From telegraph.co.uk

From Elle magazine

North Korea Chic

Some iteration of the military trend stomps the runways every few seasons. This time, it's edgier, even dangerous, with sharp buckles and clasps and take-no-prisoners tailoring.

What does one say? Are they taking the p*ss?

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Selecting the shameless

Is it the case that only shameless spivs and crooks are able to withstand the intense, manipulative scrutiny of the internet age?

If so, is the internet weeding out principled people in favour of the shameless?

Maybe by our endless, web-enabled scrutiny of public life we are deselecting anyone with an ounce of moral awareness or a scintilla of self-knowledge. They are too wary of the ghastly, furtive dishonesty of it all.

The hide of a rhinoceros and the moral compass of a rattlesnake may not be what we want from our leaders, but perhaps the internet is ensuring we get exactly that. Or more than we had before at least.

The subtle power of a web-enabled selection process could have dangerous consequences if we don’t sharpen up in time for the dwindling number of meaningful elections we have left.

How many is that by the way? One? Two?

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. 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.

EU for the confused

As we lurch ponderously towards another General Election - John Ward thinks it might be called early by the Tories - doubtless there will be renewed efforts to paint UKIP and other Eurosceptics as haters of foreigners, European culture etc. This infographic may help clear up the confusion:

And if the term "Little Englander" (original meaning: anti-Imperialist) is misused yet again, please apply the following test of discrimination to the offender:

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. 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.

Does economic recovery require inflation?

"Employing more folks who earn more produces inflation," says John Ward, and it's a brave man who takes him on... but... can I offer this and duck my head?

In the course of researching a piece last month about inflation, I came across this chart:



http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/hist5011/phelps-brown%20and%20hopkins.pdf

... and this information:

But the money system stabilised again by the late 17th century. The Bank of England's website has a page that lets you calculate cumulative inflation for any period from 1750 onwards. According to them, a basket of goods and services costing £1 in 1750 would have cost (the equivalent of) £1.80 in 1900 - an average annual inflation rate of 0.3%.

... from which I surmised:

That period covers the tremendous increase in productivity introduced by the Industrial Revolution and further late-nineteenth-century scientific and technological developments, so inflation is not needed for business and prosperity.

Indeed, it's possible that much of that 80% cumulative inflation over 150 years (1750 - 1900) could be attributed to war financing and profiteering e.g. during the conflicts with France.

So, do we need inflation at all?

More people making and selling more stuff and services may turn over more money, but then there's more for that money to buy, and more income and spending on which taxes can be levied.

So isn't deflation more about (a) wealth trickling - or rather gushing - up the social scale and then being socked away in investments rather than spent to stimulate domestic demand, and (b) the offshoring of production, whereby the poor of other countries do the work and the middlemen here (via entities that may be also sited offshore) taking much of the turnover as their profit, which leads us not back to doh but to (a)?

I tried to graph these putative connections in June last year as a reckless simultaneous opening of all the lock gates, thus:




Well, maybe I'm wrong.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. 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.

Stockmarkets: when will the third shoe drop?

Pic source: http://thebeltwayboys.blogspot.co.uk/2005/06/waiting-for-other-shoe-to-drop.html

The stockmarket (Dow, FTSE) has halved twice since the beginning of 2000, bottoming in 2003 and 2009. Earlier this year I wondered when the next drop would come ("Killing the Small Investor",  28 June).

Since then I have read that banks are being asked to consider the effects on them of a 50% drop in equities; and now John Hussman (htp: Zero Hedge) is saying the same thing:

"I continue to believe that it is plausible to expect the S&P 500 to lose 40-55% of its value over the completion of the present cycle, and suspect that whatever further gains the market enjoys from this point will be surrendered in the first few complacent weeks following the market’s peak."

I have long been of that view, and in fact having worked for 20 years in the financial services industry my mindset now is that I don't trust it as far as I can throw it. The politicians have allowed - encouraged - the banks to pillage the economy with debt bubbles that give the temporary impression of prosperity, and now we're maxed-out, so after fraud will come outright robbery by inflation, confiscation or whatever.

