Sometime last year I wrote a piece on the foolishness of many European municipal treasurers who allowed themselves to enter into transactions which under the guise of providing them with lower funding costs actually put them into risk positions far outside the briefs and unfortunately their understanding.
This morning as I sat down to my coffee and the Sunday NYT I was somewhat bemused to see the headline "Wall Street's Tax on Main Street". Bemused on a number of levels. Firstly as the implication was that Wall Street was levying a tax on Main Street which is patently an incorrect use of the word tax.
Wall Street can charge fees to Main Street, and does. But to suggest that Wall Street taxes Main Street in the sense used, is ludicrous.
My bemusement continued as the article shifted from incompetent municipal treasurers to equally ignorant corporate treasurers such as the Boca Raton Medical and Surgical Specialists.
These brain surgeons entered into a 5 year financing with a 25 year swap attached to it. The loan had fees of 3.8% or US$ 800,000 on a 21 million dollar loan.
One can argue the fee structure. What one cannot defend is the bank's sale of a 25 year swap structure nor the corporate treasurer's willingness to enter into such a transaction. Whatever the supposed cost savings sold to the treasurer there is no way that the risk position associated with a 25 year swap could ever be logically explained to someone taking on a 5 year loan.
But annoyingly the article didn't focus on the inappropriate sale of swaps to unsuspecting and obviously incompetent borrowers. Instead it focuses on the level of fees associated with swap transactions and closes with the tired call for transparency in swaps pricing.
Fools have been separated from their money forever. To talk about fees and the "shadowy" nature of swaps pricing while ignoring the fact that the problem lies in the intentional use derivative terminology to bamboozle (obviously) easily fooled borrowers to assume risks they should never even entertain let alone enter into.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Friday, 5 August 2011
Growth IS the Answer
So the equity markets have their biggest one day fall since 2010 bringing up fears of 2008 and the fall of Lehman Brothers. The greed that led to the ever increasing leverage and more and more outlandish-some would say criminal-financial products that articulated the bull markets is now being overtaken by the other side of the equation.
Fear is now stalking the corridors of everyman. A continuing employment recession; a government trapped in its' own ideological straitjacket; a European fiscal crisis that keeps threatening to engulf the big players after swallowing the minnows- small wonder that the markets are in a tailspin.
And what is the apparent answer? Austerity. Cuts to the left of us, cuts to the right. It's as if none of the people making decisions, from the politicians at the top to the lowly employed at the bottom, have ever had to make any economic choices.
Throughout my years on Wall Street generally speaking when things got tough or when a new manager took over the first message to come across was the need to cut costs. Now that is not to say that one shouldn't look at the cost side of a business, but it was almost invariably done without any reference to the revenue side of the business other than to state the obvious-'there isn't enough revenue'.
And so the easy response is to cut costs. Easy because except for the guy who actually has to deliver the message it requires no great understanding or strategic insight other than to know-or more likely to think you know that that cutting costs will solve the problem.
But here is the crossover from the business world to the governmental one. One of the most apparent costs is headcount. You look at your headcount and make a quick revenue per headcount calculation and decide to cut 10 to 20%. So far so good.
But then something strange creeps in. How do you determine who to cut? The first to go are generally the youngest, therefore the cheapest and therefore the most expendable. They are followed by the politically inept, the complainers, and those that fall outside the golden circle which basically means are important to someone elses' business but not to the immediate business of the individual making the choices. The last to go are the big salaries who have a good track record and so despite the fact they might be having a tough year are saved.
So where is the crossover. In the range of spending cuts recently being enacted each party searches for cuts in the other's electorate. This is especially true of those congressmen following the dictates of their Tea Party constinuecy- or so the Tea Party members think. The truth is that they should all sit down together and actually come up with a bipartisan agreement as to what is important to cut "for the good of the country"- and what isn't.
And neither in the USA nor in Europe is there a serious discussion as to how to stimulate the economy, which of course would result in an increase in revenue. The focus is exclusively on the spending side. They introduce austerity in a Nimby sort of way and hope to have enough of a populist agenda to attract enough votes to stay in power.
Welcome to the continuing Great Recession.
Fear is now stalking the corridors of everyman. A continuing employment recession; a government trapped in its' own ideological straitjacket; a European fiscal crisis that keeps threatening to engulf the big players after swallowing the minnows- small wonder that the markets are in a tailspin.
