Thursday, March 26, 2009

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Well, kudos to Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times for having the cojones to take a crack at defining an agenda to reform the financial system. I admire his courage, at least, because I am sure he will be the target of innumerable brickbats and sniping from the commentariat (including, natch, Yours Truly), who will cumulatively find fault with almost everything he says.

He is fooling himself, however, if he thinks any sitting Wall Street chieftain will step forward to propose a plan of his own at this juncture. Certainly Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan has the intelligence and stature—as defined by emerging from the recent financial shitstorm with the smallest quantity of ordure smeared over his person—to pull it off. But Jamie is first and foremost a street-fighting son of a bitch. He has absolutely no interest in magnanimously proposing any set of solutions which might benefit his current or future competitors. Nor does he appear to give a flying fuck in a rolling doughnut about helping Congress or the US Treasury find their way out of the respective paper bags they seem to have wandered into. No, Jamie is the kind of person who says give me the rules, then get the hell out of my way. No statesman, he.

Likewise, Mr. Sorkin's other candidate for Churchillian leadership, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, is also a bust. Having been the only Wall Street head to apologize publicly before Congress during the industry's recently televised proctology exam on C-SPAN, Mr. Mack is unlikely to seek an encore. He has done his good deed for the decade, you see.

The rest of the field falls away pretty quickly. Citigroup's Vikram Pandit has the moral gravitas and public stature of Alvin the Chipmunk, having conspired with LOLFed and his own witless bumblings to transform himself into a punchline. Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein registers even lower on the personal charisma scale than colorless technocrat Tim Geithner, which is saying something. If he weren't head of the largest and most successful evil empire since Genghis Khan, I'm sure no-one would even know who he was. And don't get me started on red-faced and sputtering Ken Lewis, who grips the helm at Bank of America. Every time I see him on TV I expect his head to explode, like one of those guys in the movie Scanners.

After those five, no-one outside of the FDIC even knows who the clowns are who run our banking system (which I bet is just fine with them). A full-page editorial in The Wall Street Journal by Bob Kelly of BoNY Mellon or John Stumpf of Wells Fargo would have all the impact of a damp squib in a thunderstorm: Who?

That's just fine by me, by the way. I think all of these knuckleheads are far better advised to focus intently and exclusively on their own knitting for a while, rather than pontificating at length about the appropriate outlines of global finance's brave new world. As I can personally attest, pontificating takes a lot of time and energy (and delivers uncertain results). For now, I prefer that anyone in a position of executive authority on the Street skip policy making and focus instead on pulling his own firm's chestnuts out of the fire and paying my fellow taxpayers and me the fuck back. And quickly.

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

Friday, March 13, 2009

The Investment Banker Speaks

Jules: "You read the Bible, Ringo?"

Ringo: "Not regularly, no."

Jules: "Well, there's this passage I got memorized, Ezekiel 25:17:
'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.'
"I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass.

"But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice.

"See, now I'm thinkin' ... maybe it means you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man. And Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it
could mean, you're the righteous man, and I'm the shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. ... I'd like that.

"But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is ...
you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men.

"But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin'
real hard to be the shepherd."

— Pulp Fiction


The Dealmaker clan is on vacation next week. Based on past experience, that means there is a one-in-three chance the markets will go to hell in a flowered handbasket while I am away. Graze carefully out there.

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

We Live to Serve



Hon. Andrew M. Cuomo
Attorney General of the State of New York
Albany, New York


Re: Proposed Wall Street Compensation Rules

Dear Mr. Cuomo:

I understand that you are working with Rep. Barney Frank to design legislation which will "tie Wall Street pay to the long-term performance of the firms." This is an admirable goal, and as a taxpaying American citizen, I salute you for it.

According to the article in The Wall Street Journal this morning in which your plans were revealed to the public, you appear to be taking a measured, consultative approach in this project:
A person close to Mr. Cuomo said change is needed but the intent isn't to micromanage or interfere with the private sector.

