Or shitty journalism generally.

The whole Casablanca movie angle throughout is annoying (and the restau is a tedious place I may add, but that's neither here nor there as I do go there when I fly into town. If the yapping hostess would bugger off all would be better).

"There's no doubt 'Casablanca' attracts investors," says Touda Loutfi, the exchange's corporate-planning director. "After Morocco, our biggest subscribers come from Great Britain, the U.S., France and Japan, places where the film has a cult following."

Eh, well I am glad Touda got a promo (or a better title in English), but if she means investors, portfolio flows are largely French which knows fuck all about the movie - UK ... I dunno, I guess there is a bit of an awareness, but really the Casablanca movie thing is so very American, and US money is not flowing in.

With a market capitalization of $47.2 billion representing 69 companies, the 77-year-old bourse is hardly visible when compared with the $13.4 trillion market value of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Still, the exchange in Casablanca and the one in Kuwait are the best-performing of the 10 in the Arab world.

But terribly overbought. And now London people are turning up in bars for IPOs - too much froth to merit that.

"It's a burgeoning market with a great deal of potential," says Henry Azzam, 56, Deutsche Bank's chief executive officer for the Middle East and North Africa. "Casablanca is the business center of the Maghreb."

This is actually starting to be true. (hmmm Henry bailed on Jordan eh, what 2 yrs now? I should look him up again)

Now, can you tell our dear Badr works for the bank more or less controlled by the Royals:

Badr Alioua, fixed-income and equity manager at the local Attijariwafa Bank, says King Mohammed VI, 43, has made the city the hottest place for business in the Arab world. Morocco's gross domestic product grew 8.1 percent in 2006, up from 1.7 percent in 2005. Moody's Investors Service rates the country as "stable," with credit strengths that include a young population, as well as structural and democratic progress.

Alioua says the king's embrace of capitalism and free speech, as well as a tolerant interpretation of the Koran, ensures that educated young Moroccans will not flee the country.

Queer, they're always asking me for angle on visas to UK and USA....

As for embrace of free speech, well comparative benchmarking I guess.

At least the capitalism part is right, except it's French style capitalism, and with a clear prediliction to stuff the game.

As well as in ability to control his subordinates - the whole incident where dear Badr's boss got stuffed over palace politics, despite ensuring a successful merger and huge motherfucking profits drew everyone's attention - well except idiot fly-in-fly-out-no-French-language-skills Londoners and Bloomberg journous evidently.

"The youth factor of this market is critically important to our continued success," said Alioua, 27. "Casablanca is like the movie: a place where young people are willing to take risk. 'Casablanca' is the main reason why Americans know about us, and we must take advantage of that."

A place where young people are willing to take risk?

Further on

So how does the bourse cope with 21st-century tensions, and does it intend to create a Shariah-law compliance committee with the power to veto investments?

"No imams," says Loutfi, 33, wrinkling her nose over a tumbler of mint tea in a humid conference room at the exchange. "We don't want them here."

That's a dumb fucking question.

Shariah law? What the bloody fuck? There aren't even Islamic so-called instruments in the Moroccan market.

Touda should have slapped the dumb fuck - wrinkling her nose was without doubt over the idiot Bloomberg journo asking an incoherent question.

Across the Atlantic, Feisal Abdul Rauf is imam of the Masjid al-Farah mosque in lower Manhattan.

"The strict prohibition on charging interest still prevails in the Muslim world and has largely prevented it from robustly developing the foundations of capitalism," he says.

"Not being able to accept these ideas is one of the primary reasons the Muslim world lagged behind the West," says Rauf, who is known as "the Wall Street Imam" because his mosque is located blocks from the New York Stock Exchange.

What this has to do with the article escapes me.

Finally:

Nowadays, one of the most suspicious characters in Casablanca is Kathy Kriger, proprietor of Rick's Cafe ......

"Call me Madame Rick," says Kriger, who in 2004 resigned as a U.S. diplomat in Morocco to open the cafe in the city's Moorish quarter, a sweltering walk from the exchange through the bazaars.

Moorish quarter? Moorish quarter? It's a dinky little left over old-town surrounded by a massive modern city. Moorish quarter? Idiotic git.

(never mind sweltering - no wait never mind the whole walk from the Exchange, which is on the other fucking side of town and one bloody well knows this idiot took taxi like anyone would from the Bourse to old downtown... sweltering walk, moorish quarter my ass. Dumb fucking git of a literature obsessed pseudo-journo more like it)

Kriger spent almost a year raising $1 million to recreate Rick's as the symbol of a time when, she says, "the world looked to America for its goodness and greatness." She found 43 investors, 32 of them U.S. citizens.

"And, of course, the U.S. Treasury Department tracked down the Americans because they transferred funds into a Moroccan company," Kriger says. "They were all investigated. The government thought Rick's Cafe was a terrorist front."

Eh. One of the drawbacks of dropping by this place, nice enough done and I do like dropping in when I am in town, is her tedious tale tales in these areas. That and if you work for a financial institution she'll bloody whinge on for hours (well, maybe a minute but when you're in with the mates for a quick drink and then to fuck off...) about her banks, her investors, etc.