Changing Rooms was the BBC’s televisual answer to the British obsession with all things ‘home’ during the last downturn in the housing market. People couldn’t afford to move houses, so instead they stayed put and inflicted years of bronchial suffering on themselves by caking their domestic spaces in medium-density fibreboard.
Which, circuitously, leads us to the FSA’s own dalliance with interior design on the cusp of the next recession. From the FSA’s latest Market Watch newsletter, on Hedge Funds:
Of particular concern was an over reliance on an open-plan office setting…
Which, damnit, is so 1999: year of the Manhattan loft. This is 2008! Year of the Dubai Gin Palace!
The FSA was, of course, referring to compliance issues which it sees arising from open-plan office spaces. Such spaces being conducive to…
…overhearing suspicious activity, and a reliance on counterparties or other staff to detect irregular trading behaviour.
Now we here at FT Alphaville like to be one step ahead of the UK regulator. And so we’re proposing – gratis – a new personal trade-abuse prevention headset for consideration: specially calibrated for use in open-plan trading environments:
It should fit snuggly over the worrisome head of any FSA compliance officer when they come visiting. We envisage a 100% reduction in (reported) market abuse almost immediately.
(Note: for quite separate compliance issues, it is not advised that you google search “changing rooms”.)
Related links
12:42 17-Sep-08 FT Alphaville statement re possible offer for FSA – FT Alphaville
What is your assessment as to the typical volume of spam received from the FSA per day? – FT Alphaville
Monkey Sants – FT Alphaville