And what is the apparent answer? Austerity. Cuts to the left of us, cuts to the right. It's as if none of the people making decisions, from the politicians at the top to the lowly employed at the bottom, have ever had to make any economic choices.
Throughout my years on Wall Street generally speaking when things got tough or when a new manager took over the first message to come across was the need to cut costs. Now that is not to say that one shouldn't look at the cost side of a business, but it was almost invariably done without any reference to the revenue side of the business other than to state the obvious-'there isn't enough revenue'.
And so the easy response is to cut costs. Easy because except for the guy who actually has to deliver the message it requires no great understanding or strategic insight other than to know-or more likely to think you know that that cutting costs will solve the problem.
But here is the crossover from the business world to the governmental one. One of the most apparent costs is headcount. You look at your headcount and make a quick revenue per headcount calculation and decide to cut 10 to 20%. So far so good.
But then something strange creeps in. How do you determine who to cut? The first to go are generally the youngest, therefore the cheapest and therefore the most expendable. They are followed by the politically inept, the complainers, and those that fall outside the golden circle which basically means are important to someone elses' business but not to the immediate business of the individual making the choices. The last to go are the big salaries who have a good track record and so despite the fact they might be having a tough year are saved.
So where is the crossover. In the range of spending cuts recently being enacted each party searches for cuts in the other's electorate. This is especially true of those congressmen following the dictates of their Tea Party constinuecy- or so the Tea Party members think. The truth is that they should all sit down together and actually come up with a bipartisan agreement as to what is important to cut "for the good of the country"- and what isn't.
And neither in the USA nor in Europe is there a serious discussion as to how to stimulate the economy, which of course would result in an increase in revenue. The focus is exclusively on the spending side. They introduce austerity in a Nimby sort of way and hope to have enough of a populist agenda to attract enough votes to stay in power.
Welcome to the continuing Great Recession.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
The Fears of Contagion-but of what Malady?
The history of Europe has been a constant battle for Continental hegemony. The power players on the board have changed over the centuries with Germany taking pride of place as the most persistent contestant for the last 125 years albeit with a respite following the end of the Second World War until the game was continued following German reunification in 1989.
So it is with mixed feelings for much of Europe to see the rise of Germany yet again although this time in a much more acceptable fashion.
According to Fritz Fischer Germany's aims in the First World War were actually to create a ZEP of Central Economics Zone which at the time was looking to central and eastern Europe.
In the Second World War one of the underlying themes was to create Lebensraum-again in the east, for the future generations of Germans.
This time around Germany's rise to continental preeminence didn't ride in on the coattails of tanks and didn't include warped ideologies and armies of occupation.
No, this time around the virtues of organisation, a strong work ethic and the willingness to accept austerity measures on themselves-and now to expect that others follow-have led to a German-led Europe.
There are many, outside and even inside of Germany who have their doubts that the Greeks, for example, will be able to adjust to a German-style approach to solving their fiscal problems. There are also concerns that the Portuguese, and following the fears of contagion coursing through the psyche of the European markets these concerns are voiced on Portugal and Spain.
In France however, there are outright fears that the old enemy has completely and comprehensively outmaneuvered them and that the French star is setting for the foreseeable future.
The recent statements out of Britain actively accepting that they are on the outside looking in regarding continental developments highlights the comprehensive nature of the German renaissance.
Coupled with this German resurgence is the reappearance on the European stage of the Russians who also had a brief hiatus following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The real question is whether the contagion of which one speaks is a southern European one, or yet again a meeting of the minds between the Russians and the Germans.
Historically this has not been good.
So it is with mixed feelings for much of Europe to see the rise of Germany yet again although this time in a much more acceptable fashion.
According to Fritz Fischer Germany's aims in the First World War were actually to create a ZEP of Central Economics Zone which at the time was looking to central and eastern Europe.
In the Second World War one of the underlying themes was to create Lebensraum-again in the east, for the future generations of Germans.
This time around Germany's rise to continental preeminence didn't ride in on the coattails of tanks and didn't include warped ideologies and armies of occupation.
No, this time around the virtues of organisation, a strong work ethic and the willingness to accept austerity measures on themselves-and now to expect that others follow-have led to a German-led Europe.
There are many, outside and even inside of Germany who have their doubts that the Greeks, for example, will be able to adjust to a German-style approach to solving their fiscal problems. There are also concerns that the Portuguese, and following the fears of contagion coursing through the psyche of the European markets these concerns are voiced on Portugal and Spain.
