Would You All Just Calm the Fuck Down
Mrs. Toad is back from touring God Bless America with her Shiny Shiny Job and she has characterised the mood amongst the financial people she met there as being pretty much like so: “AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! The world is fucking ending, run everyone run. Fuck the women and children, save yourselves!”
I am slowly but surely starting to find this sort of shit deeply fucking irritating. It is exactly this hysterical herd mentality that got us into this sort of shit in the first place. These fuckwits don’t perform ‘analysis’ as they like to boast, they basically act like a school of fish and cluelessly swim in vaguely the same direction as their neighbours, all the while pretending it is part of some sort of complicated strategy.
Whenever I ask how exactly it is that these bovine cretins make quite so much wedge I hear the idiotic bleat ‘oh yes, but you must understand, I have the responsibility of handling millions of pounds of other people’s money’. As if handling other people’s money was in some way the same as handling other people’s money responsibly and effectively.
The Bank of Scotland just sent me a letter telling me that they were increasing the limit on my credit card by a thousand pounds. A thousand pounds which I never asked for and which one would assume they could not fucking afford. Oh but wait, the government has just handed the banks billions of pounds of, erm, my money, which they have generously packaged up and sold back to me, presumably adding a big fat commission to their personal champagne fund in the process. The worst of it is that keeping the money markets liquid was absolutely essential, and there weren’t a lot of obviously better ways to do it, but watching the same old same old come around again as soon as these buffoons get their melodramatic caterwauling under control is far from amusing.
How do things like boom and bust happen then? Basically everybody in the financial sector gets massively over-excited about something. Then the fucking herd mentality sets in, because all these morons’ pals are getting excited about the same damn thing, and there commences an incoherent, animalistic frenzy based on no more than human beings’ pathetic herd mentality. Then the value gets so ridiculously over-inflated by all this idiotic screaming, until someone finally notices that no amount of squealing and snorting at the great trough of fiscal hyperbole actually makes a fucking Kinder Egg worth fifty million pounds. At which point everyone panics and runs away as fast they can, whilst making equally stupid pronouncements along the lines that no-one will ever eat a Kinder fucking Egg ever again and that it was all our fault for finding them tasty in the first place.
All of which is fine, of course, because finance is difficult and people, generally, are not very bright. Except, of course, for the smug, self-satisfied nature of the chiselling avarice of these fucking whores. You are no better than fucking bin men you useless cunts, irrespective of how expensively you dress, so you can stop pretending to be anything other than vacuous fucking sheep. All this pretence of strategy and deep understanding of something so subtle and so complicated that it is clearly, clearly beyond the grasp of us mere mortals was irritating enough to begin with, but given that it has now been exposed for the extremely fucking obvious fraud that it was, it is even worse. I am not listening to any more pompous puffery from people who clearly have no better idea what they are doing than a flock of fucking pigeons.
If the financial services were more populated by the competent, rather than fat-tongued Yahs who manage to render the disadvantage of spectacular mental dullness irrelevant by having cunningly been sent to the right school, then I might find this whole pig’s ear less depressing. As it is, when the response to a disaster caused by years of their own gloriously frantic me-too flailing is this sort of nonsense, then I get annoyed: that there will never be such a thing as growth ever again; that this is worse than the Great Depression. Anyone who actually had to live through the Great Depression will be either laughing their arses off or crying into their beer.
Sorry, there were no coherent arguments there, just a depressed desire for all this wailing and gnashing of teeth to fucking stop, and for people to get their shit together, calm themselves down and get back to doing their jobs. Sadly, that will have to mean doing them as badly as they did them before, but it would at least be better than watching them all soiling their plus-fours and acting like spoiled children. This inability to dredge up even a splinter of mature reflection and use your brains is not only making things much worse just in itself, but is exactly the reason we are in this mess to begin with. Stop crying, you fucking babies, and get back to fucking work.
King Creosote – You’ve No Clue Do You?
Bob Dylan – Idiot Wind
P.S. Mrs. Toad is not a financial type, she just manages them, so I am not having a go at her, before anyone says anything (or she threatens me with castration).
There is a silver lining to every cloud.
Have you noticed any front page Diana stories since the markets went tits up? No, not one. Not even in the Daily Mail which now alternates between Doom, Fraud, Recession, Poverty and an in depth Pointing The Finger.
No Diana. No Madass Momo Fayed. Is recession fucking great or what?
BTW – I defy anyone to find a better housing crash picture than this 8 for sale signs in a row:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/oct/21/property-house-prices
Imagine how monumental something must be to drag them away from their ghoulish Diana fetish. Ah well, at least we now know it’s all the fault of illegal immigrants, which is reassuring.
Idiot Wind is a good choice to accompany this post:
Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You’re an idiot, babe.