"We certainly need to understand the industry's perspective on the potential unintended consequences of compensation reform before we finalize these long overdue changes," the person said.

This is comforting.

I believe I speak for many in the investment banking industry and the American business community at large when I say that we would find a reduction in frequency of legislative and regulatory reforms coming out of Washington D.C. and state capitals which are modeled on the trusty "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach to be somewhat reassuring. It is also refreshing to hear a regulator acknowledge the existence and risk of unintended consequences from their actions. I think few of us would object if you were to send around a brief note informing your peers in the regulatory and legislative branches of this little discovery.

* * *

As you consider a topic as charged and divisive as compensation in the financial services sector, about which every Senator, Congressman, taxpayer, and taxpayer's dog seems to have a fervently held opinion, may I humbly submit that you leaven your data collection with some input, information, and analysis from someone who—in contrast to 99.6% of the individuals offering their two cents worth in the debate—actually knows what the hell he is talking about.

Namely, me.

You could do far worse in this respect than to spend an hour or two of your time (or that of a moderately intelligent staffer) reading the posts I have published on this site over the last 15 months concerning this very topic, collected under the heading "filthy lucre." While I confess I spent perhaps an inordinate amount of time in these posts clearing away the obscuring underbrush which seems to adhere to this topic and countering the uninformed nonsense which a rag-tag collection of purportedly intelligent commentators have spewed forth in public, I have little doubt you will find a not-inconsequential number of useful and illuminating nuggets of information there which will do you no end of good.

In addition, should your (or your staffer's) desire to improve yourself extend to acquiring a more grounded understanding of the investment banking industry as a whole, you would find yourself well served by allocating a little more time to reading the more numerous posts collected under the rubric "The Life." After reading the materials collected therein, you should find that you actually know what the hell you are talking about with a far more gratifying regularity.

* * *

Having spent approximately two decades in this industry, rest assured I know whereof I speak. Furthermore, not being currently in the employ of (nor collecting deferred pay from) any financial institution in current or potential future receipt of taxpayer funds, I can confidently assert that I have no particular dog in this fight. Other than my patriotic desire to do my civic duty, and my wish as a citizen and taxpayer to do what I can to help alleviate and correct the crippling imbalances which have arisen in our financial system and spilled over to our broader economy, I have no biases in this matter. (Although I admit I will be happier if the direct and unintended consequences of your actions and those of your colleagues do not reduce the American financial system to a state of efficiency and health inferior to that of the North Korean agricultural sector.)

Should you wish to explore these matters further, I would be delighted to meet you in person to discuss them. I will make myself available on the corner of Wall Street and Broad in New York City between the hours of 3:00 am and 6:00 am Eastern Daylight Time every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Should you decide to come, please bring a regulatory consultation retainer of ten million dollars in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills, plus a signed engagement letter stipulating a transaction success fee of 0.15% of all TARP and TALF funds disbursed after January 1, 2009. You or your representative should carry a clean, lightly-used Goldman Sachs duffle bag bearing an American Airlines Executive Platinum luggage tag labeled "Joe." (I will keep the duffle bag.) You will recognize me as the gentleman clad in fatigues wearing a Saddam Hussein mask.

Looking forward to hearing from you, etc., etc.

Your Humble Servant,



The Epicurean Dealmaker

cc: Rep. Barney Frank

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Upside of Evil?

"Don't be so gloomy. After all, it's not that awful.

"You know what the fellow says—in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

"So long, Holly."

— The Third Man 1


Let's see. We have just come off a decade or two of greed, arrogance, and unbridled hubris which has landed us on the doorstep of systemic financial collapse. We have nearly bankrupted global capitalism by borrowing against our future income (and the income of our children and grandchildren) in order to build a culture based on instant gratification and crass commercialism.

But look on the bright side. Our modern-day Borgias have produced Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, and ... Flavor of Love.

Maybe we should have settled for cuckoo clocks.

