Guy Berger

Neither of these have made my collection yet so now is probably the time if at all. I'm a Jackie fan, should I be without either of these? You want both. Right Now is essential, among the best Jackie I've heard. I would put Jacknife in the second tier of JM recordings, but it's still very good. Guy

My recollection of CS, which I haven't listened to in a while, was that the first tune was awesome and the rest was somewhat unremarkable relative to benchmark JM recordings. Guy

Yes, definitely. Also on Cannonball's "Domination" - not my fave Cannonball, but for someone who is inherently (perhaps unfairly) wary of Oliver Nelson arrangements from the mid 60s, I was very pleasantly surprised. Also, "Experience in E" is definitely worth hearing for those fond of early jazz rock. Not entirely successful but a fun listen. Guy

I like it. A little sloppy if that bothers you, but the music itself is enjoyable. Would have been interesting if it had featured an A-list saxophonist. Guy

You're wrong in relating the lowering of tariffs and barriers to the increasing inequality in Britain and the US. You can have one without the other. And having increasing inequality is no reason to have trade barriers. My view as well. Globalization is giving us a bigger pie, we are just doing a terrible job of slicing it in an equitable way. Unfortunately, many of the people who've been pushing for a larger pie don't really seem to care about that second half of the equation, so we're risking a return to small-pie policies. Guy

In the midst of reading: "Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises" (by Charles P. Kindleberger) - highly recommended. I only wish I had read this 18, 12 or even 3 months ago. "Essays on the Great Depression" (by Ben Bernanke) - Only started, but it's quite interesting. Probably too dry and academic for casual readers, but those with a solid grounding in economics may find it useful. I'd be interested in any recommendations for a more generalist but economically-literate history book on the Great Depression. "War and Peace" - about 2/3 of the way through.

Dan, there is lots of other interesting discussion on this thread, but John L's sentence is 99% sufficient to answer your question. Guy

Two doublers who haven't been mentioned are Charles Lloyd and Yusef Lateef. I enjoy flute work by both. But my favorites are Dolphy and James Newton. Guy

From a liberal who doesn't object to spendiing gov't money but does object to wasting it - The best policy would be to give current Big 3 employees a guarantee for their current salary up to $60K over the next 2-3 years, regardless of whatever happens to the company. In addition, offer $15K a year for retraining, education, whatever. After that, the salary payment goes down by $20K a year. I'd rather have these guys sitting idle collecting a paycheck rather than wasting valuable resources producing cr@ppy products. Screw shareholders, bondholders, executives. Unfortunately that is not on the table... Second-best would be to subsidize companies that actually turn a profit to hire the laid off workers, with workers paid to relocate out of their current location if necessary. And unfortunately that is not on the table either. Guy

And Woody Allen was the best Bond villain. (For that matter, I saw a TV edit of Austin Powers that changed Ms. fffagina's name to Alotta Cleavahgeh. As far as this thread - can't be bothered to think this much about an action movie. Craig is an excellent bond, but this movie was so-so. CR, on the other hand, was superb. I liked Strawberry Fields better than the Russian. Guy

This one is a classic. A good follow-up is Autechre's "Tri Repetae". As far as old-school electronic, Tangerine Dream is indeed great though I don't like what I've heard post-Rubycon. Guy

I agree that it isn't their best album, but I do think it's a great album. Plenty of extremely enjoyable music on there, and if nothing else you have "A Day in the Life" which does deserve serious consideration as "most successful experiment". Guy

I think they were way ahead of people like the Stones and their blues based peers. They recorded the proto-techno "Tomorrow Never Knows" April of 1966 and look what was in pop music afterwards. You really want to appreciate how far ahead of their time the Beatles were in Pop Music? Play some of the other stuff that was being released in, say, late 1966. When you've heard Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" (Billboard #2 June 25, 1966), The Happenings' "See You In September" (#4 Sept. 10 1966), Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side of Town" (#3 Nov. 5, 1966), The New Vaudeville Band's "Winchester Cathedral" (#1 Dec. 3 1966), and countless others a few times, and then you listen to, say, "Strawberry Fields Forever" (recorded in late '66, released February 13, 1967), you realize you're dealing with a group in another talent-dimension altogether. You're setting up a straw man there. Plenty of forward-looking pop/rock music in 1966 by the Beatles' contemporaries (including several "blues-based" bands that you malign). Certainly the Beatles were among the most important contributors to the rapid evolution of the style during that period, but they had plenty of contemporaries. Guy

It's difficult for me to imagine the music of the Stones, Cream or Led Zeppelin without the Beatles' influence. I do agree that the "blues" part of "blues rock" came from somewhere else. Guy

Happy birthday, Paul! Guy

Some good prices. Is tower.com reliable? A while back someone here said they got a used CD sent to them when they were expecting a new one. Guy

It could be ugly... I am inclined to think that unless you absolutely need to tap into your savings in the next decade, it's best just to grit your teeth and sit tight with a well-diversified portfolio. The worst thing to do at this point is to engage in some panic selling. Of course, I am just an economist, not an investment expert. Guy Maybe you're not, but it's pretty obvious that the only reason to sell at this point is to lock in your losses. On the other hand, if you are feeling frisky, you can go short in Yen and invest the proceeds in a basket of Rand, Lira, and Real and Kiwi Dollar. Guy

