What can we make of the week..... any new pleasure?

Seems after my first flurry of blogs there was a calm and lethargy in my willingness to seek clarity in my thinking............. I read all the news as usual and took some pride in seeing the future unfold well in line with how I had seen it..... I still believe we have more pain to come for sure. The bill for the extravagant exploitation of the property mortgage business is going to have to be paid. Of course, those that profitted directly from the development and sale of "TOXIC" assets should be accountable. But what about the foolish lemmings who paid the high property prices and conned into borrowing money that they could never repay!! It seems to be that all the socialists in the world will love to put all the blame on fat cats and now our politicians are seeking out the fat cats as the "real" enemy and scapegoats ! But in the whole scheme of things it has to be people's own stupidity and foolishness that made this happen. In my whole scheme of things it seems the blame can only fall on ourselves, even though we pay a high sum for those that govern to do so in our own interest. How come with all the brain power and money spent no one can see it coming !!!
I am thinking that many of the fat cats have lost one big part of their fortunes with the stock they held or were given as part of their remuneration. I guess many other people in the financial field have lost huge slices of the equity they probably thought was really safe. of course by far the lion's share of loses will be in all our pension schemes, but since that gave so small a return maybe some of it will still survive.

WOW - no wonder Epicureanism centres on good taste

A whole weekend of fantastic food and great wines.................. it really is the way to feel better and forget all the crisis and pain in the world.... but as usual think about it a little deeper..............!
Great food and wine needs an environment, atmosphere and someone to share with. Like a great painting or a perfect view it is the total that counts.......

Need some pleasure today to see such pain !

Well it is happening and the ripples have started...... now we shall see a whole bunch of banks have to write off the money they lent to Lehman's something like $4.8 billion of debt...... this is going to shake a few other banks such as Citicorp and others and this will dry up credit further .... look for the property sales now to cover short term holes with no buyers. The real pleasure is going to be a massive reduction in property prices that will release real income over time for us all who have paid reasonable prices for our property and not the speculators.

Rents will come down as office space becomes available and there is a scramble to try to fill them. The number of non productive finance jobs are going to shrink fast and hopefully permanantly now that this self serving business is damaged completely in its credibility and reputation. Some people say the skilled people released which will top 250,000 world wide may seek jobs in Russia and China, and hopefully this can weaken the pain for some. But really hopefully now the fund and wealth managers will have to work hard for a living and analyse grass roots companies with great assets capable of good cash generation. Steering away from growth that is just leveraged based and not revenue based.

I would not be investing in Chateau Petrus this year or the famous Roederer for Crystal Champagne. They are likey to be the first hit from the yuppies missing there huge take on sales of valueless instruments. Have to feel sorry for the small delis in New York with so many of the yuppies not taking their quick snack. However.if their fundamentals are right of great value and service they will keep their clients happy!

Pleasure in other peoples pain or foolishness?

The financial crisis - we are not done yet by any means with the pain

What a Sunday - Lehman Brothers struggling to find a suitor or the doors probably close on Monday their annual report in 2007 recording its book value at 24 billion dollars 28,000 plus employees worldwide. They proudly announced returns of 25% plus over the last years while doubling assets and increasing borrowings 4 fold. Now all the retained earnings wiped out and sitting on the doors of bancruptcy......................so interesting that their property portfolio is meant to be the saving grace. Watch now as no one wants it at the really knocked down prices. The cascade on property prices has only just started all this stuff coming on the market with few people capable or wanting to raise the money to buy them. Leverage is now really the dirty word - Leverage means also buy today and pay tomorrow. Well the first to pay are 28,000 employees then the rest of us will pick up the tab over time !

"The strength of Lehman Brothers’ culture has helped us to achieve wonderful success. Both our culture and our success depend on the quality and breadth of the people who are part of our Firm. It is critical that our organization continue the momentum to broaden the representation of our employees — to ensure that diversity of thought and perspective is brought to our clients. At Lehman Brothers, we see diversity as good business practice."

Richard S. Fuld, Jr. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

See what corporate gobbly gook this guy can come up with a few months ago....... if you read more on the Lehman Brothers web site it is enough to make you realise how lacking in credibility these peope are so proud of doing business with themselves, taking huge salaries and watching the world go by out of their office windows with no idea of what is around the corner when you can't support the debt you have ! They have won prizes and accolades from all the right places so what qualification have the judges got??

UBS the Swiss banking giant also used Sunday to announce yet another big slice of write off....enough rumours in switzerland of account holders quitting them in droves. Could it be another Swissair taking all its shareholders for a ride from bad management?
Meanwhile the travel industry starts its first wave of bankruptcies stranding the cheap ticket holidaymakers in the wake.........
I have a feeling we will see some major corporations that were bought and leveraged by the Private Equity companies being extremely vulnerable soon ...not able to support the huge debt they were saddled with while the Private Equity merchants tried to squeeze some more value out of them ! Not easy with the economic downturn already started and demand falling off. Without their cash flow and no funding from their parents from one day to the next they can shut the doors too. The pack of cards is wobbling........

I miss you.................who is to blame for smiling at this?