1 Hold onto your Rääbeliechtli, Swissies: "In This is Orson Welles (1993), Welles is quoted as saying 'When the picture came out, the Swiss very nicely pointed out to me that they've never made any cuckoo clocks.'" Confidential, numbered bank accounts, perhaps?

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Tweet Mystery of Life

Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you.

— Young Frankenstein


Time wasters of the world, unite!

Inspired (or perhaps goaded) by Alltop: Economics, which has begun to run Twitter feeds of some of its most popular economic bloggers and mainstream media sites, I have decided to take the plunge and join the Twitter tsunami.

I fully expect this experiment to end badly.

I mean, after all, why does anyone who is not already on Twitter need twitter pointers to articles and blog posts (WSJ Econ, The Economist, Paul Krugman) which already show up in the RSS feeds of people who care and on multiple aggregator sites like Alltop anyway? And, frankly, I know Nouriel Roubini is an important and successful guy and all, but do we really need a blow-by-blow account of his blind taste test of Bolivian and Colombian cocaine this week? Sure, some people might be interested, but they can follow him on twitter.com or facebook directly. Spare me. Please.

Quibble though I may, however, I realize the train of cultural relevance is pulling out of the station. Now is no time to be an old fuddy duddy. I'm hip. I'm with it. I'm down with the 411.

So, as a special treat, for those of you who cannot bear to be without my searing wisdom and blistering insight into all things economic and cultural, I have set up my very own Twitter feed. It will be amusing to witness whether a medium which values concision, brevity, simultaneity, and wit will be one in which your Dedicated Bloviator can thrive. I have my doubts.

You should certainly expect far less insightful and thoughtful analysis and far more snarky, smartass comment-sniping than you normally receive in these pages. (No comments, please.) It is difficult to wrap current events and trends up neatly with a bow when you are limited to 140 characters. I realize we live in a soundbite era, but really.

In any event, given past experience, I would not expect frequent updates from me, if I were you.

Then again—shit—if John McCain can figure this out, so can I.

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Diogenes' Lantern

"Your old man is worth a hundred million bucks, Mrs. Loring. I wouldn't know just how he got it, but I know damn well he didn't get it without building himself a pretty far-reaching organization. He's no softie. He's a hard tough man. You've got to be in these days to make that kind of money. And you do business with some funny people. You may not meet them or shake hands with them, but they are there on the fringe doing business with you."

— Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye (1954)


* * *
"I am looking for a man." 1

— Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 412 – 323 BC)


Having idled away much of my ill-spent youth in Southern California,2 Dear Readers, your Dedicated Bloggist has long been a devotee of Raymond Chandler's detective stories set in and around Los Angeles during the thirties, forties, and fifties. I can personally verify that there is no place seamier than the underbelly of America's Paradise, and Mr. Chandler gets the atmosphere pitch-perfect.

But his stories are dark. They do not normally appeal to the casual reader, or to the distracted beachgoer in search of fast cars, hot sex, and cheap heroics. They are soaked in a sort of existential despair, a cynical world-weariness that permeates the novels like the woof underlying the warp of mystery narrative and character development. Don't get me wrong: the stories are tough, fast, and entertaining, and there are plenty of heroics on display, especially by the main character, Philip Marlowe. They are also funny, in places, in a cynical sort of way, and leavened throughout with dialogue that carries a snap and fizz 21st century conversationalists can only dream of emulating.

If you want to understand why the Marlowe novels are this way, you could do no better than read an excerpt from a letter Chandler wrote in 1949:

Time this week calls Philip Marlowe "amoral." This is pure nonsense. Assuming that his intelligence is as high as mine (it could hardly be higher), assuming his chances in life to promote his own interest are as numerous as they must be, why does he work for such a pittance? For the answer to that is the whole story, the story that is always being written by indirection and yet never is written completely or even clearly. It is the struggle of all fundamentally honest men to make a decent living in a corrupt society. It is an impossible struggle; he can't win. He can be poor and bitter and take it out in wisecracks and casual amours, or he can be corrupt and amiable and rude like a Hollywood producer. Because the bitter fact is that outside of two or three technical professions which require long years of preparation, there is absolutely no way for a man of this age to acquire a decent affluence in life without to some degree corrupting himself, without accepting the cold, clear fact that success is always and everywhere a racket.3

This is strong, bitter stuff. I'm not sure I buy it, totally.

