play and win as you watch the news or listen in on a conference call. Unless, of course, you switch ON the “alternative word list,” which every fifth or sixth turn will come up with a sub-Saharan Sixteenth Century shrub, now extinct, which requires complete concentration and still you lose and go back to Level One. Moxie, on the other hand – also free, but I quickly sprang for the 99-cent deluxe edition – is completely absorbing and likely to consume all of 2010 if I allow it. Words, yes, but it’s all about strategy. And while I am yet to land a place on the all-time high-score roster, I did clock in at #107 in the entire world (out of 108?) who had been playing in the prior 24 hours (as they returned home with their loved ones from a lovely Christmas dinner).
Of Eggnog and Tax Strategy December 28, 2009March 16, 2017 Last week I missed a day, ostensibly to eggnog. Richard Theriault: “Eggnog is the best of reasons. None other is required. William Rainey Harper, first president of the University of Chicago, drank a quart of it every day with his lunch (and though it was a Baptist school, it did contain rum or brandy; I have the recipe). It did not cause him to miss his lectures but he was inured, unlike you, who are exposed only to seasonal excess.” From Richard’s alumni magazine: Eggnog was considered a “strengthening” drink at the turn of the 20th century. According to Young Man in a Hurry, Milton Mayer’s biography of William Rainey Harper, eggnog fueled the “busiest man in America.” As dean of Yale Divinity School, Harper’s typical day went this way: “His schedule took him to his first class at 7:30 in the morning. He taught until 11:00, and went to his office to work on his mail, discuss perhaps a dozen matters with each of his five assistants, and drink a quart of eggnog at his desk. Catching the 1:00 o’clock train to New York or Boston, he would deliver a lecture in the afternoon and another in the evening. The midnight train took him back to New Haven and his study.” When he became president of the University of Chicago in 1890, Harper’s to-do list lengthened—but his lunch of eggnog remained in force. INGREDIENTS 1 egg ¾ tbsp sugar A few grains salt 1½ tbsps sherry or 1 tbsp brandy or rum 2/3 cup cold milk A few gratings nutmeg DIRECTIONS Beat egg slightly. Add sugar, salt, and, slowly, liquor; then add, gradually, milk. The nutmeg may be used with or instead of the liquor as flavoring. Serves one. INCY Suggested June 11 at $3.40, sold July 28 near $6 (though guru still liked it), suggested again at $5.62 in a basket of three stocks October 29, and now just sold half Christmas Eve at $9.26 (guru likes it for the long term; thinks it might give back some gains in a bad market). The other two items in the basket are up only slightly, but guru still likes them, too. Remember: these are bets to be made only with money you can truly afford to lose. Because – as long-time readers know all too well – we may. VSP It’s a little late in the year to be reminding you of this, but if you bought a stock at various prices – as I’ve bought INCY, for example – then you own a variety of “tax lots.” When you go to sell, each gets its own tax treatment as to gain or loss and holding period. If you sell all your shares, you just recognize the appropriate gain or loss on each separate tax lot. But if you sell just some of your shares, it becomes a matter of some interest just which shares they were. In the real world, of course, it makes no difference – it’s like asking which water you drank from a glass, the water that came out of the tap first or the water that came out a second or two later as the glass was filling up. It’s all the same. Water. INCY shares are INCY shares. But for tax purposes it does matter, and if you don’t specify, the IRS will assume the shares you bought first are the ones you’re selling. That’s why it can make sense to specify. So far, all my INCY is short-term. But come April 25, the first shares I bought, at $2.09, will go long-term. So last Thursday, I didn’t want to sell my $2.09 INCY shares and be liable for tax on a big gain (especially as, in just a few months, that gain will qualify for lighter, long-term gain tax treatment) – I wanted to sell the shares I bought at $6.90 just a few weeks ago and be liable for tax on a small gain. Different brokers have different systems of “specifying” the tax lot you are selling. In the days of rotary phones, you would call your broker and just say, “Hey, please sell 200 shares ‘versus purchase October 12, 1975’ and your printed confirmation slip would arrive in the mail noting ‘VSP 10/12/75’ in case the IRS ever wanted to see it. Many full-service brokers still work that way. Others, like Fidelity, automate the process (so it’s easier and much cheaper). Ameritrade lets you make the trade on-line and then either call a human to specify the lots you sold or email your instructions through their on-line messaging page. It’s not too late to realize some tax losses for 2009 to lower your income tax. Then again, because so many folks have been selling for this purpose – driving some low-priced, thinly traded losers down even further – it might be smarter to wait. We may see quite a bounce next week once the tax-selling pressure is removed (and sometax-sellers, having taken their losses in November or December and waited the requisite 31 days to avoid the “wash-sale” rule enter buy orders to reestablish their positions). This well known pattern – a New Year bounce in stocks killed the previous year – is the well-known “January effect.” But because it is well known, a lot of people try to take advantage of it, beating the January crowd by buying beaten-down shares in late December. Which could leave you at the station waiting for the January effect, not realizing that it came early and has already passed you by. That it has already passed you – “Bye!” That it has already passed you – don’t buy. See what a challenging game this is? Sometimes, for some stocks, the January effect works in January, sometimes in December, sometimes not a all. VSOP And we’re back to eggnog.