Epicureans the world over love the nice thoughts that go with "I miss you" ..it occurred to me that this is because its the sharing of pain...... someone said to me once (anonymous as usual) a problem shared is a problem halved....is the pleasure we get from hearing I miss you something to do with caring? Thought for the day !

A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down....

You really do have to laugh at this UK government launching a heat your granny initiative by forcing energy companies to give poor granny a loft insulation or shooting foam in her poor cavaties...... I can see everyone wheeling granny around to all the families houses to get a bit of glass fibre put in the roof. Whoever would have thought that there are so many poor grannies in the uk who can't keep their houses warm that will cost $2 billion !!! Of course as usual coz of overspending and poor management this money is not coming from the Exchequer its coming from a "socialist" tax on the easy political target and common enemy of energy companies who may well have been managed extremely well !!

So lets all have warm a granny week in mid Novemberand lament that they can't sell their old cold houses now in this economic depression and move in with their loving families....just a quick calculation would show that if they got organised and charged a good rate for insultation there are 10,000,000 cold grannies in UK.

Politics !!! You can fool half the people half the time but never all the people for long !!! Something like that .....

In the meantime, the extra tax dollars mount up from the high price of fuel !! I am sure Brown is trying to get his hands on some for his next election war chest !

Not a lot of laughs today...... I will have to get some pleasure out of a good glass of Argentine wine.

Pleasure is where you find it

The theme for tonight follows my provocation of who took the pleasure out of life.......the answer no one. It is sometimes we just need to find the pleasurable aspects that are everyday in our lives. Friendship, a glass of superbly made wine, a smile for and from the girl in the shop (very rare) a magnificent sunset ......so many things ! My mother the great philosopher Gwen said......it's in the good book "be thankful for small mercys"! As I have been writing a few blogging thoughts now, it seems to me we can find pleasure in almost anything when we want to. We can decide to look for it or not. It really still is a fantastic world with great opportunities in all the difficulties and it seems a very useful anecdotal phrase that "we get out what we put in".

Epicurus saying of "pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily" is linking the sense with a concept, the feeling of pleasure and satisfaction defines the boundaries of the happiness concept. It would suggest that if you have to search and find pleasure then you will be happy.

I read recently, I can't tell you where but its not from me, that the happiest people are people who care for someone. Caring is really a great concept. If you care what happens you seek pleasure. When you don't care you create pain.

So here is to caring what happens to our family and friends and the planet coz its the greatest pleasure we can have. Here is to caring about who manages our assets and our countries and making sure they do a good job. Getting to care about things has to be a great pleasure. Here is to caring about all the tiny details that create pleasure and making sure we miss no opportunity to care more.
Nice thought for the day.

It is really a great pleasure to hear a politician tell the truth

It was with extreme pleasure that I heard the black browed Darling UK Minister for the Economy start to point the finger at the hugely overpaid, non productive, commission driven bankers who fueled this tempest with cheap credit and risk on the markets. Although, as all good politicians, particularly socialists, it was full of rhetoric and patronising emptyness without any clear proposals. In particular, to combat the illness of the financial service industry dressing up a pigs ear into a silk purse for un-educated investors, doing business with themselves at the expense of the small pension holders with impunity. Darling is always labelled as the blunder maker by simply telling the truth ! Is it really true that the foolish masses just can not handle the truth of the matter? To reiterate for those that have not understood, we are in a major financial crisis of confidence with a system full of extremely bad practices managed and regulated by itself. Time to clean out the mess and self serving industries that can not be trusted while we have the pain of paying the bill !

10 billion dollars of pure pleasure

It has started, 10 billion dollars of visionary spending to create miniature black holes below the land at the swiss-french border. Absolute delight from technicians that have spent decennies planning and thinking about these minute "God" like particles responsible for our existence.
Many people will not understand the joy and pleasure of having such a toy called a Large Hadon Collider looking for a Bosun and his mate ! It is hats off to humanity that we can all be proud to support such ventures that can provide us with more of the knowledge of the universe which is in each and every one of us but we can't get to it and unlock the clue.

Big smiles and share your pleasure brave scientists..... adorable

Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.

Epicurus coined this beautiful quote when he talked about love. So who is really to blame for taking the pleasure out of life? My mother said "pleasure is where you find it" so maybe we are all to blame for not looking hard enough. It can simply be that sometimes we really do need pain to force us to look ! This has to be the theme for tomorrow !!

In the meantime have to use another quote from Epicurus "The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live". Is there any relationship between foolishness and pleasure ? Thought for the day....

"When you know nothing anything is possible......." (It is not original I stole it from one of those great influencers in my life who I have forgotten) I have to confess I have never had one original thought in my life but somewhere I manage to put the thoughts of others into a new context that can be very satisfying.

It's late, time for dreams and smile in the night of pleasurable things !