In France however, there are outright fears that the old enemy has completely and comprehensively outmaneuvered them and that the French star is setting for the foreseeable future.
The recent statements out of Britain actively accepting that they are on the outside looking in regarding continental developments highlights the comprehensive nature of the German renaissance.
Coupled with this German resurgence is the reappearance on the European stage of the Russians who also had a brief hiatus following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The real question is whether the contagion of which one speaks is a southern European one, or yet again a meeting of the minds between the Russians and the Germans.
Historically this has not been good.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Into the Wilderness
I had a number of heated conversations around my analysis of the Deficit Reduction Deal just signed in to law by Mr Obama. The gist of the arguments ranged from "what did you expect there weren't really any alternatives given the intransigence of the right" to "don't worry, Obama will get reelected in 2012 and then he will get down to business".
I am quite concerned by the whole range of the counter-arguments. I know that politics is the art of the possible and by definition that means compromise. But compromise means a move to the middle. I saw this as a lurch to the right.
Of course there are extremists on both sides of the aisle, but there is no question that the rise of the right within an already right leaning Republican party completely overshadows the supposed extremism of the Democratic left.
We need to keep this in context. Left or right, they are all capitalists. The question is merely one of unfettered versus regulated, and more importantly, the invisible hand of the markets versus the visable hand of a social conscience.
What makes America great is the opportunity open to all to get ahead. And what is crushing that opportunity is the use of base populism on an ignorant electorate manifesting itself as the Tea Party who are puppets dancing on the strings of crony capitalism-American style.
Look at the response to the deficit compromise. Stock markets retreat, spreads widen and the safe-haven trade marches relentlessly on. Cash, Treasuries and Gold continue to be the investments of choice and in the stock markets even the defensive stocks of Health Care and Defense are slaughtered on the altar of uncertainty.
The great American consumer in the form of individual equity investors is running for the hills. Hedge funds, the majority of which sold alpha and delivered beta are 75% in cash and still charging 2 and 20.
Instead all eyes are on China and how it will react in the event that the US is downgraded-which is still a strong possibility. The spending cuts voted in without any tax increases to help balance things leaves the government's hands tied as far as any stimulus spending is concerned to help stimulate employment.
We have the uncertainty of when, and frankly, what the rating agencies will do. In all likelihood they will wait and see. Wait and see who gets on the Committee of Twelve. Wait and see if more compromises are possible or if there will be six Republicans continuing their mantra of "No" and if the six Democrats suddenly find some steel in their spines only to realise that it is too late and that their line of defense has already been breached and the only thing left is to also say no leaving us with a government without the ability to govern.
Now I am not a student of the Great Depression but I know it lasted over a decade with many false dawns. I also know that what got the US out of it was the Second World War.
A "relatively" unified nation was able to put aside many of their differences and focus on the more pressing challenges of a world war. I don't think however that we need to wait for a military war to get our act together. We are in the midst of an economic war of epic dimensions.
This compromise was supposed to deliver stability. It was supposed to take the uncertainty out of investing, our of consuming-out of our everyday lives. It smells much more like hope, that false comforter in times of need. If American capitalism is to survive, rational compromises are going to have to be made. If not, we just might be on the edge of a great wilderness.
I am quite concerned by the whole range of the counter-arguments. I know that politics is the art of the possible and by definition that means compromise. But compromise means a move to the middle. I saw this as a lurch to the right.
Of course there are extremists on both sides of the aisle, but there is no question that the rise of the right within an already right leaning Republican party completely overshadows the supposed extremism of the Democratic left.
We need to keep this in context. Left or right, they are all capitalists. The question is merely one of unfettered versus regulated, and more importantly, the invisible hand of the markets versus the visable hand of a social conscience.
What makes America great is the opportunity open to all to get ahead. And what is crushing that opportunity is the use of base populism on an ignorant electorate manifesting itself as the Tea Party who are puppets dancing on the strings of crony capitalism-American style.
Look at the response to the deficit compromise. Stock markets retreat, spreads widen and the safe-haven trade marches relentlessly on. Cash, Treasuries and Gold continue to be the investments of choice and in the stock markets even the defensive stocks of Health Care and Defense are slaughtered on the altar of uncertainty.
The great American consumer in the form of individual equity investors is running for the hills. Hedge funds, the majority of which sold alpha and delivered beta are 75% in cash and still charging 2 and 20.
