The SPE Is Not Consolidated

Investment banks up to the same old shit. From: MORGAN STANLEY & CO. LLC CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2017 (PDF)

OTC derivatives outstanding

“Credit Linked Notes

In a Credit Linked Notes (CLN) transaction, the Company transfers assets (generally high quality securities or money market investments) to a Special Purpose Entity (SPE). An affiliate of the Company enters into a derivative transaction in which the SPE writes protection on an unrelated reference asset or group of assets, through a Credit Default Swap (CDS), a total return swap or similar instrument, and sells to investors the securities issued by the SPE.

In some transactions, an affiliate of the Company may also enter into interest rate or currency swaps with the SPE. Upon the occurrence of a credit event related to the reference asset, the SPE will deliver collateral securities as payment to the affiliate of the Company that serves as the derivative counterparty. These transactions are designed to provide investors with exposure to certain credit risk on the reference asset.

In some transactions, the assets and liabilities of the SPE are recognized in the Company’s consolidated statement of financial condition. In other transactions, the transfer of the collateral securities is accounted for as a sale of assets, and the SPE is not consolidated. The structure of the transaction determines the accounting treatment.

The derivatives in CLN transactions consist of total return swaps, credit default swaps or similar contracts in which an affiliate of the Company has purchased protection on a reference asset or group of assets. Payments by the SPE are collateralized.”

Led Me Back to the Light Side

Mellow tune, I dig it … Kate Bollinger singing No Other Like You:

Movies Watched -- Still Walking (2008)

114 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … "Happy Japanese families are all alike; every unhappy Japanese family is unhappy in its own way." I liked Kore-eda’s Shoplifters so I thought I’d give an earlier movie of his a try (plus Farr recommended it, probably because it stars the gorgeous Hiroshi Abe), but I wasn’t that thrilled. Kore-eda interested in exploring the cruelty of his parents’ generation, and especially the cruelty of mothers to children, husbands, and in-laws. Kore-eda also likes to reveal things slowly … I thought he did it more effectively in Shoplifters.

What a shame.

I Used To Be Seventeen

The duet version with Norah Jones is so much better than the original … gets a little messy / screechy after the three minute mark, but they reign it back in. I’m a big fan of harmonizing.

Movies Watched -- Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

103 minute running time … bit of a weird one, reminds me of other pointless (I don’t mean that in a bad way, you know, “existentialist”) movies from the late 60s, early 70s like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider .. pretty boy James Taylor as the Driver … goofy Warren Oates, who will always have a place in my heart for starring in Charles Willeford’s (my favorite writer) Cockfighter, as G.T.O. Loved Laurie Bird, the pretty hippie chick, who looked like a young Mia Farrow. (Bird killed herself at age 26 and was also in the above-mentioned Cockfighter … she was also in Annie Hall.)

Lots of good music in this one (though the music rights were apparently a reason this movie wasn’t released for decades), and Harry Dean Stanton as a gay cowboy made me laugh. You can see why it’s a cult movie, but it certainly doesn’t get a green-go.

I feel good; I can take it all the way

I Cheated On You With Myself

… and it felt so good. Ain’t that the truth. Noé singing i cheated on u. She’s French but grew up in Hong Kong and now lives in Los Angeles.. I dig the song and her sound.

Movies Watched -- Life Is Sweet (1990)

103 minute running time … Mike Leigh movie so that means we’re dealing with working-class nitwit Brits and life is anything but sweet. I just couldn’t get into it … one memorable sex scene involving a naked teenage girl with hairy armpits who is covered in chocolate sauce, but that’s about it…

Bulimic twins a good band name

Movies Watched -- Bottle Rocket (1996)

91 minute running time … Wes Anderson’s first movie … introducing? Luke and Owen Wilson to the world. They did have this laconic Texan way of talking that was weird and sort of charming (Melissa Villaseñor’s imitation is brilliant) … cutesy but pointless Wes Anderson stuff from before he perfected the formula … I wasn’t thrilled (though Rushmore is one of my Top 500 movies of all time).

Rita Kempley got it right when she wrote: “Bottle Rocket … gets by on quirky charm and slacker chic— but just barely … aptly named for cheaply made fireworks that tend to fizzle instead of explode.”

A whole generation “incapable of independent action.” Ouch, says this Gen-Xer.

Falling for the motel maid

Movies Watched -- Minding the Gap (2018)

93 minute running time … a documentary filmed over many years about three boys who lived in Rockford, IL and rode skateboards … the filmmaker, Bing Liu, used a lot of early footage that he had shot when they were in their middle teens … Zack is a pretty white boy and talented skater … Keire is a charming black boy and very talented skater … Bing is ethnically Chinese and mostly behind the camera … all three kids are sort of on the edge of poverty, sort of clinging to middle class respectability, I found the class aspect interesting. They were also all “abused” in the sense that they were beaten by their fathers, in Bing’s case, by his white step-father. Making the movie was a form of therapy for Bing, I guess.

One thing that wasn’t really focused on was their drug use … Zack and Keire sounded like potheads, I assume they both smoked a lot of weed whereas Bing didn’t, and Bing went on to become a filmmaker whereas Zack and Keire are living more marginal existences. Anyway, it was sort of interesting (a Criterion release after all) and had some great skateboarding footage. I didn’t hate it.

Babies having babies

Let Me Take Away the Pain

Redinho is a producer like Mark Ronson, I guess … Joel Culpepper on vocals. I dig it.