Stockholm

Im heading to Stockholm for a nice weekend. I cant wait, im leaving at 8.50 tomorrow morning - friday that is.. and going back to Oslo on sunday.

Against universal healt care?

I have never been totally convinced that the market can actually take care of every single need that the inhabitants need in a sociatey - such as healt care. I must say that I support the notion of it though and that it is part of a society to pay for basic medical services.

However, a student of Swedish Konstfack, an institution for higher learning, has created an installation where she has acted to be insane and been "captured" by the police. The woman has therefore spent valuable resources on what she considers art. I do not care if it is art or not art, I wonder if she would have acted in the same way if the money had come out of her own pocket or her partents medical insurane. I do not think that she had done this, pathetic and irresponsible and yet another reason why universal health care only suits people that take responsibility for their actions. (read about it here in Swedish DN.se)

Weird times!

It seems like the hard times are hitting some of the educational institutions in the US. In especially a University where I studied a couple of years ago - Brandeis University. Since the times are terrible, they have chosen to close down the very nice Rose Art Museam - a museum that houses modern art on campus. In my opinion, this is very sad since I remembered that I visited the museum and marveled over the great treasures that the relatively small Brandeis U. had. Well, I hope this hasnt anything to do with Bernard Madoff, who managed a lot of assets belonging to the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundations that has endowed a lot of money to the university and enabled some absolute first class facilities. (Read about it here)

A couple of days ago

It has now been a couple of days ago since I posted anything on this blog and that has mainly to do with the fact that I have been very busy. We - the group that is - has had 3 major hand-ins in Value Based Decision Makin, Service Marketing and Corporate Finance. Well, yesterday night wasnt that busy.. I saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was good. Hope next week will bring +15 degrees celcius, spring and a lot of sun.. But i doubt it.

US inauguration

I am currently watching history unravel before my eyes at CNN.com/live - the US inauguration... it sends chills down your spine.

Great read - for free

I have found Roger Lowensteins blog at Huffington Post.. Internet is truly a great source of inspiration.

If you have not read Greenspans book, "The age of turbulence" - do so.. it is great and gives you an excellent overview of the economic history of the United States over the 2oth century.

Trouble with Dell

I was on the chat with the Dell-people today. Since I am Swedish I want a computer that has the Swedish version of Windows Vista with a Swedish keyboard. Because I now reside in Norway I therefore want it shipped to the school... I contacted Dell.se and tried to get them to ship a computer to me, which was easier said than done. If I wanted a "Swedish" computer it had to be shipped to a Swedish address, which doesnt really work since I live in Norway.. If I wanted to have it shipped to Norway - then I had to go through the Norwegian site and then call them explicitly in order to give them the specs on the Swedish Vista and Swedish keyboard. I also had to pay Norwegian prices which was SEK 800 more. Insane! I think this is really weird, since the computers probably are being put together next to one another.. The time of delivery was also in excess of two weeks (hmmmm??).

Went to the movies.

I went to the movies and saw a great Norwegian movie, called Max Manus. It had a certain feeling to it that very few Scandi produced movies have, such as great cast and above all, a great historical feeling to it that makes you believe in the story. Well, it was great... and now im sitting and reading about Home Depot.

Message #200 and books

Since things havent really come up to the pace of the last semester, I have taken up "ordinary" reading again. I am reading two books now, none of them real fiction. I was thinking about reading "The castle in the forest" by Norman Mailer, but decided to go for Alan Greenspan's "Age of Turbulence" since it was a gift from my father, some year ago... its extremely interesting to read about his career, and to understand where he draws his inspiration and the conclusion that he comes up to.. of course, his involvement in political life is what really sucks me into the book.

Another, very fascinating read is that of United Fruit company which is the main topic of the book "Bananas" by Peter Chapman - a book that I was given by a classmate (thanks Rafa).. It should be said that I am not finished with any of the books yet.

Both books are very very good, of course in different ways.

Swedish banking stocks are down

Apparently, the Swedish banking stocks are down approx 20 % during the first time of 2009. This is of course weird, I mean - the market must have known about the Baltic and Ukrainian investment for some time.. Well, a year or two ago these investments generated a lot of profit (not least for Swedbank) but the hunt for positive NPVs goes on.. Going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Even if I dont know very much about the baltic real estate sector, it must be safe to say that many properties and houses were overvalued.

The building is from Swedbanks facilities in Kaliningrad.

Unfortunate conflict

The current war between Palestine and Israel is extremely unfortunate. It is also very unfortunate that the reporting from the war is so filled with opinions and ad-hoc "facts". However, New York times has a specific page where they have both US, Israeli and Palestinian reports.

Thomas Friedman also writes about the conflict here, in a debate article from the NY Times.

