How do I know? I don't.
But I read this piece in the Grumbler.
Picture it. You are a rich broker - floated your company in May 2007 (how's that for timing?). Predicting good times ahead, you... sell £47m of your shares.
You say it's for "private projects", and throw the Mail journalist a tidbit about your beloved foopball club. The Mail journalist writing down your copy at least thinks to ask you how much of this cash will go towards the new stadium. You "decline to say".
Meanwhile, Charles Hugh Smith describes (April 18) the thinking that has led him to punt on a financial bear fund.
Straws in the wind, I'm thinking.
Ho hum. I was going to "short" shares and then got cold feet. Since I expected disaster, how could I be confident that the counterparties to my bet would survive and pay up? I still don't see a way around that problem.
ReplyDeleteThe more I read about this, the angrier I get, and the more socialist I sound. The rich have pulled so much money out of the system for 30 years that the middle class had no choice but to re-mortgage their homes, as their salaries were stagnant. And yet, here in the US, the relatively poor are still blaming the poor for the economic crisis and supporting more tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% or so. They parrot the party line that the rich will reinvest and make us more competitive, while completely ignoring the evidence to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteDM: good point.
ReplyDeletePadders: making everything convertible to money is like building roads through the rainforest. You know what will happen after that.
Good call.
ReplyDeleteHeading down like one of those rides at Chessington world of adventures any day now I'd say.