Chandler, while a successful writer and Hollywood screenwriter, lived a less than charmed life himself. He struggled with drinking, personal tragedy, and frustration, as well as the siren lure of the Great Babylon of the West, who always disappointed him in the end. He had lots of reasons to be bitter about the price of success. And let us not forget that his novels are detective stories. By their very nature, they deal with the dark underbelly of human nature: greed, deceit, larceny, murder. These are hardly the better qualities of anyone, rich or poor. Almost no-one comes out of his stories smelling like a rose.

Then again, based on recent events in the economy and on Wall Street, I'm not sure I don't buy it, either.

* * *

Wall Street sure seems to have been a racket. At least that is the conventional wisdom on Main Street and in the halls of Congress. It is hard to argue they are completely wrong.

I myself have recently pointed out—only partly tongue-in-cheek—that senior executives seem to require the character traits of a psychopath to succeed in finance. Whether this is true or not, it is abundantly clear that reams of senior professionals on Wall Street have been unapologetically greedy and pathologically tone deaf, to boot. Why is that?

I wish I knew. I do know that dozens if not hundreds of my current and former colleagues in investment banking are honest, upright, hard-working professionals, who everywhere and always try to do the right thing. They are not bad people. In fact, most of them are downright admirable: ambitious, intelligent, and productive members of the finance sector. Some of them even kiss their kids goodnight.

But let's be honest, folks. These are not the type of people who usually make it to the top of the slippery pole. These are not the type of people who set corporate policy.

You know what they say? "Honesty is its own reward." Well, that's absolutely true in investment banking, because most of the time you sure as hell aren't going to get any other rewards for being honest. The entire nature of the business—high-pressured, time-sensitive delivery of hard-to-measure, extremely expensive, irreducibly intangible intermediary services—depends absolutely on the self-policed integrity of those doing it. Therefore, it is tailor-made to reward people who cut corners, who steal credit for good deals and disavow responsibility for bad ones, who persuade clients to do bad deals or bad trades, and who backstab and scheme against their partners and colleagues to boost their own prestige, power, and bank accounts.

Smaller firms, like the old investment banking partnerships, could generally minimize such bad behavior because everybody knew each other, and their work, very well. (The same was true for external clients, as well.) But the bigger investment banks became, the less you understood what other bankers you didn't know personally were doing, and the more your internal reputation at the firm depended on how you managed your relationship with your boss and his bosses. Presto! Up popped functional silos, political fiefdoms, and obsequious toadying on an epic scale: investment banking feudalism.

The only ones in a position to prevent this, or at least control it, are the senior managers of the firm. But most of them nowadays have grown up in this system, and they know firsthand the advantages of gaming it. Besides, as long as someone delivers the revenues and profitability they are looking for, they don't really care who does it. Allocating credit, and assigning blame, becomes a political exercise. Earning money becomes less a result of delivering value for the firm and its clients and more a marker of personal and political status within the organization.

This sort of reward system, usually conducted under a hypocritical banner of "teamwork, integrity, and partnership," renders new recruits to the industry cynical very quickly. Some leave, some get fired, and a few—mostly those least encumbered by principles or integrity—flourish. The mechanism becomes self-selecting for institutionalized bad behavior. Is it any surprise that investment banks took reckless risks, cut dangerous corners, and helped drive us off a cliff?