Which is why the Chinese are piling up gold and Chinese rich are diverting their wealth into portable assets like fine art. In the short term - when the panic is on - these assets, too, may decline in value, but sooner or later the wretched, crooked game of pneumatic prices will resume.

Smart, daring, quick-handed investors may make a killing in the disruption - just selling at peak and buying at trough would have quadrupled the value of your equity holding since 2000 - but when the game is on some of the players may find they're not so fast and smart after all. Remember Jesse Livermore.

This is why I continue to campaign for a safe, government-guaranteed store of value, such as National Savings Index-Linked Certificates. There should - must, if government is to have any moral authority - be an option for those who don't wish to gamble and so cannot fairly be expected to suffer loss. US investors still have TIPS available. Even then, we shall have to watch out for attempts by the thieving swine to misrepresent price inflation.

They say you shouldn't give a price forecast and a time frame at the same time, but I'm getting the feeling from what I'm reading that the third shoe will drop to the bedroom floor within the next year.

Maybe that's why the intelligence services are spying on us all so assiduously. If you can't control the problem, control the customer.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. 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.

Council blocks payday loan websites

From the Derbyshire Times we learn:

A decision to block payday loan websites from all of a council’s 7000 computers has been met with approval.

Anyone trying to access lending sites from any of Derbyshire County Councils computers will instead be re-directed to sources of safe, affordable loans such as Credit Unions, financial support services and welfare rights advice.

The move will affect all of the computers owned by the council across the county including those in libraries and those used by its employees.

Well they are council-owned computers so it's up to them what they allow and what they block even though they are blocking access to a legal activity. 

Even so, I've no problem with it per se. It's the mission creep I don't like. It never ends, slithering into every nook and cranny of daily life.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. 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.

The weirdness of unreason

Another World - M C Escher - from Wikipedia

Have you ever been in a meeting where certain people seem absolutely set on dredging up every irrational argument they can think of?

Yes?

And apart from the frustration, do you ever find irrational ideas a little weird? How do we explain them for example - how do we picture what is going on in the irrational head?

Instead of thinking in terms of rational and irrational ideas, suppose we think in terms of allegiance - a personal allegiance to some social situation, trend, norm, cause or whatever. That something could be allegiance to a person, social group, project, profession, institution, fashion or any one of countless other possibilities.

It may be an allegiance to Arsenal Football Club, holistic therapy, quantum theory, yoga or a political party. There is no difference – it is all allegiance.

So there are no rational or irrational structures inside our heads. Reasons are essentially tactical and strategic. Beliefs may feel like a nexus of rational ideas but are nothing of the kind. Our beliefs and ideas are merely our allegiances expressed in all their infinite variety.

We are not rational, but merely complex, subtle, resourceful and often covert in expressing our allegiances. Reason is how we raise, gauge and foster support for those allegiances, but that’s all. There is no structure to reason other than the structure of allegiance. That’s why your reason can be my unreason.

We have differing allegiances – that’s all.

So we don’t think rationally or irrationally, but merely offer our allegiance to different social norms, situations and events from the trivial to the essentials of daily life. The central influences over these allegiances are numerous, from language to our personal welfare and the welfare of family, friends, business interests and so on and so on.

However, when it comes to less central concerns, many of us do not seem to have strong allegiances and are willing to probe them. Yet this probing, this apparent vacillation can seem odd and obstructive to those with a strong allegiance to a particular narrative or agenda. In my view this explains human intransigence quite well where the notion of reason and unreason does not.

Maybe this is the value of those of us who mistakenly see ourselves as rational. We are not so much rational as able to see the allegiances others skate over in their pursuit of an agenda. By not having strong allegiances ourselves, we are able to weigh their various claims, especially where popular allegiances are neither as beneficial nor as harmless as commonly assumed.

So rational behaviour is not so much an ability to apply reason, whatever that might be, as a reluctance to offer one’s allegiance without weighing the consequences. Often not even then.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. 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.