Except those who teach in universities and colleges in this country. Depends on the field. Quite a few academics are extremely well-paid. Guy

Not correct. Ireland for one is much more exposed. I would guess Switzerland is heavily exposed as are some of the Benelux countries. It's not good to be a small country with huge banks. Guy

A nice album, but IMHO the bands with Shorter were better. I'd reach for at least a dozen Blakey albums before this one. Guy

These are both great concerts, though some of the stuff from the European tour in the fall is even better. The band ventured further into free jazz by that point. Guy

It could be ugly... I am inclined to think that unless you absolutely need to tap into your savings in the next decade, it's best just to grit your teeth and sit tight with a well-diversified portfolio. The worst thing to do at this point is to engage in some panic selling. Of course, I am just an economist, not an investment expert. Guy

IMHO, our universities seem to generate too many liberal arts PhDs and not enough scientists/engineers. Guy

October 8, 2008 Iceland, in a Precarious Position, Takes Drastic Steps to Right Itself By ERIC PFANNER and JULIA WERDIGIER REYKJAVIK, Iceland — The government of Iceland took extraordinary measures on Tuesday to stave off “national bankruptcy,” as the credit crisis tightened its grip on this remote island nation in the North Atlantic. Iceland’s banks had propelled years of significant growth, lending so freely that their assets ballooned to many times the size of the country’s economy. But now the boom has turned to a bust. In an effort to avoid financial collapse, the government took control on Tuesday of the country’s second-largest bank — its second takeover in two weeks. And, in a measure more characteristic of troubled developing economies than one of the wealthiest in the world, Iceland’s central bank pegged the currency to a basket of others. Most surprising, the government announced that it had asked Russia for a loan of 4 billion euros, about $5.5 billion, to try to keep the economy afloat. Iceland is uniquely exposed to the global economy. Although it has a population of about 300,000 — smaller than that of Wichita, Kan., or Tampa, Fla. — it has played an outsize role in global trade. The country is highly leveraged in international financial markets, and the total assets of its banks grew to nine times as large as its gross domestic product at the end of 2006, from 96 percent of its G.D.P. at the end of 2000. Some estimates place the current size of the banking sector at more than 10 times as large as the G.D.P. And Icelandic companies had been aggressively expanding in Northern Europe and across the Atlantic. The Baugur Group, an Icelandic investment company, for instance, owns the House of Fraser department store chain in Britain, as well as a stake in Saks Fifth Avenue. Another Icelandic company, the FL Group, now called Stodir, has investments in the parent of American Airlines. The boom in the financial sector was a relatively recent phenomenon. The Iceland Stock Exchange was created only in 1985; trading in shares began several years later. Though Iceland has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, not long ago its economy was rooted in basic industries like fishing. To stanch the current crisis, the government said it had secured the backing for a loan from Moscow. But Russian officials told Interfax that no decision had been made. Iceland later acknowledged that its announcement had been premature. The confusion over the status of any loan added to the sense of bewilderment here over the speed with which the financial situation went from bad to worse. “We are still in the midst of events unfolding, and it’s impossible to see where it’s going to end up,” said Björn Gudmundsson, head of research at Landsbanki, the second-largest bank in Iceland, after Kaupthing Bank. Landsbanki was nationalized on Tuesday under new powers rushed into effect by the government. At the end of last month, the government took control of Glitnir, another lender. “We were faced with the real possibility that the national economy would be sucked into the global banking swell and end in national bankruptcy,” Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde said late Monday. Concerns about the government’s ability to support the banking sector have put the currency into a tailspin. The fall in the krona has pushed inflation into double digits, requiring the central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate to more than 15 percent. Mr. Gudmundsson said new financing, like the proposed loan from Russia, was essential to help the central bank keep the currency from sliding further; it fell more than 30 percent against the dollar in the last month. The central bank said that it had asked Russia about the loan “some months ago” but that the situation with the country’s banks and economy deteriorated so rapidly over the last two days that a loan agreement became urgently needed. It said that Russia — home to branches of Icelandic banks — would grant the loan for the next three to four years with an interest rate of up to half of a percentage point above the interbank lending rate. For Russia, a loan would be a way to show its financial power and willingness to help distressed economies. “It’s a P.R. stunt to reassert Russia’s position in the global economy of the 21st century,” said James Beadle, a fund manager at Pilgrim Asset Management in Moscow. “But Russia also has a lot of cash it can’t use domestically because of the inflation problem.” In Reykjavik, the government reiterated that all deposits in its banks were guaranteed. But the crisis could reverberate in foreign markets where Icelandic banks have set up branches, luring customers with attractive savings rates. Customers of Icesave bank in Britain, controlled by Landsbanki, were not able to access their money on Tuesday. A note on the bank’s Web site did not give any further information. In the meantime, the deposit compensation unit of the Financial Services Authority in Britain was readying on Tuesday application forms for Icesave’s 300,000 British customers, who have an estimated £2.5 billion in deposits with the bank. Icesave provides only an Internet-based service in Britain; its depositors are partly covered by Britain’s deposit insurance system. Customers will probably have to wait a couple of weeks to receive their savings, up to £50,000, a spokesman at the deposit unit said. Britain recently increased the level of guaranteed deposits to £50,000. But in Reykjavic, the government guarantee seems to have reassured many Icelanders about the safety of their money. There were no signs of lines at banks for withdrawals.