Strictly Confidential

After inedible rubber chicken skewers at the Brasshouse, we went to the matinee of Craig Revel-Horwood's "Strictly Confidential" at Birmingham's Symphony Hall. Led by the ebullient Lisa Riley, it gave us all permission to enjoy ourselves, a very underrated mission.

The over-bright wood panelling that usually reminds patrons of its existence throughout performances was black-curtained round the stage to set it for a properly theatrical experience. Lisa and the cast gave it plenty of welly, fighting the architecture and the natural reserve of us Midlanders. When played to a full house at night and in a traditional theatre it'll be a storm; as it was we loved it anyway.

Outrageous attack on soldiers' pensions

A soldier will miss out on almost £175,000 after his job was axed by defence bosses just 72 hours before he qualified for a full service pension.

Sergeant Michael Anderson, 35, was within three days of claiming a lifetime pension deal worth £261,278 for 18 years’ service.

He will now have to wait until he is 60 before receiving a package worth less than £90,000.

The case has fuelled suspicions that the Army, which is shedding 20,000 personnel in a cost-cutting exercise, is targeting those within touching distance of generous lifetime payments.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2377260/Army-axes-hero-days-short-pension-Sergeant-wait-hes-60-collecting-package-worth-90-000.html#ixzz2a2XTxzfH

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By contrast...

There are separate arrangements for the pensions for the three great offices of state - the Prime Minister, Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Chancellor. Under current legislation, they are entitled to a pension of half their final office-holder’s salary on leaving office, regardless of length of service.

House of Commons Standard Note SN 04586: "Pensions of Ministers and senior office holders" - last updated 27 March 2013

www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN04586.pdf

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Quote of the... day?

".. allow me to remind you of Sibley's Law. Giving capital to a bank (said that worldly banker, Nicholas Sibley) is like giving a gallon of beer to a drunk. You know what will become of it, but you can't know which wall he will choose."

- Christopher Fildes, Spectator magazine, 15 December 2007

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The s-word

Click Green has a piece on the increased use of sustainable energy in the US. An increased use of natural gas is also mentioned, but the word shale is nowhere to be seen.

The s-word appears to be unwelcome in certain circles.

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Microalgae prove ideal for green facades | Arup | A global firm of consulting engineers, designers, planners and project managers

Microalgae prove ideal for green facades | Arup | A global firm of consulting engineers, designers, planners and project managers

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment.Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

This new humanistic religion

If there be a saving way, at all, it is obviously this: Substitute health and happiness for wealth as a world-ideal; and translate that new ideal into action by education from babyhood up.

To do this, states must reorganise the spirit of education — in other words, must introduce religion; not the old formal creeds, but the humanistic religion of service for the common weal, the religion of a social honour which puts the health and happiness of all first and the wealth of self second. The only comfort in the situation is the curious fact that, underneath all else, the sociability inculcated in modern nations by quick communications and incessant intercourse is already tending toward the formation of this new humanistic religion.

The real and supreme importance of the League of Nations consists in its power of giving such a mood the first chance it has ever had in international affairs. For it must freely be confessed that, without this chance in international affairs, there is no hope that the mood will be adopted and fostered nationally.

John Galsworthy – Castles in Spain (1927)

In Galsworthy’s day many intelligent middle class people thought like this in spite and because of the Great War. They were not afraid to express their faith in a kind of universal secular bonhomie overseen by the benign gaze of the League of Nations.

How times have changed. The optimism of secular idealism has faded, its language tangled in caveats. Politically, secular optimism has become furtive, technical and rather weird.

Yet one Galsworthy phrase seems prescient to me, especially in the light of mass air travel and the internet: the sociability inculcated in modern nations by quick communications and incessant intercourse. Global sociability – maybe that’s our route to a more pragmatic optimism.

If so, then the stumbling block becomes obvious. Our political class has no wish to be sociable with the electorate because they don’t yet see us as their moral and intellectual equals, let alone their superiors.

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Market timing

Conventionally, we are told that market timing is impossible and that you'll miss short,sharp gains by staying out, etc.

But the market is no longer conventional. The swings have become much greater, there's all sorts of jiggery pokery behind the scenes (how is co-location legal?) and debt is a sword of Damocles over the whole system.

Rob Arnott at PIMCO (htp: Wall Street Ranter) recently contrasted US equities with emerging markets stocks, thus:

Reversion to the long-term US mean would involve a 29% drop  in value - and usually there's a significant overshoot. Let's not forget that the market has halved twice since the year 2000, and the recoveries seem to be down to monetary life support rather than healthy fundamental economic growth.

There's a San Andreas Fault running under this financial edifice. And the US market and economy are so large that a fall there would surely shake the foundations in other parts of the world.

Doubtless there are some traders who will make, are making, fortunes on short-term speculation, but the odds against outsiders managing to do it make the game one not to join.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.