Some pleasure about the world today

Well Epicureans can have pleasure in finding who is to blame ! Epicureans believe a moment of pleasure can kill days or even weeks of pain. It is a philosophy that is so much fun but how much pleasure can one get out of someone else's pain? Seems we humans have a real thing about others who are in pain; maybe it is this that drives a world where in fact it seems that some people can only move forward at the expense of someone else ! As long as they are faceless we can all accept it.
But right now I am thinking of a friend who fell in the street twice in succession and I had to laugh for days about it....... Epicureans are human ! Laughter is one of the greatest pleasures for man and we forget to do it. Men who make women laugh are the most successful lovers. It is about time our governments and our politicians gave us laughter and not just bland rhetoric based on patronism and patriotism.
Hopefully voters you can have the last laugh !

The big bail out

Well another day of interesting news on the world economy with now the USA government prepared to hold up the inflated cost of housing supporting property developers and banks at the taxpayers expense. At least we see the top Executives of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae losing their jobs these six figure merchants have at least paid the price ( hopefully) of dreadful management and for ruining so many peoples lives by lending them more money than they could possibly pay back ! Irresponsible bankers should be sued for professional negligence and I hope some of them are !!

But not finished yet......many people think it is just the very poor that are getting their houses repossessed in fact they are ones that got the furniture paid for with the 125% mortgages they were sold. Hopefully they have been able to take the furniture away and use it in their new rented houses at lower cost. It will now be the big houses 5 , 10 million dollar places bought by the yuppies that earnt so much money trading the criminal financial instruments. Passing on the bad debts to the small investors and pension holders. I really hope this housing crisis grows world wide and people realize that saving and investment in real producing assets has value for them and their country. Holding a house should be just like a car. Nothing more and nothing less. Any local jurisdiction that deliberatley is limiting land availability to permit reasonable priced housing is criminal in my opinion.

And good luck yuppies that the gravy train comes to an end and people look for really productive work and not just mixing up the same debt basket and selling it on.... hopefully now we will see a major shift to those that save will earn the most.
In the meantime get ready banks for the next phase when people really accept to lose the money on housing and another 30 or 40 percent of the loans are supported by negative equity. Watch now that the individual mounts class action suits to not pay the debt if you start to make deals with some mortgage holders and not others.

I am so interested to see one day that a whole raft of mortgage holders ask for their debt to be reduced by half ! It can happen.

More economic woes - inflation and strike action

Who is to blame for inflation???

Inflation is also an illness of debt and over spending and consumption. Can always blame the chinese for consuming now, can blame the arabs and russians for exploiting their resources but the real blame still lies with people who can not resist to consume above their means and demanding that their governments do the same. Any country with debts and a poor balance of payments will have inflation since the currency will devalue and it costs more and more for imported goods. Who is responsible for borrowing more and more and spending more than they can earn? Then expecting the government to help them out? The ignorant masses of people who spend like there was no tomorrow!!! Who pays the bill? The same people all the time....those that have saved and pay taxes and work their butt off only to see the socially needy and their government waste it. Then who goes on strike...the public service workers who are all paid by taxpayers !!! No wonder taxpayers just up and leave the country! Vicious circle and spiral downwards?? There is a lot to start thinking that one man one vote is an out of date system that just puts the power into the hands of ignorant people who can not understand what a budget is and who can not control consumption. Least of all those that think that the government is there just to give hand outs and not to plan an economical environment that makes and generates real wealth and expertise in a competitive world. 60% of the wealth in the UK is in totally non productive property inflated by politics of rarity and assumed by the ignorant to be a valuable asset. It is indispensible to have somewhere to live and thats what it is worth. No more no less. Better push some of the asset values back into making things and being competitive ! Where is real management of a country ..... ?? Surely it is the worst kind of conflict of interest when the voters (shareholders) put in a government that just pays out and collects taxes with no idea on what to do about making a country pay for what it wants!

Economic Woes

Who is to blame for our economic downturn now? Who is to blame for the mortgage and credit crisis and who will pay the bill?

In short men are to blame for being too weak to say no to women who have no idea of the value of anything they want ! What is the amount people should pay for a home? It shouldn't be difficult to work out - building costs per sq ft plus the land? Who makes the land costs? Who is responsible for making a shortage or influencing the price? For so many other things we look around and find out what things really should cost and what is the value and we look carefully and before we buy anything we should know who and what is influencing the price we have to pay!
For sure if we don't buy at the stupid prices then the price will go down !
Clearly if man was man he should say NO when a price is too high ...but what do we do, we try to please our (moaning and bleating) woman who just says everyone is paying that price so we must pay it ! Furthermore because jo bloggs can afford it we can. Totally illogical.
Worst of all of course is the financial system that allows joe bloggs and everyone else to borrow money they can't afford earn incredible commissions then pass the whole thing on as a valuable investment to YOUR own pension fund. You pay friends for ignorance and not finding out the true real value and price for thngs before you buy! It is political will to make you feel rich from the value of your house - a piece of land and bricks should be cheap. Don't be fooled by politicians, property developers, banks and your wife. Your house should never cost you more than 25% of your disposable income. If it does .......live with your parents til the price comes down.

In the beginning.....

Right in the beginning I was taught there has to be a reason for things, later it was for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, now there are so many variables at play we have to go back to basics. Gut feel !
Say it as it is......be provocative and test the theory. Thats my basic idea here. The only rules should be that the logic and rationale hold together. Please comment and tell me when I am irrationale and then the philosophical debate can start.