Instead all eyes are on China and how it will react in the event that the US is downgraded-which is still a strong possibility. The spending cuts voted in without any tax increases to help balance things leaves the government's hands tied as far as any stimulus spending is concerned to help stimulate employment.
We have the uncertainty of when, and frankly, what the rating agencies will do. In all likelihood they will wait and see. Wait and see who gets on the Committee of Twelve. Wait and see if more compromises are possible or if there will be six Republicans continuing their mantra of "No" and if the six Democrats suddenly find some steel in their spines only to realise that it is too late and that their line of defense has already been breached and the only thing left is to also say no leaving us with a government without the ability to govern.
Now I am not a student of the Great Depression but I know it lasted over a decade with many false dawns. I also know that what got the US out of it was the Second World War.
A "relatively" unified nation was able to put aside many of their differences and focus on the more pressing challenges of a world war. I don't think however that we need to wait for a military war to get our act together. We are in the midst of an economic war of epic dimensions.
This compromise was supposed to deliver stability. It was supposed to take the uncertainty out of investing, our of consuming-out of our everyday lives. It smells much more like hope, that false comforter in times of need. If American capitalism is to survive, rational compromises are going to have to be made. If not, we just might be on the edge of a great wilderness.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
All to be Reelected?
I have to admit that my thoughts today are much more of a visceral response as opposed to a well researched piece, but I am devastated at the continual "caving" on the part of President Obama in the face of ridiculous Tea Party demands.
As if to say that the ravings of a right wing fringe who are not even aware of the fact that they are being completely manipulated by a phalanx of the nation's ultra-wealthy to perpetuate a system that is totally skewed to their purposes should determine the economic future of the entire nation.
I am baffled by Obama's either unwillingness or inability to confront these fringe elements and force the imposition of tax increases in conjunction with spending cuts augmented by a stimulus program designed to put the nation back to work.
Instead we are presented with a President who continually depends upon a Republican Party do to the "right thing" when they have shown time and time again that they are incapable of doing so.
It is a perpetual "jam tomorrow" approach to governing. Holding out the fact that the next onslaught against the budget deficit will occur after the 2012 elections is a political victory which could quite easily turn out to be Phyrric.
The Republican solution to the challenges facing the nation of cutting spending in the middle of an employment recession; keeping tax cuts for the wealthy; and blathering on about a balanced-budget amendment to the constitution comes as close to guarantying a continuing if not an accelerating recession as I can imagine. And all at the altar of misplaced ideology.
Just look at the ideological bloody mindeness of the the current British government which has imposed an austerity budget of such magnitude that they are breaking one campaign promise after another as their cutting zeal drives a struggling economy into the ground.
nAnd what is the Tory solution solution? Taking a page from the Repulichans they now want to lower the 50& top rate of taxation which hits the top 6% of the population as a means of stimulating the economy.
All it takes is to look to the Chinese and their adherence to one overriding tenet-everything to ensure employment of the great masses as that is the only way to maintain the supremacy of the ruling party to recognise the fallacy of the current compromise in the US.
The greed of American hardball capitalism is to pursue the tenet of low taxes-for the wealthy-to ensure the continued supremacy of the wealthy.
There is perhaps a revolution coming in the United States- and it just might not come for the Tea Party.
Yes, with a nod to the evangelical American Right- "And you shall reap what you have sown..."
As if to say that the ravings of a right wing fringe who are not even aware of the fact that they are being completely manipulated by a phalanx of the nation's ultra-wealthy to perpetuate a system that is totally skewed to their purposes should determine the economic future of the entire nation.
I am baffled by Obama's either unwillingness or inability to confront these fringe elements and force the imposition of tax increases in conjunction with spending cuts augmented by a stimulus program designed to put the nation back to work.
Instead we are presented with a President who continually depends upon a Republican Party do to the "right thing" when they have shown time and time again that they are incapable of doing so.
It is a perpetual "jam tomorrow" approach to governing. Holding out the fact that the next onslaught against the budget deficit will occur after the 2012 elections is a political victory which could quite easily turn out to be Phyrric.
The Republican solution to the challenges facing the nation of cutting spending in the middle of an employment recession; keeping tax cuts for the wealthy; and blathering on about a balanced-budget amendment to the constitution comes as close to guarantying a continuing if not an accelerating recession as I can imagine. And all at the altar of misplaced ideology.
