SIXTEEN TRILLION AND COUNTING

Each individual pallet is 42" wide by 40" deep. The height of the US$100 bills is 38.7". Add 4" for a pallet and the total height of one pallet of bills is 42.7". In a theoretical field of pallets  the pallets are spaced 12" apart.

The field is 50 pallets x 100 pallets by 2 pallets high, so...

width = (50 x 42") + (49 x 12") = 2100" + 588" = 2688" = 224 ft

depth = (100 x 40") + (99 x 12") = 4000" + 1188" = 5188" = 432.33ft

height = 2 x 42.7" = 85.4" = just a little over 7ft high

So our field of pallets is roughly 224ft x 432ft x 7ft high.

At 96,768 square feet, it's about 2.2 acres and well over the size of a football field.

 

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The next time you turn on your television and hear democrats, republicans, liberal democrats, tories, whigs et all discuss any form of National Debt spare a thought for the american middle classes who are staring at bankruptcy. Many people have stated publicly that future generations will pay for this debt. In simple terms they cannot. The maths are unworkable. There is no solution. How exactly does one pay off a meaningful amount of this debt? Let's now look at the back of the fag packet and scratch a pencil mark here;-

 

$16,000,000, 000,000 (16 Trillion or sixteen thousand thousand million)  divided by the working population of USA of circa 154,400,000 = $103,626.94 per each working person in USA. According to Wikipedia the Per Capita wealth of each US citizen presumably working is US$48,450 each. There are 30 million smaller businesses with around 91% working in the Private Sector. This contrasts dramatically with that of Europe and UK where the Public Sector is becoming the ever more dominant employer.If hypothetically each working citizen could put their hands on say $50,000 of hard cash (debt) and gave it to the Federal Reserve then presumably 50% of the debt could be cancelled but it begs the question, what does the citizen get in return? That still leaves around $8 trillion which is still unworkable. No fag packet calculation is being even considered for interest and inflation and no social assumption is being made for government total ownership of property which is plainly proposturous. So what is the solution? Well, it's clear that the US cannot grow its way out of this hole. It cannot sell anything as there would be no buyers. It cannot tax its way out of this hole as there would be virtual 100% unemployment (versus 10-20% today depending on who one believes). Somebody or some corporation has to pay and this is the dilemna. There are $100's billions of $'s held on deposit at US businesses in an already arguably bust banking system. In fact the banking system arguably is a slave to the 'new corporatocracy' that has been created (Apple is just the tip of the cash rich iceberg). Assuming that there's no great technological evolution or invention around the corner then it's fair to assume that the TMT sector could be (soviet style) nationalised (that would cancel somewhere under $3 trillion of debt). In fact the corporatocracy is effectively the state anyway so let's throw BP (now mostly owned by US institutions), Chevron and the entire o&g industry into the mix.

Hell, let's all work for the government. Free enterprise has pretty well been extinguished already. I see that the Fleet Street Letter is now predicting total financial collapse with UK leading the charge.

Anarchy in UK then. 

Harvey Goldsmith for Prime Minister

Years ago I went up to Wembley Empire Pool (I think it became the Arena years later) with my good friend, Jim Penfold, a musician today of 35+ years standing to see Paul McCartney & Wings appear in concert. I remember that it was an amazing gig with Joe English's drumkit projecting the first ever lazer show during the bond theme "Live & Let Die". Afterwards Jim suggested we sneak around the back to see if we could get in amongst the band and their groupies. Jim had jammed on occasions with Denny Lane in deepest Sussex (Rye country) so neither of us didn't really think it'd be a problem. Security though had other ideas and prevented us from getting in so Jim suggested another route via the rear stage entrance where the juggernauts loaded the vast amounts of p-a systems (speakers, stacks, amplifiers, etc) on/off the Wembley stage system. We had got through the high metal fencing and were spotted by someone who looked quite threatening and scarpered (70's slang). I recollect the chap was in his 30s and heavy built wearing a leather jacket, long hair. He sprang into his vehicle, a monster Black & Gold Jeep Cherokee with monster wheels and drove past us with some venom.

I hadn't see him for years until I saw him again on the Andrew Marr Show the other sunday morning. In the 70s he was a rock legend. His name is still known amongst those of us 50+ who loved live music. His name is Harvey Goldsmith and he's probably been the no #1 rock promoter for the last 40 years in the british music scene. On Andrew Marr's show he was reading the sunday papers with General Sir Mike Jackson and someone else who was pretty forgettable. I must say I had to take a second look. The idea of Harvey and Mike together sitting on a settee was curious. When Harvey spoke it was measured and both Marr and Jackson listened intently. Asked what he thought about some subject or other Harvey responded unusually. I will misquote exactly what he said but I think it went like this........"....the trouble with this country is that it is run by THE GREAT, THE GOOD & THE USELESS". I've highlighted the "GGU" bit as he said that 100%. It hit a cord with me and I made a mental note.

Now I imagined that Harvey would simply disappear from our screens forever but can you imagine my surprise when he appeared this week on Sky News commenting on the Rolling Stones concert (?). He was sat next to an american and the body language said it all. Even before he opened his mouth, even before the american spoke, one could detect a vein of animosity between them. The american commented on ticket prices and was questioned by the Sky Presenters about the high prices of tickets ranging from £90 (face value?) to around £1,000 (second-hand value). The yank simply shrugged this off by saying that he ran a TICKET STOCK EXCHANGE. Now this phrase stuck with me too because for years ticket touts have been lamblasted (spelling!) for allegedly spiralling the prices of tickets but here was a ticket impresario suggesting he was running an exchange. Bring on the regulator! I jest of course.