Ho, Ho, Ho December 24, 2009March 16, 2017 Sorry about yesterday. Too much eggnog. And I wasn’t sure how to answer the reader who chastised me for espousing dictatorship. (Needless to say, I’d only accept it if I were assured you could be the dictator.) And there was the 8pm Acela Sunday – waiting for us in Union Station at 8pm despite the snow – that didn’t board until midnight because there was no one to drive it, which got me off to a late start Monday, which cut into my Rachel Maddow time Monday night, which … oh, well, mainly it was the eggnog. And now it’s Christmas Eve! HEALTH CARE If we were starting from scratch, we’d have something entirely different. (And we’d be on the metric system and a single senator couldn’t bring business to a halt and the Brits would drive on the right side of the road.) But we’re not starting from scratch and the health care bill that seems likely to emerge and be signed into law – while it clearly could be better – is still likely to be a meaningfully good thing, with likely future improvement. I talked to one progressive Senator yesterday who highlighted, for example, the requirement that insurers pay out at least 85% of the premiums they collect (in big group plans; 80% in small ones), a number which should be higher – but is still a meaningful improvement (some today pay out less than 75%). And who said that just about every pilot program anyone’s ever thought of is in the bill, “which is why it’s 2,000 pages” – and which bodes well for innovation. He says the bill instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to roll out the pilot programs that work (“if we didn’t give HHS broad latitude in how to do this, and tried to specify the details, the bill would be 100,000 pages”). And when I asked whether there was a pilot program for tort reform – which, within bounds carefully drawn to balance the needs of victims and discourage malpractice, I favor – he said that Tom Carper of Delaware had added that to the mix. Whether that – or just what – will make it through conference and into law, I, of course, can’t say. But I think we have reason to be hopeful that we’ll soon have taken a major first step toward meaningful health care reform. And that for at least the next three years, if not lots more, the Health & Human Services team charged with executing on a lot of this stuff will be enlightened and energetic and on the side of reform. WANTED CHILDREN The first reason for family planning is that every child deserves to be wanted and loved. So things like condoms and Plan B are – you’ll forgive me – godsends. But the second reason is that – at the moment at least – we haven’t figured out how to live successfully on our little planet with nearly 7 billion people, let alone the 9 billion we’ll have by 2050. As this item explains, the most cost effective investment in greenhouse gas reduction may just be family planning. (Of course, it has its limits – spending trillions on family planning would be nonsensical. But spending more than the world spends now?) Our friends on the other side of the aisle can’t imagine a connection between billions of birds in a nest and fouling that nest. They impose a global “gag rule” on family planning whenever they are in power.* Which is one more reason, if you love kids and/or your planet, to feel welcome on our side of the aisle. *Then, the first week Clinton or Obama take office, we lift it. INSPIRATION Cole Lannum: “A short inspirational clip that will move you … from the Today Show a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had the pleasure to know the subject of the story (Mark Stephan) for more than 20 years, and he truly is a wonderful human being. The only unfortunate thing about a 3 minute clip is that it significantly understates the incredible amount of work it has taken for Steph to get to this point and how much of a challenge his situation continues to be. Nonetheless, I dare you to watch the clip and not be truly moved.” ☞ So isn’t it great we are now encouraging, rather than discouraging, the stem cell research that could one day make lives like Steph’s so much better? MORE INSPIRATION Have you seen Invictus? Yes, we are sometimes just dreadful. (“Some people!” George says to Jerry. “Yeah,” agrees Jerry. “People – they’re the worst.”) But sometimes, especially around the holidays, but other times too, as this movie reminds us, we have it within us to be … well, not half bad. CHRISTMAS Listen: I don’t believe Jesus walked on water or that Moses parted the Red Sea, but I sure love the stories; and the spirit of Christmas. May yours be merry and bright. Back to the eggnog.