Just look at the ideological bloody mindeness of the the current British government which has imposed an austerity budget of such magnitude that they are breaking one campaign promise after another as their cutting zeal drives a struggling economy into the ground.
nAnd what is the Tory solution solution? Taking a page from the Repulichans they now want to lower the 50& top rate of taxation which hits the top 6% of the population as a means of stimulating the economy.
All it takes is to look to the Chinese and their adherence to one overriding tenet-everything to ensure employment of the great masses as that is the only way to maintain the supremacy of the ruling party to recognise the fallacy of the current compromise in the US.
The greed of American hardball capitalism is to pursue the tenet of low taxes-for the wealthy-to ensure the continued supremacy of the wealthy.
There is perhaps a revolution coming in the United States- and it just might not come for the Tea Party.
Yes, with a nod to the evangelical American Right- "And you shall reap what you have sown..."
Sunday, 12 June 2011
The Urban Jungle
I can understand if most readers will automatically assume that I am making reference to the any number of ills afflicting our inner cities with the title of my post today. They would be completely mistaken.
I am referring to the actual "jungle" of nature and wildlife which survives despite the concrete and the asphalt, the residential, the commercial and even the industrial despoliation of our environment.
London has a 50 odd mile Circle Route which is a walk around and through the city called the Capital Ring. We walked a 5 mile section of it yesterday from Richmond to Osterley.
It was a very strange feeling to leave our house and walk down the hill towards the station and then veer off to a part of town I had never explored walking past a house first "built" by one of William the Conqueror's liege men, lived in by many Kings and died in by Elizabeth the First.
This then spilled us out onto the Thames Tow Path going North along the river, a section I had never walked.
A renovated River Barge chugged past us, 70 feet long and about 7 feet wide, a lone woman at the helm. We were to meet her and her husband many locks and about 4 miles further down river, but I get ahead of myself.
The river Thames is both a tidal estuary and has a natural bottom which explains the muddy nature of the river making it appear even dirtier than it is. To be fair the clean-up projects have been relatively successful in that salmon have been sighted quite far upriver returning to natural spawning grounds.
The path meanders along the river passing cute, not so cute and outright trashy pubs reflecting the various housing offerings ranging from gated communities to council estates which then repeats itself in the river life.
The riverside has a cacophony of houseboats ranging from the long narrow barges already mentioned to much larger conversions of channel barges which are only movable with much time and money.
The river has been a major thoroughfare for over a 1000 years with the last of the cargo barges having given up the ghost in the 60's and 70's.
We veered off the Thames to follow the Grand Canal tow path past the Glaxo-Smith Kline global headquarters which uses canal water to cool their air conditioning unit creating a water feature out of a cooling water outlet.
Around the bend we suddenly found ourselves on a stretch of canal with trees hanging into the water on the far bank and the tow path narrowing to a footpath wide enough for one horse to walk along. Crossing a high narrow bridge, over which said horses would have traversed the canal had a fork with a weir to one side by which the river Brent was directed back onto its natural route.
Brentford is now perhaps famous in our family for the rough nature of the supporters of the Brentford Bees who have yo-yo'd between the 1st and 3rd divisions in the English football leagues and should be our local team.
Aside from football Brentford has been the site of at least three major battles, an the oldest a battle led by Julius Caesar against the local king, Cassivellaunus, in 54 BC during the second invasion of Britain.
More recently there was a pitched battle between the Danes (Vikings) and the English in 1016 and decisively in 1642 the town was sacked by both the Royalists and the Parliamentarians in the Battle of 1642 which the Royalists won.
The sacking, or more specifically the foraging/looting of the town, although devastating for the inhabitants was part and parcel of the continental style of warfare which Oliver Cromwell apparently had learned while fighting in the 30 Year's war and for which the Irish would hold him in contempt for forever and a day following his campaigns there as the Grand Protector.
Rounding another bend we came across a medieval stone church tower with an ugly brick addition, all of which looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. Given that often in England when a building looks like it has been bombed the chances are more likely than not that it was, by the Germans. I have to assume this is one of the reasons that the War is so close to the surface of English culture and that is but one of the ways by which history is "maintained".
In this case my wife groaned and the English smirked only to have their eyes go wide with surprise as I read "...on the night of November 12th, 1943...TWO ENGLISH SCHOOLBOYS SET THE CHURCH ON FIRE"!
We then crossed under the A4, the M4, a railway bridge and then just before the lock at Osterely caught up with the barge we had seen at the start of our journey.