Harvey hadn't really said anything until he commented that he felt that fans were getting robbed here. I took notice at this point. Harvey felt it was immoral to allow this exchange to dictate pricing and to overload the high prices to fans (note the old touts would have gone to jail for this). Harvey's main thrust was that he saw a ticket as a cheap gateway for the fan to enter an arena and reckoned that rock stars like the Stones were getting greedy.

This made me think. Overcharging on the way into a contract ultimately scares off investors. Giving some reward once in is legitimate and if there are more add-ons available that seems to be fair and reasonable.

A few months ago I had the same experience myself at a french antiques fair who wanted to charge all adults Euros 10 entrance. There were 4 of us, I was paying and walked away from the door. I may have spent another Euros 300 but wasn't prepared to get fleeced in this way. Whilst crossing on the ferry the other day the lady from P&O advised me that my £70 ticket one way had expired. She insisted upon charging me another £70 for the crossing whereupon I told her that I would boycott the Duty-Free and Langans Brasserie for the trip. I normally spent £100-150 total on these add-on but P&O lost out due to greed. The lady responded that "the owners of P&O needed the money". Well, they lost out and if Harvey Goldsmith is right then the Rolling Stones may well lose some fans if the current internet practice of online ticket agencies (exchanges) inflating ticket prices is anything to go by.

As Mick Jagger sang that night (I presume)......"You can't always get what you want!"

Anyway I think Harvey should enter politics. His thought process is refreshing.

Opportunity Knocks if you're from over the pond

I was recollecting what DaveCam has so often said about 'Opportunity' in the UK. My confession is that I've blogged about the Conservative hyprocrisy about opportunity before. Let's have a recap shall we?

I've thought for some years that "opportunity for all" as spoken by the great sage actually means "I'd like to give the opportunity to the unfortunate by taking your job and giving it to more worthy subjects". But hehhh, before you think I'm being outrageous and outspoken please spare a thought for the interpreters, who to a man and woman would rather not get involved with ALS and avoid any contact with the new breed of interpreting administrators, or the established, connected and experienced stockbrokers & IFA's who are being subjected to unnecessary examination resulting in 20,000 to 35,000 being expended due to this fascist policy called the RDR. There are plenty of other examples of job replacement all being conscripted in the name of "Opportunity".

In early October at the Tory conference DaveCam spoke again of opportunity....hushed silence......but today's announcement by Osborne at the despatch box of the appointment of the next Governor of the Bank of England, the Old Lady as some prefer to call the building at Bank Tube Station, was pure theatre. Were we going to be told that a member of the MPC was going to get the job, Lord Adair Turner perhaps, that wreckless chap from the FSA, maybe a chap called Tucker, maybe unbelievably Lord Myners, or Lord Hoojie Magfloojie, or god forbid even a 'real' banker of the Cap'n Mainwaring school. Are there any left you ask?  There's been some debate since 2008 about the difference between banking and investment banking. After 36 years in the City I like to think that I've got the definition down to a pat.

A banker is someone who works in an establishment called a bank, takes personal liability for his mistakes, and provides loans to business and personal customers at a rate exceeding the Minimum Lending Rate meanwhile accepting deposits against the loans by providing interest at a discount to the MLR (used to be called the Base Deposit Rate). These people called bankers had real integrity and ONLY worked on margin but above all respected their 'customers', never traded against them and never ever speculated.

So what is an investment banker Mr Hoblyn? Well, it used to go like this. When I started in the City they were ALL americans. We had merchant bankers, something quite different but it wan't long before they too became bankers of investment. Now these chaps found businesses, financed them for flotations (IPO's), provided real capital to the economies and were pretty popular people when they allocated good lines of stock at decent premiums till the late 1990's. And then they got greedy. They worked closely with hedge funds, giving them the meat from the pies, started going synthetic derivative based (for another day), took huge risks with their balance sheets, took zero liability for their failures and yet ensured outrageous bonus and pension schemes ultimately getting the people to pay for this through QE (another questionable enterprise).

The masters of the new universe are Goldman Sachs. They are everywhere and yet nowhere. Technocats with GS credentials can be found at the Federal Reserve, also in Italy and Greece, but look more closely they are everywhere and yet nowhere. The hypocrisy of investment banks and their dismantling of businesses is truly astonishing but it's called 'good' business, allowing for global stability. Greece and Italy and other nations in/outside EU have been victims of GS trade strategies (I should say that JPMorgan, Citigroup, MorganStanley do just the same amount of damage or thereabouts).

So I wondered who Osborne was going to name.......I choked at this point. A nice smooth chap with a crooked tie called Carney, a nice chap with Goldman Sachs credentials. Bloody marvellous and just to prove that DaveCam's hypocrisy knows no bounds the chap isn't even a Brit. He's Canadian so that's all right then. Let's all mount up and give him the red carpet.

But I do suspect that there were a few British bankers spluttering on their cigars at this juncture. Good old David Tomlinson from Mary Poppins Mr Carney is NOT.

Thanks for the opportunity Mr DaveCam!

ps One would think that with our education system someone else from Oxbridge (other than Carney) or even Eton or St Paul's might have been offered the job. Anyway my friend Fintag has met Carney and says he's a nice fellow so that's that then. Good luck Carney.....