Something Completely Different

Just for light relief from politics and economics and the rest this from Autumn 2009:

So the tickets deal pays off, and the cheque is bulging in my wallet, as I put on the best hat and head for town.  I got enough to spend time at Shanghai Lil's.  OK, the signboard says different, but downtown signboards cover a lot of sins. 

It is a jumble of letters that don’t mean much, but a guy in a bar told me in the old Hittite script in means place of human sacrifice, so things have not changed. 

Sidestepping the charity collectors outside, I get through the doors with all the small change intact and look around the service bars.  There is some real action going on, they are hot on life insurance, promising big money if you live forever.  Subject to conditions of course.

So I stand there a while, just holding on to the cheque and the credit slip, and take in the play.  Suddenly there is a slim blonde by me, even better looking than a footballer's moll.  Then there is a husky tempting voice, "Can I help you in any way?"

I take a long deep breath and consider the choices.  This could get interesting.  "We have a new machine that makes it so easy" she whispers.  This worries me some.  Ever since that experience with the trampoline, I avoid machines in close personal encounters.

She guides me into a small room with not so many people, points and says "Touch that".  It is a bank machine, sadly, you touch the screen and it plays games with you.

So I put in the slip and the cheque and out comes a pretty piece of paper.  I put it away carefully, Big A is keen on the detail.  Mistakes mean cold porridge in the morning and not a welcoming fry up. 

Then I smile at the blonde.  "So how long have you been with us?" she asks.  At Shanghai Lil's they are not so good on the detail these days, which is why I have to spend so long there. 

"8th August 1954", I rap out.  "Since the Army thought I would be better off working somewhere else after the Court Martial."  "Gosh", she says, "Not many people remember the first time."  I think she is still talking about banks.

And that was the end of it.  Quite why she didn't make the big play on life insurance, I do not know, it sort of hurt my feelings.  Outside, the charity collectors had stopped collecting and a lone guy was picking up pieces of paper dropped in their excitement by people leaving Shanghai Lil's. 

I thought this was worth praise.  "Good to see a man working for the community" I says.  He flashed a large collection of gold teeth, "Eet isss moy dutty as a  gud sittyzen" he says with a thick Russian accent.

Back at the ranch, I give Big A the bank chit, and head for the games room.  I am just playing the "Overthrow The Government" game running on the Army web site, when a screaming Big A comes at me hard. 

It’s even worse than when I buy a lottery ticket, and she finds out.  This time it is not me.  This is a great relief.

It is the chit from the machine at Shanghai Lil's.  It has copied the entire credit slip and the cheque in perfect detail, with a lot of other numbers.  Big A tells me anyone getting hold of this would have the story of my life in minutes. 

This is bad news.  My life has been an eventful one.  How many other people have spent a night on the run from the police of five counties?  And only for a couple of large doors. 

OK, they were the West Riding of Yorkshire Police HQ doors with some fancy signs we thought would look nice in the club house, but why the big fuss?

Big A is firmly of the opinion that present banks are bad for people.  So I try my luck and suggest lottery tickets.  OK, it will be cold porridge in the morning.  And I will have to make up for it. 

So tomorrow I go down to town again, and help the well dressed Russian pick up some paper outside Shanghai Lil's. He may know a place where I can find a real bank.

Digging For Victory Revived

As Sir Fred The Shred has become Mr. Fred The Stripped and I have a stinking cold and do not want to be long at the typeface this is a repeat post from Sunday 8 March 2009.

My only comment is that by choosing the name Sands to avoid defamation issues with Goodwin perhaps this reference to things being sunk without trace was not far off the mark.

It is based on the old Rob Wilton monologues which the late Michael Williams liked to revive in more recent years.

Quote:

The day the bank bailouts broke out, the missus said to me, “So what are you going to do to save the economy?” “It isn’t up to me!” I said, “What can I do about it in any case?” “Well,” she said “you can make a start, and my hair needs cutting.”

So after we cut each other’s hair, normally free, gratis, and for nothing, this time we exchanged cheques for £1000 each. “There,” she said, “that’s a nice boost for the GDP” “But what do we do next?” I asked, and she had an answer for that, well she always does have an answer.

So we go down to at Thresher and Porbeagle Financial Services, Cookiecutter House and meet a gent’ called Fred Sands. Nice chap, the sort of Scottish burr in the voice you like to hear on the customer services helplines telling you there is nothing they can do to help, who makes us an offer we could not refuse.

They had only just set up after he had left his old firm to improve his prospects. Grabbing the cheques from our hands, he told us he could immediately lend us up to £100,000 to spend as we wanted, or to take part in a wonderful investment deal that had only turned up on his laptop that very morning, limited offer, closing in half an hour, so we had to make up our minds quick.

He wrote us a cheque on the spot for the £100,000, gave to us, and then snatched it back, saying it was now an asset and collateral for buying £5 million pounds worth of rented garages in Arizona, Beijing, and Moscow, and these would become the assets for investing in a lot of Hedge Funds, who would do a lot of other lending.

Because all the loans were assets, and not what my father told me, income was guaranteed at fifteen per cent, and the whole value would grow at least thirty per cent a year, so we could soon have our villa, yachts and all the rest, and even get invited to a Paris fashion show.

I tried to tell the missus that I was happy with our caravan at Bognor, but she would not listen, all it would cost us she said was trivial money, small change, for all the administrative fees and bonuses, and I should be grateful for everything.