The lone woman had been joined on deck by her husband and were now waiting patiently for the lock-which they had to operate manually-to fill up. We struck up a conversation he watching the water level and she dancing with the tiller. They had been travelling the waterways for the past 3 months this time around and were now returning to Rugby. They were retired however, and had been living on their barge for the last 8 years.
The reason we caught up with them, despite having stopped for pints twice on the walk, was that each lock takes them 15 minutes to transit and they could only go 3 miles an hour in the canal.
Behind them was a second barge on its way to Paddington. They still had 12 locks to pass until they reached their destination, some 8 miles away, and they didn't expect to reach there until late that day!
It suddenly put everything into a different light. That walk had taken us from the pressure and demands of living in London, from the street noise, the cars and trucks, the crowded pavements and relentless motion of a city and dropped us into a parallel universe of coots and moorhens, abandoned wharfs, questionable dry dock marina facilities, and travellers moving at the pace of the canals, which just happens to be the same speed that the average human walks.
Perhaps we are more connected to our natural environment than we think.
I am referring to the actual "jungle" of nature and wildlife which survives despite the concrete and the asphalt, the residential, the commercial and even the industrial despoliation of our environment.
London has a 50 odd mile Circle Route which is a walk around and through the city called the Capital Ring. We walked a 5 mile section of it yesterday from Richmond to Osterley.
It was a very strange feeling to leave our house and walk down the hill towards the station and then veer off to a part of town I had never explored walking past a house first "built" by one of William the Conqueror's liege men, lived in by many Kings and died in by Elizabeth the First.
This then spilled us out onto the Thames Tow Path going North along the river, a section I had never walked.
A renovated River Barge chugged past us, 70 feet long and about 7 feet wide, a lone woman at the helm. We were to meet her and her husband many locks and about 4 miles further down river, but I get ahead of myself.
The river Thames is both a tidal estuary and has a natural bottom which explains the muddy nature of the river making it appear even dirtier than it is. To be fair the clean-up projects have been relatively successful in that salmon have been sighted quite far upriver returning to natural spawning grounds.
The path meanders along the river passing cute, not so cute and outright trashy pubs reflecting the various housing offerings ranging from gated communities to council estates which then repeats itself in the river life.
The riverside has a cacophony of houseboats ranging from the long narrow barges already mentioned to much larger conversions of channel barges which are only movable with much time and money.
The river has been a major thoroughfare for over a 1000 years with the last of the cargo barges having given up the ghost in the 60's and 70's.
We veered off the Thames to follow the Grand Canal tow path past the Glaxo-Smith Kline global headquarters which uses canal water to cool their air conditioning unit creating a water feature out of a cooling water outlet.
Around the bend we suddenly found ourselves on a stretch of canal with trees hanging into the water on the far bank and the tow path narrowing to a footpath wide enough for one horse to walk along. Crossing a high narrow bridge, over which said horses would have traversed the canal had a fork with a weir to one side by which the river Brent was directed back onto its natural route.
Brentford is now perhaps famous in our family for the rough nature of the supporters of the Brentford Bees who have yo-yo'd between the 1st and 3rd divisions in the English football leagues and should be our local team.
Aside from football Brentford has been the site of at least three major battles, an the oldest a battle led by Julius Caesar against the local king, Cassivellaunus, in 54 BC during the second invasion of Britain.
More recently there was a pitched battle between the Danes (Vikings) and the English in 1016 and decisively in 1642 the town was sacked by both the Royalists and the Parliamentarians in the Battle of 1642 which the Royalists won.
The sacking, or more specifically the foraging/looting of the town, although devastating for the inhabitants was part and parcel of the continental style of warfare which Oliver Cromwell apparently had learned while fighting in the 30 Year's war and for which the Irish would hold him in contempt for forever and a day following his campaigns there as the Grand Protector.
Rounding another bend we came across a medieval stone church tower with an ugly brick addition, all of which looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. Given that often in England when a building looks like it has been bombed the chances are more likely than not that it was, by the Germans. I have to assume this is one of the reasons that the War is so close to the surface of English culture and that is but one of the ways by which history is "maintained".
In this case my wife groaned and the English smirked only to have their eyes go wide with surprise as I read "...on the night of November 12th, 1943...TWO ENGLISH SCHOOLBOYS SET THE CHURCH ON FIRE"!
We then crossed under the A4, the M4, a railway bridge and then just before the lock at Osterely caught up with the barge we had seen at the start of our journey.
