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Lazy Quote Diary: Gisele Bündchen Flees The Dollar

by nanne Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 11:15:05 AM EST

In keeping for the demand for more T&A, here's a throwaway diary about Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen.

Last Saturday I asked Helen what exactly we could do to push the Dollar into a free fall. Not that I'd want to trigger a free fall, but I just think that our influence in the larger scheme of things is not quite big enough. I mentioned that there are enough credible people with plenty of money shouting from the rooftops that everyone should dump the dollar and move their assets out of the US.

This, of course, betrays a fatal misunderstanding of the age we live in on my part. Face it. No one listens to boring old white billionaire investors anymore. When you want attention, what you need is a celebrity.

Now we have one!

(I suspect that rg has something to do with this...)


On to the news -->

Bloomberg: Supermodel Bundchen Joins Hedge Funds Dumping Dollars

Gisele Bundchen wants to remain the world's richest model and is insisting that she be paid in almost any currency but the U.S. dollar.

Like billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, the Brazilian supermodel, who Forbes magazine says earns more than anyone in her industry, is at the top of a growing list of rich people who have concluded that the currency can only depreciate because Americans led by President George W. Bush are living beyond their means.

[...]

When Bundchen, 27, signed a contract in August to represent Pantene hair products for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co., she demanded payment in euros, according to Veja, Brazil's biggest weekly magazine. She'll also get euros for the deal she reached last October with Dolce & Gabbana SpA in Milan to promote the Italian designer's new fragrance, The One, Veja reported. Bundchen earned $33 million in the year through June, Forbes reported in July.

``Contracts starting now are more attractive in euros because we don't know what will happen to the dollar,'' Patricia Bundchen, the model's twin sister and manager in Brazil, said in a telephone interview in September from Sao Paulo. She declined to discuss details of the arrangements last week, as did Anne Nelson, Bundchen's agent in New York at IMG Models.


The dollar is now trading at EUR 1.447, slightly below Friday's peak.


Photo credit: Tiago Chediak/Flickr.com; Iuri Kothe/Flickr.com

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(I suspect that rg has something to do with this...)

I wrote you a wonderful item about supermodels, geology, knickers, an orgy, and a basket of currencies, and drugs--but I failed to put an angle bracket in the right place and my post collapsed.

So, er, I may have recommended to Gisele that she get paid in euros, though my recollection is that I was encouraging her to set up a new radio station...but like I said, what with the orgy, the drugs, and let's not mention the argument about feldspars, it's too painful (you see, I was wrong and she--a PhD in geology, but how was I to know?)

...well, like I said, it may not have been her--after all, she was dressed as an ostrich at the time...or was that Tyson Beckford?  It's so hard to tell when butterflies keep falling from the roof.



Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 12:25:31 PM EST
although you may not have been a party to the discussion we had in the restaurant, I'm sure you were in the room. Ask around there were plenty of witnesses.

I'm sure a lot of people would be amused if the dollar fell through the floor, hubris, nemesis etc, but it won't be the people who deserve it who'll suffer. Cheney has already apparently moved a substantial portion of his ill-gotten gains into euros, Halliburton have moved to dubai.

No, as much as we might smirk (and yes I probably will a bit), it's people like us, the middle class and the poor, those with mortgages and jobs and paychecks and next to no savings who'll get it in the neck.

People died of poverty, cold and starvation in 1928, I desperately fear 2008/9 may see a repeat. I'm trying to be very careful what I wish for.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 04:52:49 PM EST
Thank you, Helen.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
by poemless on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 04:54:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
So I was.

I agree with the point that a collapse will be bad. Very bad. Not contesting that.

But I think there's nothing we can do either way. We're very close to a steep fall of the dollar. When that happens, either the masses panic and there's a run on the bank, leading to a crisis and quite possibly war, or the masses don't. They probably will.

So I hope that the financial meltdown will not take down any major bank or hedge fund and that the dollar will decline gradually. But I don't see a reason to be responsible for speculation (or wishes, for that matter) when they can't affect anything.

To trigger a precipitous fall in the dollar, you need to be able to influence the decision of millions, dump billions of dollars of your own in short time, or to have friends in high places in China, Japan or Saudi Arabia.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 05:21:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
did I invent the meme 'lazy quote diary'?

or was that someone else?

if it was me, I'm just tickled pink to see other people using it, almost like a new ET tradition to join Shoe Blogging and Train Diaries...

as compare to inventing the paperclip it's small stuff, I know... but I always wanted to coin a popular meme or start a viral urban legend someday and thiw may be as close as I ever get :-)

but otoh, maybe I was just quoting someone else's catchy phrase...  what makes a meme or Ohrwurm catchy is that odd feeling of "rightness" that makes it slide easily into the back of the brain w/o any firm memory of where you first heard it...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 06:16:30 PM EST
Don't know if you invented it, but I certainly did steal it from you...
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 06:18:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
not stealing at all -- sharing!

if I did indeed originate the phrase, then consider it a gift to the commons :-)

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 06:29:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Great! You got yourself a meme.
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 06:46:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
DeAnander:
as compare to inventing the paperclip it's small stuff, I know...

Norwegians are very proud of having invented the paperclip, you know.  Small, but perfectly formed...for purpose...

by Solveig (link2ageataol.com) on Mon Nov 5th, 2007 at 06:34:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Supermodel Gisele Not in Buffett's Bear Camp on Dollar After All, Manager Tells CNBC

It turns out that supermodel Gisele Bundchen isn't siding with Warren Buffett as a U.S. dollar bear after all, her manager tells CNBC.

(...)  just a few minutes ago, CNBC Squawk Box producer Stephanie Landsman spoke by telephone with Anne Nelson, Bundchen's manager.  Nelson tells us reports that Gisele wants to be paid in euros are "false."   Nelson's take: "Some idiot in Brazil reported something just to make news."

Nelson points out that Gisele lives in New York City, and thus needs U.S. dollars for her big-city lifestyle.



In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Nov 6th, 2007 at 06:10:44 PM EST
It was too much fun to be true...
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Wed Nov 7th, 2007 at 08:09:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
We're closing in on 1,47...
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Wed Nov 7th, 2007 at 08:11:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This Fox news commentary is priceless.

It's only good to be greedy when you're supporting the US...

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Wed Nov 7th, 2007 at 08:17:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]


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