Suddenly, an event manager in London is having a very bad night. Fifty sold-out shows to refund.
Just at this moment, the O2 Arena page reads, “Michael Jackson - THIS IS IT!” I bet it won’t for much longer.

From Brad DeLong:
The key irrationality [causing the present crisis] was a private-sector failure on the part of the shareholders and top managements of the banks to make sure that their traders had an appropriate stake in the long-run survival of the bank and not just in constructing a portfolio that would be marked-to-market at a [...]

It’s that time of year again, and this time all of Europe — except plucky Georgia! — turns to the Third Rome Moscow, home of Eurovision 2009.
In years past, we’ve amused ourselves to no end with the song contest. Here are posts at least as good as some years’ winning songs:
2008
Can’t Resist
2007
Who’s European?
Eurovision: The Quickening
2006
Zombies [...]

And what to do with them.
But what about the talent part? On the whole, this indispensable leadership and insight has made a smoking ruin of every company they were allowed to play with! Let’s take Bob Lutz, the vice-Chairman of General Motors. In the Jan. 31 Economist, we find him saying GM held on to [...]

From Geert Mak’s visit to Sarajevo in 1999:

Batinic leans over and looks me straight in the eye. ‘Tell me, Geert, honestly: what kind of people are you sending us anyway? The ones at the top are usually fine. But otherwise, with only a few exceptions, the people I have to deal with are third-class adventurers [...]

This is the 3003rd post at A Fistful of Euros. An odd number for an observance, but things are coming fast and furious these days, and I just missed MMM.
That is all.

North and south of the Caucasus mountains:
Azerbaijan’s air force commander was shot and killed as he left his home on the morning of February 11 … Lt-Gen. Rail Rzayev, the head of Azerbaijan’s Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Defense Force, was shot in the head as he was sitting in a Mercedes in front of his [...]

The administration here isn’t changing, but we are doing a little cleaning up. At the moment, it’s confined to the blogroll. First, I’ll be pruning the blogs that have gone on hiatus. Then, probably some time next week, we will add new ones. We always want to hear about good blogs writing about Europe, but [...]

Less than 10 percent of the way into the book (to be fair, my edition weighs in at just under 900 pages), I’m liking In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak a great deal, and looking forward to the rest.

Read [...]

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has officially dissolved the parliament, and new elections are set for December 7. He made no secret of why he thought the coalition broke up:

The democratic coalition - I am convinced, deeply convinced - was destroyed with only one thing – personal ambition. The personal ambition of one individual which [...]