Snow Day December 23, 2009March 25, 2012 It would have been a more plausible excuse a few days ago, but I’m taking one anyway. Enjoy!
Green China December 22, 2009March 16, 2017 “NOW I’VE SEEN EVERYTHING” Ralph Sierra: “Someone in your vast readership won’t be able to stand that you gave me credit for the clever comment that accompanied that tour of the universe, so let me give credit where it is due: the brilliant biology professor and evolutionist P.Z. Meyers.” RUGBY If you’ve seen “Invictus,” you’ve seen how tough rugby is. Football without padding or helmets. (Are these blokes crazy?) Here now the story of world-class rugby star Gareth Thomas, who wants kids to know it’s okay to be gay. (“It’s been really tough for me, hiding who I really am, and I don’t want it to be like that for the next young person who wants to play rugby, or some frightened young kid,” he says.) CHINA GREEN GIANT – Beijing’s Crash Program for Clean Energy is one of those terrific New Yorker pieces – like Atul Gawande’s piece explaining why health care is so much more expensive in McAllen, Texas than in El Paso* – that really give you the big picture. (“China is already buying and installing the world’s most efficient transmission lines – “an area where China has actually moved ahead of the U.S.,” according to Deborah Seligsohn, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. In the next decade, China plans to install wind-power equipment capable of generating nearly five times the power of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest producer.”) While some of our fellow citizens are hoping for failure (look how pleased they were when Chicago didn’t get the 2016 Olympics), and others are praying for it (look at Senators DeMint and Brownback), China just barrels ahead. It almost makes you yearn for a dictatorship.** *Biggest reason: the docs in McAllen tend to have an entrepreneurial culture – they’re businessmen out to maximize profits. In El Paso – as at the Mayo Clinic or in France – they’re medical professionals on salary. **Singapore has one – and spends only 3.5% of its GDP on health care, yet shows good results.
Now I’ve Seen Everything December 21, 2009March 16, 2017 PERSPECTIVE Ralph Sierra sends us this link, headed: “Now I’ve seen everything.” Indeed. Everything! From the Himalayas to the edge of the universe – and back – in six minutes. Wow. HEALTH CARE Krugman says it best – as usual: pass the bill. By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable. But meanwhile, pass the health care bill. ☞ Click here to read his reasoning. It’s beginning to look as though we just may pass the bill … although there is clearly a good long way to before the House and Senate bills emerge from conference for a final vote. But we are making progress. And leaning the right way, finally, on climate change. And showing promise with education. And not far from enacting badly-needed financial reform. FINANCIAL REFORM A wide-ranging package passed the House and heads to the Senate. Not one Republican voted for the reforms. Krugman’s take, in part: … Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question. Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative. … ☞ Yet we seem to be making progress. Keep the faith.
