Since my last post in December I haven't posted a blog either on Enterprise Britain or Hoblyn & King so apologies for the apparent arid writing conditions but I do have a confession to make and a sort of (poor) excuse.
As predicted by H&K for some years things everywhere appear to be going from bad to worse. Of course there are quite a few new age "wealth" managers and their clients extremely happy with the performance of most western indices but even Bloomberg has considered that there has been a great disconnect between Wall Street and the real economy referred as Main Street.The nub of the problem is that there is a vast swathe of FINANCIAL REPRESSION occurring daily and many people haven't even noticed.
Have the recent events in Cyprus surprised me? A. No......many observers have predicted this. Asset grabs are the order of the day as the EU turns many of us into ZOMBIES daily. Repression can come in many forms. It can be outrageous taxes (as prescribed by the EU over Cyprus), excessive and pointless REGULATION (the 'R' word in my judgment IS the problem everywhere), too much assistance to Public Employees (over Private Enterprise), bad and creative accounting, bad and creative spinning of newsflow, hypocrisy, lies and corruption supported by newswires....need I go on (?).
In the City there is a constant debate about RDR, charging, FSCS, the 3 new hydra regulators, derivatives, accounting practices and everyone with a position in a regulated entity seems to have flown the white flag over the COST versus BENEFIT ratio. For record at least 10% of brokerage income & fees is sliced towards 'R'. Thousands of ZOMBIES are working for the regulators and compliance departments and '000s more are earning a living from training people in the ZOMBIE universe, enforcing CPD etc...it's all totally pointless but creates '000s more of pointless jobs. My partner keeps reminding me that this is exactly how USSR prospered until its eventual demise.
Hasn't anyone in government (what government?) or the financial media considered that the British economy ignited during the Industrial Revolution WITHOUT 'R'? Historically NO investors were ever protected through support mechanism's, too big to fail policies (but smaller enough to steal from- SEE CYPRUS) and yet today an entire industry is telling everyone that "PROTECTION" works.
(Editor's note; when President Reagan was shot some years ago a popular song was called 'Protection' by Graham Parker & the Rumour...the catch went ....."you can't get, you can't get, you can't get NO protection....protection.")
Well I've got news for you ALL. Protection doesn't work when the economy has been zombified, when there's NO money around, jobs are being exterminated and growth is zero to negative, inflation is reported at 2.8% (9 month high -ONS), real inflation is closer to 10%, interest rates are geared to protecting (?) the zombified over-geared crowd but NOT savers and zero-debt citizens, when exchanges are dismantled for regulatory rhetoric and everyone is looking at a crooked mirror.
The crazy side show to all of this QE, quasi Keynsian policies, etc is that governments support bankers (more bonuses), governments support regulators (more compliance, paper & bonuses), governments support each other, governments don't create jobs, governments don't save because austerity is a mirage, governments are running scared which is why Cameron has sent a RAF aircraft with Euros1 million for "our/their" 3,000 troops but no confetti for 60,000 ex-pats........
The establishment is supporting itself BUT not the economy.
There is an economic war going on. It is not between LEFT & RIGHT, left of centre v. right of left of centre (5 3 2, 4 4 2, 4 3 3), labour v. tory, liberal v. loony, catholics v. protestants, monarchists v. anarchists, red rose v. white rose, republican roundhead v. cavalier.....it is a war between RIGHT & WRONG...market believers v. market destroyers..the old economy and the new economy, old politics & new politics, environmentalists v. quasi environmentalists, humans v. zombies.......the nearest I can come up with is doers v. non-doers.
Governments have turned me into a ZOMBIE but I'm fighting back....(my excuse)
Twitter: CoeurDeLion
LONG: Longbows and arrows, gold, idealogy
SHORT: markets, bureaucracy, REGULATORS, the NEW regulated press
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