Then she went into the back room with Fred and came out smiling in a way I hadn’t seen since she was a part time barmaid at “The Dragon’s Head”.

So we have now “kick started” the economy and Fred says with luck I could get a knighthood and the missus will then become a lady, at last. “It will all be worth it,” she said, “and Fred even gave me a tenner, for the service economy he called it.”

When I told my neighbour, Jim, he gave me a funny look, asked for his lawnmower back, and told me not to bother with Christmas Cards this year as he was a bit short.

Apologies to Rob Wilton and Michael Williams.

Unquote.

Ah well, time for an antiseptic.

Spending Other Peoples Money

The Guido Fawkes blog does not relate much to other bloggers. It is part of his bread and butter and understandable. Also, he normally goes for short and punchy pieces to keep the attention and move the story on. You know when you look it will short and acid.

Today, Sunday, however, he went long. A former investment banker he knows what it means to go short. The subject of his post is the Michael Lewis book, “The Big Short” which attempts to show what has been going on in the boiler rooms of the trading houses.

Briefly, they have been taking huge risks with big money and this has been other peoples. When it went bad, because of the politics and the involvement of politicians now we all have to pay.

Here is the link, it is worth reading and even better saves me the job of trying to explain what Michael Lewis has to say:

http://order-order.com/2011/11/06/moral-markets-and-other-peoples-money/

Personally, I am glad to see that there are better informed people on the inside who have described so well what some of us have suspected.

The whole business went out of control and the question now is can it ever be brought back to any reality, or will the whole shebang just go up in flames?

It was Guy Fawkes night yesterday. On Discovery was a programme trying to show what would have happened had he managed to light the fuse in 1605.

There would have been nothing left.

Punk Banking

In the last few days Naked Capitalism has suggested a new form of aberrant behaviour that causes difficulties in the general community. It is Banker Derangement Syndrome which needs little explanation. It is one of those things we can all be sure about.

On Wednesday, Tax Justice Network dealt with the banks hysteria over the needs for more active tax compliance. They are claiming that it will add billions to their costs, essentially given present conditions this means yours and mine.

But the writer of the article claims to be a person who has actually worked in bank offices and dealt with customer accounts and the movements of funds. They assert that much if not all of the relevant information is already sitting there in the bank data systems and it would be no great matter to pass it on, if required.

The article is accompanied by a picture of the old Sex Pistols album “Never Mind The Bollocks” and states that this best describes the claims that the banks are making. But it is possible that the billions of expenses the bankers say will occur may be the fees for all the lawyers, consultants and the political donations necessary to defeat or avoid any such obligations.

As at present banks are run by people with good political connections who do not  know or understand much about what goes on in their organisations so it is quite possible that anything to do with the real work involved is beyond their competence.

But this allows us a key insight now into what modern banks are in terms of the intellectual history of the late 20th Century as applied to this sector of the economy.

We are now in the age of Punk Banking and many of the characteristics of that body of thinking and action are now embedding in bank policy and function. It is no surprise since so many of those now at the top in banks and politics were punk fans and rockers in the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s.

There is certainly anarchy, with no other word to describe the way the banks interact amongst themselves and in relation to society or community. Let it all happen, or hang out or whatever all that matters is what we do when we do and nobody has the right to question or regulate us.

As for being anti-authoritarian, this is more complicated. They certainly do not want anyone to exercise authority over them, especially elected governments with a nasty habit of listening to the little people. However, as this leads to zeal to control and to manage governments their stance is no clearer than their accounts.

The characteristics of vandalism and destruction as a means to progress, that is increasing their short term rates of return are self evident. The scale of what they have achieved in these activities over the last two decades is incredible.

Nihilism goes without saying, all that matters is the figures should look right and allow the corporations in question to award increasing proportions of the levels of wealth and capital amongst their crony elements. This is along with counter-culture in that any other form of human action or communication must be eliminated.

At present I am looking for a new mattress, one with a built in safe.

Banks Do Not Furnish A Room

In the past I have complained about how banks have changed. Gone are the polite formalities of the past and the careful noting of detail by persons who know they are in a good job with a pension to look forward to.

Now they are like the amusement arcades of the past with rows of blinking machines happy to take your money but not to give you what you hoped for. The staff are pushy people trying to sell me all sorts of stuff I do not want or need. They are on commission with no pensions or job security.

My parents and regimental sergeant majors used to warn me of other dangers. To be approached by eager young ladies smelling strongly of cheap perfume offering services you would be well advised to refuse is disconcerting. Especially when you know the result could be a nasty red rash at the bottom of the accounts.

The latest communication I have had from the bank was intriguing. It is almost a metaphor for kind of general national financial problems that Vinnie The Bank Crusher is on about.

It tells me that the balance in my savings account is zero. I suspect I am not alone in having this problem. It might be related to the other pieces of information.

One is that the rate of interest on such savings is 0.05%. I am surprised only by the fact that I am not paying the bank to take care of the zero account. The other is that if I went into debit then the rate of interest they would charge would be 19.90%

We are urged by Keynesians to borrow to spend so that we can earn enough to spend more and to borrow more. According to my Keynes there was something called savings that came into all the equations.

Saving meant investment and if wise this created activity that enabled consumptions and savings. If savings were too much this was a distortion. If too little and borrowing too much this was a worse distortion.

Just like the mirrors in the old amusement arcades.