Uh, Oh – A Teux Deux Over Liberal Mangos December 18, 2009March 16, 2017 I’m basically taking the day off. But . . . WHAT TO NAME THE DECADE After I referred to “The Awful Oughts” Tuesday, George Mokray wrote in to say, “I saw one British paper called the first decade of this century ‘The Naughties’ which is very good. I call it ‘The Uh Ohs’ – and have for quite a while.” THE DEMISE OF THE DOLLAR James Musters: “Forget the Oil nations not taking the dollar any more, this is what will drive the exchange rate!” ☞ It’s a lot easier to carry drug money in 500 euro notes than $100 bills – takes just a seventh as many. MANGOS There are only 135 calories in a mango. Can you believe it? Nice and cold and ripe – don’t try to be genteel or mannerly, just slice and slurp. Does it get any better than this? TO DEUX Bob Miller: “I’ve been looking for something this easy for years. Go to teuxdeux.com and watch the little 2-minute video. The sign-up is quick and easy. You’ll love it.” ☞ Boy, if all apps were this simple, and all demos this amusing. It may or may not fit into your life “system” (you do have a system, don’t you?). But it’s definitely worth a look. (Click the choice on the left: VIDEO.) At the top of your To Deux list: See “Invictus.” WHAT’S A LIBERAL? Still enjoying Jack and Lem, mentioned here last week, wherein, on page 163, is found this passage: In those days, before it became a dirty word, Jack [Kennedy] had no compunction about calling himself a liberal. But he was careful to define the word lest his opponents define it for him. “If, by a liberal, they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties – someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad … if that is what they mean by a liberal, then I’m proud to say that I’m a liberal.” ☞ Have a great weekend.
Pain December 17, 2009January 2, 2017 THE ULTIMATE CLIMATE CHANGE CARTOON Joel Pett asks, “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?” Don’t miss this one. BOREF Peter Arbogast: “I miss your comments on BOREF. Did you sell your ‘tons?’” ☞ No – still tons. With a stock that trades 1,000 shares on a big day, it would be a train wreck to try to sell. And I would never sell without telling you first, and then we’d all be selling, so it would be two train wrecks. (I did sell a few shares I had bought at 16, for the tax loss; but replaced them outside the 31-day “wash-sale” window.) As disappointing as this stock “that is surely going to zero” has been, I would not be amazed to see something come of it. (According to the company, of course, everything is going deliriously well. But that’s been the refrain for a decade.) You have to consider the risk/reward. For me, at least, the pain of losing what is now not even $2 a share would be but a pinprick compared with the pain – the agony! – of selling, only to see (conceivably), the Borealis ship finally come in. And speaking of pain . . . THE BUYOUT OF AMERICA In his new book, Josh Kosman argues that the leveraged-buyout crowd – redubbed “private equity” – have set us up for another fall. Namely, that excessive debt and mismanagement will likely trigger another economic meltdown within the next five years, wiping out up to two million jobs. While calling the book strident and one-sided, the Wall Street Journal hardly dismisses it: The Buyout of America is less concerned with blow-by-blow deal-making or personal stories than with the real-life economic effects of private-equity deals. Mr. Kosman brings to the subject a relentlessly critical approach that is refreshing, simply because so many stories about the buyout firms are the sort of puff pieces that result from delicate negotiations for access. He documents dozens of companies acquired in buyouts – such as hospitals, mattress manufacturers and a car-parts maker – whose service or products went downhill, whose employees suffered pay cuts or layoffs, and whose fortunes plummeted, sometimes ending in bankruptcy. Time and again, Mr. Kosman details how the rest of us suffer at the hands of the buyout barons, 17 of whom are members of the Forbes 400. The private-equity firms pay lowball prices, he says, shortchanging public investors, by teaming up with management to pre-empt competing bids. They cream fees from their acquisitions, generating profits no matter how the companies fare. The companies cut more jobs than publicly owned competitors and sidestep proposed reforms by currying favor with politicians. . . . Mr. Kosman provides exhaustive specifics. Linens ‘n Things is acquired in a buyout by Apollo Management, led by deal maker Leon Black, files for bankruptcy and is liquidated. Nursing staff is cut at a Vanguard Health Systems hospital, owned by Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. Regulators fine for poor service a Hawaiian phone company acquired by Carlyle. Warner Music loses Madonna. At Bain Capital, built by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, dividends paid to investors siphon off much-needed capital, weakening company after company . . . ☞ There is potentially a lot of pain still to come – from the commercial realty mortgages coming due, from further home foreclosures, and, yes, quite plausibly, according to some plugged-in friends, from the looming private equity meltdown.