* * *

But really, is success in investment banking "always and everywhere a racket," as Chandler says? Notwithstanding my 20 years in the business, I can't really say for sure. I have not seen enough of the industry to know. But I will say that opting out of the political racket in big firms is simply not an option anyone who wants to succeed can afford. You might think that putting your head down and delivering revenues will keep you safe, but you would be wrong. If you are successful, colleagues with better political connections will magically attach their names (and sometimes their persons) to your deals and take credit for them. You will get paid less. If you hit a rough patch, names like yours, with no political protectors among the high and mighty, end up on top of the layoff list. This doesn't even account for the low-life slimeballs who maneuver behind your back to steal your deals, your team members, and your position.

And these are the clowns who get profiled in the pages of The Wall Street Journal.

* * *

As for the rest of the economy, how many other "rackets" did the rest of us participate in? Housing? Hedge funds? Private equity? Tax avoidance?

When I am in a dark mood, I wonder just how many successful people in this country could well and truly look themselves in the mirror and declare that they never participated in something that didn't walk, talk, and smell like a racket at some point in the past seven years. Something they were tempted, at least once or twice, to wink at and look the other way because it seemed just too good to be true. Something they got a guilty twinge of conscience just thinking about.

Show me those people, and I will show you the next group of senior executives on Wall Street.

1 The ancient Greek philosopher's supposed response when asked why he was carrying a lighted lamp in broad daylight. Some have rendered it as "I am looking for an honest man." To be fair, Diogenes apparently was a weird dude: "Sympathizers considered him a devotee of reason and an exemplar of honesty. Detractors have said he was an obnoxious beggar and an offensive grouch." While I deny that I am an obnoxious beggar, I do see how some might consider me to be an offensive grouch, too.
2 "Aha!," you squeal, "a clue!" Okay, okay, I admit it: I am Iron Man.
3 Raymond Chandler, Later Novels and Other Writings. New York: Library of America, 1995, pp. 1038–1039.

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Lawyer Up, Boys

"We're not gonna get rid of anybody! We're gonna stick together, just like it used to be! When you side with a man, you stay with him! And if you can't do that, you're like some animal, you're finished! We're finished! All of us!"

— The Wild Bunch


Crack muckraking over at the Wall Street Journal this morning, detailing how the top 10 earners at Merrill Lynch pulled down $209 million in compensation last year while Mother Merrill soiled her undergarments to the tune of $27.6 billion. Citing "documents and interviews with people familiar with Merrill's compensation," the WSJ reveals a raft of details, dishing dirt and naming names with abandon.

It is amusing to speculate who spilled the beans to our intrepid reporters. While the article is laced throughout with (mostly) favorable tidbits concerning the business unit performance of many of the grandees spotlighted, the overall tone and content of the article is sure to get Joe Sixpack and his six-term Congressman's blood boiling. If New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's staff was not intimately involved in the leaks, then I am sure the scene at his office this morning was an interesting mixture of screaming and burst blood vessels that some finance rag got the story first and unbridled glee that pitchfork and torch sales across the country just shot through the roof. It would not be outlandish to consider the Merrill executives' bonus pool as the latest and largest campaign gift toward Mr. Cuomo's 2010 gubernatorial run.

* * *

There is some effort made in the article, either by the Journal reporters themselves or their informants, to emphasize that these compensation decisions were not completely unhinged from Merrill's deteriorating financial condition at the end of 2008. For one thing, the article notes that a mere 11 employees were paid more than $10 million each in stock and cash last year, versus 28 lucky bastards who broke the ten-bar barrier during the halcyon days of 2007. Attention is also drawn to the fact that the stock portion of these players' compensation has taken it on the chin since it was awarded, although one would have to know the effective grant date and corresponding grant price to calculate just how much pain they have suffered in tandem with non-insider shareholders and the US taxpayer.

Two big hitters, the heads of rates and commodities at Merrill, pulled down relatively modest pay packages in the high teens, even though both their units made money. David Sobotka made $13 million, a mild drop from his 2007 comp, even though his unit wheeled almost $36 billion in small bills out onto the sidewalk and set them on fire with lighter fluid. Apparently the buck burning was not his fault, as we are led to believe the Executive Committee had already booked the ceremony before he arrived. I guess we can presume his bonus was a big thank-you kiss for not adding more shareholder wealth to the flames.

