The other day

At Sonny Rollins  show at the Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo. Under intense heat and Sun we watched to grandmaster of Jazz swing along. 

With his white beard he looks really cool. Played like hell. Ended his show with a Blues that left everybody standing. 

Afterwards we went home and cooked pasta. It is a nice wonderful summer evening here in São Paulo. 

jokes

Now we are in the times of the "crisis jokes". 

"The crisis is worse than divorce: Half my assets are gone but my wife is still in the house!"

Or Ze Simão, a columnist of the folha de São Paulo came up with:  

a bolsa de valores agora se chama "pochete de valores". 

Here it is, after long, dark cold days very hot. In my car it showed 34C. 

bailout and more

Uffa, what a week. Because of the trouble in the US we have seen the Real going through the roof. From 1,5 it went to 2. Furthermore the US government decided to throw more money at the system liberating their "packet" of short-time measures. 

My opinion is that it will not stick, it is outright wrong. It is even to little. The whole mess built up with the subprime crisis and the derivatives written on these foul loans amount to 62 trillion (Credit-Default Swap market, The Economist, 20. Sept. issue), and we are talking of a "rescue" of 0,8 trillion. 

Well it is a try. However an ill fated. 

Throwing liquidity at the system created the problem in the first place. The fannies where 150 times leveraged because of government guarantees. High commodity prices and "bubbles" all over the place have been the effects of such behaviour. 

Totally unjustified the Brazilian Stock exchange lost some 20% in the last weeks and the US Dollar rose from 1.5 to 2 in a week. This is really not understandable for me. 

Brazil should be THE winner of this situation. No subprimes, no excess liquidity, very strong in commodities. 

My guess is, that in 6 month the R$ will be at 1.2 to the USD and the US and Europe are in for a huge recession unfortunately. 

So much for my 5 cent opinion. 

I am sitting in the garden. Valeria had to work, so we are not traveling to the beach. Here the summer is coming. After very cold an dark days a fine english rain has started and the air is awash with flower scents. Very nice. 

I am reading "Ei professor" by Frank McCourt. The second book after "Angela's Ashes" .

Also read "Kukuckskind" of Ingrid Noll. Read it in a day. Very good. Both of them. 

Lot's of probing with the band because on 9 of September we will play at Teatro Mars in Bixiga, the old italian quarter in São Paulo.