A Tribute To Bob Newhart: EI Weekend 3045
It’s mid-summer so what better topic to concentrate on than a true comedic genius, Bob Newhart who passed away earlier this year.
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Exchange Invest was founded by former exchange CEO and author of the first bestselling book of fintech (“Capital Market Revolution!” FT 1999) Patrick Young. Monday through Friday our daily paid subscriber email discusses the business of bourses of all kinds across the world.
On this day in 2010, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed a new law into effect that formalized the exclusion of private brokerages from trading the local bolivar currency or public sector dollar-denominated debt.
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PLY Notes
Visiting the NYSE floor last month, I enjoyed an interview with the excellent Remy Blaire of Fintech TV: Dissecting The Capital Market Revolution With Patrick L Young, Author Of Capital Market Revolution.
MACRO THOUGHTS
In a US Presidential election year look no further than: Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue. The Conversation often publishes academic pompous nonsense but this is a sound summary of Bob Newhart’s abilities to craft comedy: Bob Newhart Was More Than An Actor Or Comedian — He Was A Literary Master.
Meanwhile, the notion of The Khrushchev Landing rehearsal is a magnificent insight into the meticulous preparations for a fascinating moment in Cold War history.
Just in case, you ever find yourself in this tricky predicament, here’s a fabulous series of insights into “Defusing A Bomb.”
IN BIGWORLD
From Exchange Invest 3037: August 8th:
Once upon a time, President George HW Bush was somewhat famed for his curious conjunctions of the English language.
POTUS 41 offered magnificent one-liners such as “Fluency in English is something I am often not accused of.” He also delivered magnificent insights into the psephological process such as “It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecided could go one way or the other.”
This led to a veritable cornucopia of Bushisms being chronicled by media. “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we” remarked George W Bush in Washington, D.C. on August 5th 2004.
POTUS 43 addressing the Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce previously on January 27th, 2000 had noted “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”
The study of Bushisms is quite the thing but may soon be superseded by the study of Kamala which is kind of like the wisdom of Kabbalah only even more opaque, mystic and impossible to comprehend.
Here’s a gem from VP Harris last week on the (welcome) arrival of hostages from Russia. So Kamala stated: “This is an extraordinary day and I’m very thankful for our president. This is an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and strengthening alliances. This is an incredible day and you can see it in the families and in their eyes.” (Video On X).
Just last month Donald Trump noted about the last Democrat candidate for President in 2024: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence — and I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
That line might yet get an airing on September 4th if there is a debate.
EXCHANGE INVEST WEEKLY PODCAST
ASIC Snaps — Sues ASX,
ICE Trolls LSE,
First Glint Of Sapphire,
& A Tale Of Two Cities (Podcast Edition).
The Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast 258
BITCARNAGE
Settlement Achieved!
One labyrinthine stream of settlement has been successfully accomplished:
New York Judge Nods $12.7b Settlement Between FTX, Alameda And CFTC
Cointelegraph
FTX, Alameda Ordered To Pay $12.7b To Creditors By U.S. Judge
CoinDesk
The CFTC is eager to note they played a key role here: CFTC Obtains $12.7 Billion Judgment Against FTX And Alameda with their press release going on to note, ““FTX used age-old tactics to create an illusion that it was a safe and secure place to access crypto markets. But the basic regulatory tools, like governance, customer protections, and surveillance that exist to identify misconduct and ultimately prevent collapse, were simply not there,” said CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam.” This reads brilliantly but seems to miss out on the illusion creation element “and left the CFTC Chairman remarkably supine when FTX was liberally funding Democratic politicians.” True it might be tough to say Behnam supported FTX but he looked dubiously acquiescent and indeed his conversations as relayed by industry practitioners demonstrate an agency which was nowhere near the tough proactive stance on FTX which is inferred by the CFTC press release.
NB Bitcarnage will be back next Monday (August 19th) from its summer break.
If you enjoyed this excerpt you may be interested to know that you can read Bitcarnage every day in Exchange Invest.
Alternatively, if you want to follow Bitcarnage — the daily update on happenings in the world of crypto and digital assets, then you can find Bitcarnage as a standalone on Substack.
OF INTEREST
As always, a review of interesting reading to provoke thoughts and consideration… Not sure we agree with much of it….but it’s thought-provoking!
