Dinner up High

Sadly, I’m not on anyone’s A list for a holiday party. I was fortunate enough to get an invite to a swell dinner bash in the City. A nice lady I know (who has no interest in men) needed a date. The thinking was that I would not make a hash of it, so I got the nod.

I was in that enviable/unenviable position of not knowing anyone. There is only a dozen, so I schmooze as best I can. The place is filled with NY types; lawyers, bankers, buy-side types, RE sharpies, art dealers, ad execs, a few (very busy) wives and one degenerate blogger. My kind of crowd. The hostess gives me a quick tour of the place, (30th floor, three bedrooms, view of the park) and drops me with the ‘guys’.

Normal banter from the boys.

“How much money has been lost in the past six weeks betting on NY football teams?”
Answer: Staggering.

“Is Cialis really better than Viagra?”
Answer: It depends. For a quicky Viagra is fine. For something “special” Cialis was a better choice. I was surprised that a cost benefit analysis was part of the discussion. Apparently Cialis is up to $22 a pop and Viagra is still only ten bucks. Of course no one had any first hand knowledge on any of this, it was all “I’ve heard” or “I read”….

“How’s business?”
Answer: Fucking great. This is not a crowd that brags. They don’t really need to. So you had to read into the words; “We were very pleased” or “Best year since 06”. My favorite; “Lots of smiles at bonus time at my shop”.

“What’s 11’ looking like?”
Answer: Fucking great. While this group is a very small subset of the economy they are seeing plenty of opportunities. They are hiring, expanding and acquiring. They all have full plates for the year. This represents a significant change from two years ago.

“What about Obama?”
Answer: Deep disappointment. Keep in mind that it is this crowd who gave Obama hundreds of millions a few years ago. The attitude; “He took his eye off the ball on the economy and wasted his first two years on health care legislation that we will never see” summed up the feelings.

I (of course) pushed my hot buttons.

“What about QE?”
Answer: It’s good for the market. Nothing else matters.

“What about the sorry state of municipal finance?”
Answer: It’s all priced in.

“What about the deficits?”
Answer: They don’t matter. It’s all priced in.

Dinner was a bunch of courses. Something for everyone. This was not family style. I did my best with which fork to use and when. The small talk was over my head.

“Alta or Vail this winter?”
Answer: Vail. Apparently there are no go good restaurants in Utah.

“Was Bloomberg bluffing when he said he was not a presidential candidate?”
Answer: He was bluffing.

“Should one consider full body scans?”
Answer: Absolutely not. Most either had done this or knew someone who had. The conclusion was that if you did the scans the results were 100% certain that they would find something. Interesting state of denial

“Is Sara Palin for real?”
Answer: Yes. While they expressed fear and loathing they also recognized that the level of disappointment in the country with Obama and the Democrats was likely to bring a very different candidate in 2012.


One fellow actually had a very good rep. Been in the investment biz for a long time and damn good at it. Someone asks him, “Is investing overseas still the right strategy?”. He wisely dodges the question with an obvious answer, “If you don’t have some non US exposure you’re not wisely invested.” Another who was looking for some free advice asks the follow on, “Yes, but which country?” He answers, “I focus on the countries that have the highest work ethic.” This last comment prompts a conversation that lasts through coffee.

The talk was about which countries ranked high on that list. This was not about which worker produced more. The answer to that is easy. A worker for VW in Germany produces much more than does a worker in Viet Nam. However, the conclusion at the table was that on the narrow issue of work ethic, Vietnamese workers had a better attitude than German workers.

The general question of East versus West was sort of dismissed. The obvious answer was East. The more interesting debates were on the narrower questions:

France – Germany? Easy for this group.
Italy – Spain? Not so easy.
UK – France? Harder still.

How about China versus India? That’s a tough one. Harder still, Taiwan versus Korea. Israel ranked high. Some Eastern European countries made the final list. Russia was dismissed on the issue of work ethic.

Brazil confounded the group. Everyone recognized the rising tide for this country. But on the work ethic issue Brazil was not high on the list.

The diners did not fall prey to the stereotype of workers from Latin America. Too many of us had worked, lived or done business in that region to make that mistake.

This was all just “dinner talk”. I found it interesting. I’m not going to publish the list we came up with. I think the readers can do that as well as we did. There is a level of arrogance to this type of ranking. Some of the biases we brought to the discussion no doubt tainted our conclusions.

On the ride home I thought of the evening. I had hoped that there would be something interesting to write about. My first thought was that there was not. Just a nice dinner, nothing memorable. But later I reviewed the list we came up with and I was struck by what was missing.

This group of relatively sophisticated, well-traveled and knowledgeable people spent an hour 300 feet above the lights coming up with the country comparisons. America was mentioned and compared on a number of occasions. But the final list did not include the USA. If the elitist don’t think much of our collective work ethic, what does that mean?
Answer: Nothing good.