Slow start picking up

We are now picking up the pace from the slow start. I read a great article by Michael Lewis in the magazine Portfolio the other day (which is a very good read). There was this great article by Michael Lewis about the end of overpaying Wall Street bankers and the end of an era (somewhat like the one he described in Liar's Poker - which I never actually read.. too many people told me about the book and its greatness which made me not read it). Well, this article is really good - After the fall, by Michael Lewis. (The picture: the bull is certainly dead.. for now.. ever heard of Bull Phoenix?)

On the other hand, Im thrilled about our consultancy project. Now back to the lecture in Macro.

New electives and corporate projects...

We are now getting information on the different electives;

The electives that we can choose between are:

• Management control
• Multinational financial management
• Negotiations
• New product development and service innovation

We can also choose between Mannheim electives, but unfortunately they only yield 4 ECTS. The electives should add up to 18 ECTS. We can also take more courses if we want that, which means that we can take three courses at BI and then ad additional courses from Mannheim. Now that we get a chance to take additional courses, Im thinking about doing that. How about that.

The corporate case that we are going to do is an analysis of the LNG market in the North Sea for a Pan-European gas company. Very interesting assignment!!

Norway, finally a new week

The past week has been a slow start on the new block of courses. The past week has been very slow with only some administrative tasks and two lectures. Tomorrow, we have a full day and we get to find out which companies we are going to consult this forthcoming semester. Its going to be very interesting.

This is also the first time I encounter some signs of fatigue or tiredness about the program. I do feel some anxiousness in getting back to work and so on. I try to keep my focus with the studies, but its hard at the moment... i really want the whole prorgram to get going. I am also very anxious to see the spring come; I am already tired of winter.

Swedish bank to get support from Swedish government?

I have written several times of the Swedish bank Swedbank and their investments in the Baltics - where they have come out as a major force in banking over the last couple of years. Well, they have seen great profitability from these investments before - but now it seems that the market has caught on and wonders; Is it reasonable that the investments in real estate have they value that the debt and investments in those real estate mandate that they have?

Well,i dont know... Therefore (its reported here in Swedish) the market is now adjusting to the notion that Swedbank probably will have to take on measures to secure some cash from these investments. SEB is currently also seeing some indications from the Baltic markets that something is not right.

New release from Microsoft

Saw that Microsoft has released a beta version of their new operating system called Windows 7. It seems to be a new update for Windows Vista. I have decided to buy a Dell 1525 computer since I feel I need a new laptop after being a Mac-fan for several years. Of course, I have been using a Wintel PC from work, but it will be interesting to try Windows Vista. The thing is that I have only heard positive feedback about the program. The reason for changing computer platform can only be credited due to the price tag of the new Mac notebooks; I am also a bit tired of the price differentiation between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. I mean, what happened to the iBook?

Well, it will interesting to try.

He's at it again..

I am back in Norway and Jeff Skilling lost his appeal!! the former Enron boss has complained and wanted to pardoned since he apparently think that he has made up for his crimes that he committed when he was the Enron CEO. Well, I dont think that he should be let out - many million people were affected because of his and his friend Andy Fastows direct scam -and then we are not talking about the consumers of California who had to pay a hefty overprice for the their electricity in order to satisfy the Enron stock holders. Interesting how many people who think that they have made up for their crimes now that G.W Bush is leaving office. I saw this great documentary approx 1 year ago - I certainly recommend it; Enron - the smartest guys in the room.

By the way... Lowenstein - who else - wrote a great book about it (and has yet another great article out - Whats really wrong with the price of oil - Great great read).

New team mates for the new semester

I have now ended up in a new group. My former group with Erlend, Deepthi and Lars is now more or less dissolved - we have one hand-in in corporate finance left.. then, Ill be in a group together with Egil (Norwegian from DuPont), Laura (An American who were in Software sales) and Filipe (a portugese who has worked in the shipping industry). I think its going to be a great group.

Postponed trip

... my trip to Oslo has been postponed, Im going on tuesday instead...

Leaving for Oslo

I am now leaving for Oslo for Block #3 at BI. We are also getting our new groups and our corporate assignment from the Dean, which is going to be great.

Ethics case by CAT and Goodpaster

During the holidays I saved the nice task of construcing an ethics case and then analyzing this case by the use of Goodpasters CAT-scan/model. It is actually quite fun to construct your own case and it also jerks you back to reality after several days of relaxing. More information will follow...

I have recently switched over to Google Chrome on my Wintel PC.. its very very fast and thus.. good.

Happy start of the new year, Rick!

The new year has finally started and it has already had some interesting issues for GM and Rick Wagoner. They get a fresh and cheap loan from the US government of approximately 4 bn USD. In my opinion a stupid mistake, why throw good money after bad?

By the way.. Ivanhoe is such a slow and terrible moving. Since we currently are in an economic downturn, I would like us all to remember the great commercial that Gotabanken (or Götabanken) issued in the late 1980's.