Poor Andrea Orcel had to make do with only $33.8 million, down 6% from 2007's $36 million, even though the article tells us the IB honcho personally took credit for generated over half a billion dollars of investment banking revenue for the firm. This is almost comically tightfisted, as everyone knows that the other 578 Merrill bankers who helped originate and execute his deals could not possibly have delivered such a bounteous harvest without Andrea's personal and dedicated attention to every possible detail. The man must be a true force of nature, since he was paid a special $12 million bonus in 2007 for advising RBS and others on the acquisition of ABN Amro, a deal which involved so many competing parties and advisors that Merrill Lynch would have had to shutter all their European offices and disconnect their telephones in order not to get a role on the transaction. I guess Andrea answers his telephone in a uniquely persuasive manner.

I won't even get into a discussion about Thomas Montag or Peter Kraus1, who made $40 million and $30 million under contracts for five and three months' work, respectively, other than to say that Lloyd Blankfein should mail John Thain a big fruit basket for taking these yobbos off Goldman Sachs' hands. Canceling the unvested GS stock Thain bought out to get these guys to jump ship to Merrill must have added at least a penny a share to Goldman's earnings.

* * *

The contrast between Merrill's largess to its senior executives during a year (and particularly a quarter) when the repo man was banging on the front door of its headquarters and the pay practices of a traditional investment banking partnership could not be more stark. At the latter, when the firm has a bad year, the partners pay the operating bills and their non-partner colleagues first, then they distribute whatever is left over among themselves. If a partner doesn't have enough cash to pay his bills, he draws from or borrows against his equity in the partnership and tells the wife she better put plans for a vacation home on Mustique on hold for a year or so. A partner who has a bang-up year when everyone else doesn't mans up, accepts perhaps a slightly larger equity stake in the partnership in recognition of his outperformance, and eats rice and beans with the rest of his colleagues. That's how it's done when you play with your own money.

But that's not how it worked at Merrill. Thain and his partners in crime were playing with other people's money, in this case Bank of America's, so they played by different rules. Anecdotal evidence and the Journal article itself indicates that lots and lots of Merrill bankers got whacked—and whacked hard—in terms of total pay last year (e.g., 17 fewer senior bankers and department heads breaching the $10 million mark), but the cabal at the top seem to have gotten off relatively unscathed. No wonder John Thain was rumored to have initially proposed a $40 million bonus for himself. After all, he couldn't let Montag, Orcel, and Kraus beat him in the moolah sweepstakes, could he?

This sort of every man for himself, winner-take-all philosophy makes a mockery of the idea that investment banks are team-based businesses. If the generals salve their wounded pride on the beach with Mai Tais and cigars while the troops get slaughtered and the shareholders get bankrupted, you have all the conditions necessary for a revolution. Most of the battered troops remaining in the industry will look at this self-serving behavior with disgust. Many will desert, never to return. One or two might even roll a fragmentation grenade into the Executive Committee meeting room during morning call. A few, of course, will grin with delight, convinced in their psychopathic little hearts that they, too, will be sitting on top of the greasy pole in a few years.

Shareholders and taxpayers will seethe with anger and offer themselves as eager acolytes to vengeful prosecutors and irresponsible demagogues alike. Trust and respect for investment bankers and businessmen in general will languish for a generation, with knock-on effects to the general economy that will do nobody any good. Taxes and regulations alike will smother innovation and enterprise, and investment banking itself will return to its somnolent roots as a backward refuge for the idiot sons of men of privilege.

Some may smile at this prospect, but I think it's a damn shame.

I hope those Mai Tais were worth it, boys.

1 Kraus is poster boy extraordinaire for the conventional wisdom that "Wall Street firms ... need to pay top dollar to big producers to keep them from jumping ship." Say, just how did paying Kraus 30 million clams prevent him from hopping to Alliance Bernstein three months after he joined the Thundering Herd? Inquiring minds want to know.

© 2009 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.