The lone woman had been joined on deck by her husband and were now waiting patiently for the lock-which they had to operate manually-to fill up. We struck up a conversation he watching the water level and she dancing with the tiller. They had been travelling the waterways for the past 3 months this time around and were now returning to Rugby. They were retired however, and had been living on their barge for the last 8 years.
The reason we caught up with them, despite having stopped for pints twice on the walk, was that each lock takes them 15 minutes to transit and they could only go 3 miles an hour in the canal.
Behind them was a second barge on its way to Paddington. They still had 12 locks to pass until they reached their destination, some 8 miles away, and they didn't expect to reach there until late that day!
It suddenly put everything into a different light. That walk had taken us from the pressure and demands of living in London, from the street noise, the cars and trucks, the crowded pavements and relentless motion of a city and dropped us into a parallel universe of coots and moorhens, abandoned wharfs, questionable dry dock marina facilities, and travellers moving at the pace of the canals, which just happens to be the same speed that the average human walks.
Perhaps we are more connected to our natural environment than we think.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
What's Going on Here?
I was mildly surprised last Thursday to read an article in none other than the Financial Times (FT) by a Mr Joseph Dear, Chief Investment Officer of the California Public Employees Retirement System (Calpers). I was not surprised that Mr Dear had written, but rather how well he had written and what it was that he had to say.
Unfairly when I think of Calpers I can't help but bunch them together with the clowns at Orange County whose bawdy incompetence in investments led them to make completely unsuitable purchases of structured products which then blew up and bankrupted the county.
So when I saw Mr Dear's article I steeled myself for a Republican attack on financial reform. What followed however was a very well written commentary on the continuing farce of financial reform in the United States.
He launched into a beratement of our legislators and the captains of finance who in his opinion are on the verge of "forgetting that it was our belief in market efficiency and our reliance on self-regulation to contain irrational behaviour and systemic risk" that got us into this mess in the first place.
He went on to defend Frank-Dodd and to highlight the role of corporate governance, increased risk intelligence and the build up of sufficient liquidity reserves as the pillars of institutional investing.
It was a pleasure to see someone in the public sector defend the rights of the public and challenge the holders of public office to fulfil their oaths of public service as opposed to being the lapdogs of powerful interest groups.
My mild surprise turned into near disbelief when this morning the US Economics editor of the same austere FT a Mr Robin Harding challenged the US policy makers to break the "taboo" of discussing government stimulus, to stop grandstanding and to recognise that the US economy is perilously close to a double-dip recession.
To be fair he does not suggest that the only path to economic recovery is to be found through and economic stimulus program, but he does weigh in heavily to the need to look at all options to help reinvigorate the economy and deal with the deficit.
Interestingly he doesn't care to suggest that part of any stimulus could-or in my opinion should include a tax hike on the super rich. But credit given where credit is due-speaking about taboos is the only way to break them.
Unfairly when I think of Calpers I can't help but bunch them together with the clowns at Orange County whose bawdy incompetence in investments led them to make completely unsuitable purchases of structured products which then blew up and bankrupted the county.
So when I saw Mr Dear's article I steeled myself for a Republican attack on financial reform. What followed however was a very well written commentary on the continuing farce of financial reform in the United States.
He launched into a beratement of our legislators and the captains of finance who in his opinion are on the verge of "forgetting that it was our belief in market efficiency and our reliance on self-regulation to contain irrational behaviour and systemic risk" that got us into this mess in the first place.
He went on to defend Frank-Dodd and to highlight the role of corporate governance, increased risk intelligence and the build up of sufficient liquidity reserves as the pillars of institutional investing.
It was a pleasure to see someone in the public sector defend the rights of the public and challenge the holders of public office to fulfil their oaths of public service as opposed to being the lapdogs of powerful interest groups.
My mild surprise turned into near disbelief when this morning the US Economics editor of the same austere FT a Mr Robin Harding challenged the US policy makers to break the "taboo" of discussing government stimulus, to stop grandstanding and to recognise that the US economy is perilously close to a double-dip recession.
To be fair he does not suggest that the only path to economic recovery is to be found through and economic stimulus program, but he does weigh in heavily to the need to look at all options to help reinvigorate the economy and deal with the deficit.
Interestingly he doesn't care to suggest that part of any stimulus could-or in my opinion should include a tax hike on the super rich. But credit given where credit is due-speaking about taboos is the only way to break them.
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