Of Irish German extraction and with a degree in accountancy living in the US midwest…it has to be said Bob Newhart doesn’t immediately strike one from that bare-bones outline as having the pedigree of a brilliant comedy mind who would revolutionise the genre. However, when he speared off from the balance sheet path and signed with the one-year-old Warner Bros record label, his first album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” became the first comedy album to top the Billboard 200, netting two Grammy awards (for album of the year and best new artist in 1961). Newhart’s stand-up involved the magnificent pretext of sketches with only Newhart working his way through the situation…and often those situations were themselves simply magnificent. Half the dialogue was imputed and yet, it all moved along seamlessly…and hilariously. He could lampoon every vestige of the human condition and his business skits remain apt to this day. The Grace L. Ferguson Airline (And Storm Door Co.) is as magnificent a takedown of discount airlines as was ever possible, decades before Spirit / SouthWest / Easyjet / Ryanair et al were founded.
The very notion of his early sketches were themselves as fabulous in concept as they were in execution: an ad man conversing with his client Abe Lincoln as he dispensed political wisdom is again like so much Newhart, highly relevant today (“It’s kinda like Marc Anthony telling people friends romans countrymen I’ve got something I want to tell ya”… the ad man intones while advising on Abe’s speeches).
I first discovered Newhart as a boy in Belfast and was delighted to buy some of his albums in London on summer holidays. The ludicrous but plausible captain’s address as he prepared to dock the US submarine which had spent 2 years travelling the world without pulling into port… (Bob Newhart — USS.Codfish) is a must listen…while we are all left to boggle at just what fare the cooks had indeed prepared on this marathon voyage.
This is a good NPR summary of an epic life and an amazing career Remembering Comic And Actor Bob Newhart.
In essence, Newhart was in and of himself an education, as his detailed knowledge of topics was itself magnificent. He lampooned government and business — while the The Driving Instructor is an exquisite examination of the human condition when it comes to pupil and instructor alike. From the driving school to the introduction to commercial transport at Bus Driver Training again the insights are wondrous and truly global in application for all who have ever engaged in public transport the world over.
The import-export discussion with (Bob Newhart on The Dean Martin Show -) Sir Walter Raleigh is sublime — discussing the imminent arrival of a tobacco cargo…the concept of bringing leaves across the Atlantic to set fire to them is quite sublime…
If you prefer an interview, a Billboard interview: Bob Newhart Looks Back On His Game-Changing Comedy Album & Six Decades In Showbiz.
As told to Saturday Night Live — how did the new guard after his orientation week cope with King Kong? Bob Newhart Monologue — Saturday Night Live “I went to the broom closet without signing out a requisition — I will tomorrow, sir — and I started banging his toes with it…my jurisdiction only extends to his navel.”
Newhart’s ability was more than just concepts and quips, his fabulous body language makes this sketch where Newhart’s own dialogue is magnificently simple: Interview Nightmare ~ Bob Newhart ~ (should have read his book!). Many referred to Newhart as “deadpan” but he preferred “low key” and this sketch is precisely that, seamlessly low key throughout an absurd but painfully en pointe for ‘70’s conspiracy theories interviewee.
Perhaps the Retirement Party would be a fitting conclusion to this edition but I prefer the wonders of a brief conceptual sketch which can occupy the mind for — well decades on and off in my case. An Infinite Number Of Monkeys is simply marvellous — a day in the life of the monitors assigned to said infinite number of apes…
Vale Bob Newhart, a true original thinker who brought joy to millions.
He was in his idiosyncratic brilliance the gzornenplatz of comedy if you will. Or as he himself noted:
“I’ve always said that the secret to my success was that the men in the audience think they were in the Army with me. And that’s who I look like. And the women think I was their first husband.”
Books worth reading:
FINANCE BOOK OF THE WEEK
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“A History of the United States in Five Crashes: Stock Market Meltdowns That Defined a Nation” by Scott Nations takes us on a journey through the five significant stock market crashes (The Panic of 1907, Black Tuesday, Black Monday, The Great Recession & The Flash Crash) in the past century to reveal how they defined the United States today.
Scott Nations was our IPO-VID 012: VOLQ: A New Look At Volatility? with Kevin Kennedy.
Get the book here.
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Suggestions welcome if you would like to nominate a book for us to cover!
Our next Book of the week will be unveiled Saturday in the EI Weekend Edition.
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CAPITAL MARKET REVOLUTION
First published in 1999, “Capital Market Revolution!” offered a clear, concise roadmap for navigating the financial revolution fueled by technology. And 25 years later, as the world of fintech continues to evolve, the core principles laid out in the book remain surprisingly sharp
This new edition was produced to celebrate PLY ringing the NYSE Closing Bell July 5th, 2024. There are several new sections of PLY pith to add 10,000 more words of context and the original book which is remarkably prescient and elegantly dated all at once! It’s only $9.99 on Kindle, a fraction of the original price in 1999 to encourage revolutionaries with any budget!
Get the book here.
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LAST WORD
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