“We held very few [electronics makers such as Apple] in the past and we’re likely to hold very few in the future,” the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway said in Daegu, South Korea, today. Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, is “very easy for me to come to a conclusion as to what it will look like economically in five or 10 years, and it’s not easy for me to come to a conclusion about Apple,” he said. “Even though Apple may have the most wonderful future in the world, I’m not capable of bringing any drink to that particular party and evaluating that future,” Buffett said.[Bloomberg]
Attempt 1: “The financial community here is buried in white powder.” Continue reading »
Has the financial crisis taken a toll on your drug usage? Fuck no, says recently released data. While only 2 percent of the finance industry failed drug tests last year, according to a firm that screens around 270 shops, versus 3.6% of all workers, those numbers are merely reflective of the fact that most finance gigs will only make you piss in a cup as a new hire, and not on a random Wednesday, several hours off your last bender [wipes brow]. Once you’re in, it’s highly unusual for HR to get up in your face about whether or not that was you blowing rails off the head of IR’s ass in the conference room. And speaking of preferences, what are the drugs of choice among the using set these days? Continue reading »
So this Bloomberg story on suicidal coke addicts across the pond? Kind of a downer. And while it didn’t really illuminate much re: the similarities between trading and having a drug problem that we didn’t already know, or do anything but depress us, we have found ourselves a teachable moment.
At least one cocaine user at a financial firm was brazen enough to deal the drug from his desk. David Frith, a 28-year- old banker who worked at Barclays Plc’s office in Basingstoke, England, was convicted in 2007 of selling drugs from his desk and received a jail sentence of seven and a half years.
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