There is a lovely article in the Daily Telegraph about Barclays being in denial about the size of the losses that it needs to take. One thing that caught my eye was the following: It has even been suggested that Barclays chose not to offload its Alliance Boots debt, when others in the banking syndicate took a 10 per cent valuation cut to get the assets off their books, because Varley and Diamond wanted to protect the minimal writedowns on leverage loans. Well you might say that. I couldn't possibly comment. Anybody looked lately at their consumer lender exposure in Japan? I couldn't possibly comment. How about just the almost total absence of losing trading days in the investment bank. I couldn't possibly comment. Anyone you know carried an 800 billion pound investment bank portfolio and not lost money on at least some days... I couldn't possibly comment. How about the ...

In “Hollowing Out, Tokyo Style,” FT Alphaville’s Gwen Robinson does a fine job of capturing an ongoing, and now accelerating human resources conundrum. While it seems like there’s no shortage lately of fake Japundits (not to be confused with the real Japundit, who is simply trying to keep it real on the cultural front) saying to go long Japanese stocks, boots-on-the-ground evidence provides further insight into the opaque. First, the positives: “You know when the big guys like Goldman and Lehman cut their small cap teams that we’ve reached the bottom - you have to think, it’s got to be upwards from here”. [FTA’s quoting of an expat broker] Also, the fact that Japan-focused hedge funds have been hammered (FTA cites Eurekahedge: AUM contraction in 2007 of $10.9B due to poor performance including $7.7B of redemptions) and ...