Wipeout!

Recommended listening for this post: the Surfaris, of course! The Tornadoes, Lively Ones and Dick Dale would also be acceptable. Anyway, this piece is out now, for Institutional Investor, for a story on the firing of the Chief Investment Officer of the Hawaii pension fund. What made the firing so remarkable was the fact that no explanation was given as to why Vijoy Chattergy, the CIO, was let go. This in turn created a situation where people jumped to conclusions and the rumors started, rushing in to fill the vacuum of information. Sort of like when you were in school and someone from the office comes into the classroom to get you with no explanation, so everyone thinks the worst like you set fire to the library or flooded the bathroom with a cherry bomb and does that simultaneous, perfectly synchronized "Oooooooooo" when all that really happened is you forgot your lunch at home and your mom came by the school to drop it off.

There was also a spot:

I had a ton of fun with the collage for these. Read the story here. Thank you to Kim, my AD!

Espresso yourself!

I'm expressing with my full capabilities. This illustration is featured in the current issue of Institutional Investor. The article discusses a recently imposed financial transaction tax in Italy.

I'm glad I was able to come up with something other than an Italian flag for this illustration. An espresso cup slowly leaking a Euro stream worked out great.

 There are the usual opponents saying that the tax will cause volatility, less investment, and the end of the world- as all taxes do- and those that say that the tax is necessary to discourage high-frequency trading, reduce risk and create revenue. According to the article, so far it's too early to tell what exactly the effects are. My two cents (as if you care): I've read some great stuff from Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot at the Center for Economic and Policy Research on the subject of financial transaction (speculation) taxes. Here's a recent article by Weisbrot on the Harkin/DeFazio "Wall Street Trading and Speculation Tax Act of 2013."

Thank you so much, Diana!