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
A more succint and entertaining analysis of the current state of fiscal affairs I have yet to read. Bravo!
oh, and one thing that’s always bugged me abot that King Creosote track is that, grammatically speaking, it should be ‘You’ve No Clue Have You?’ A pedantically annoying point, I’ll admit, but it always niggles at me when I listen to it. I know grammar shouldn’t get in the way of appreciating a bit of music, but, sometimes it just does. Still, it’s not nearly as irritating as Macca’s ‘Live and Let Die’ where he says, ‘But in this ever changing world in which we live in’
Somewhat light on analysis unfortunately, but then I know very little about how the world of finance works. Not that this seems to be much of a barrier.
Morning everybody….happy happy joy joy
anyway if anyone is having any housing issues/difficulties you can find loads of advice and helpful tips on topics ranging from homelessness to mortgage arrears
http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/getadvice
That’s all the qualification you need to work as a stockbroker.
Or Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Or businees correspondant for any large media outlet.
Well I’m not even the business correspondent for my own publication – that’s the wench, that is.
Do you have a large media outlet then, Matthew?
Even. Note the word even.
My media outlet’s never fucking shut, that’s half my problem. Especially after a few pints.
Well castration solves a multitude of problems then doesn’t it? :-p
I think Matthew missed the innuendo there, Tart.
He can’t have watched many ‘Carry On’ films growing up.
But seriously, I’ve stopped worrying about the economy now that I’ve realized my broker has sold off nearly all my stock, I’ve lost 70% of my holdings and am as poor as I was 10 years ago and although immensely more educated, nearly jobless. What has my increase in social status brought me but a taste for Kinder eggs which across the pond are a sort of delicacy oddly enough. And people who had to live through the Great Depression are voting for Obama in droves if the polls will accept them.
Yeah, the Republican drive to knacker the democratic process is pretty impressive. They aren’t much different from your average fucking drug cartel in that sense.
I am genuinely happy Mrs T isnt affected by it all – I almost dropped you a note the other day asking if all was fine.
Being an economist is akin to being an astrologer….there’s just no way you can predict the future with any degree of accuracy. And besides, Mystic Meg has probably got a better track record.
Incidentally, the late Mick McGahey (former leader of the Miners’ Union) once said it was his burning ambition to meet an econmist who had somehow lost an arm, as in his experience thay always wouldsay at som epoint in the conversation “Well, on the one hand……..’
Hee hee. Excellent.
And no, Mrs. Toad seems fine for now. Not that you can know what’s around the corner when shit like this is going on. But for now everything’s cool, thanks.
Yeah, the Republican drive to knacker the democratic process is pretty impressive. They aren’t much different from your average fucking drug cartel in that sense.
– Their latest assertions that America will be more like to suffer at worst a terrorist attack; or at best a challenge from a foreign power – all within six months is testament to this.
I bet they are secretly really hoping bogey man Osama will make a few threats in the press soon. Won’t hurt them in the polls. Especially as I wonder how many know the difference between Obama and Osama – ok that’s predictable stereotyping (love to see the stats though).
I’m still disappointed that the Georgia (USA) militia didn’t start shooting up gas stations when the Russians invaded Georgia (Eurasia). It just goes to show, right wing wingnuts are smarter than you think. Not that much smarter mind.
There are dark warnings being released about how the high voter turnout could cause “voting irregularities”. Maybe they should try that indelible purple ink stamp they used in Iraq. Mind you, it would have to be pretty bloody irregular to justify gifting a McCain victory at this stage….wouldn’t it?
It was pretty bloody irregular last time….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_voting_controversies
Back on original topic…
I’m an analyst although I don’t think I have a thick tongue, an oxbridge/eton accent or make enough wedge to class myself as a bovine cretin.
You can probably blame the financial press for much of the hysteria that has been stirred up around all this. However humans are humans whether they are intelligent and motivated or not so fear and crowd mentality are pretty irresistable forces. No matter what fundamentals about a company are telling you if you think its quite likely that if you don’t dump HBOS then it will be worth nothing tomorrow then you’ve got to sell it.
Bubbles are very complicated things to predict and to control, how many times have politicians tried. Mr “the end to boom and bust” Brown for example – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article4798976.ece
Actually the source of many of these bubbles is often created by politicians. r.g. Clinton administration filing lawsuits vs the US Banks for discriminating against minorities for not giving them access to mortgage financing. This got the whole sub-prime ball rolling.
http://www.ickypeople.com/2008/04/bill-clinton-major-part-in-subprime.html
Oh and Fannie Mae?
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
The government did nothing to curb the housing bubble and we’ve had people planning to retire on their buy to let property empires these school teachers that own multiple properties – the world went mad. Though for a while some of these people did very well and if they got out at the right time they were pretty much set, TV is still showing a diahorrea of home improvement shows last time I checked
That’s the thing with a bubble though if you don’t join in you get left behind and so do your investors. So unless you find a way to prick the bubble before it burst its kind of irresistable. Theres no point standing there saying I don’t think this Kinder egg is work £10 when you might be able to sell it for £20 next week.
Mr Toad will love the fact that you’ve taken the rational appoach with his life savings though and bought creme eggs instead.
Oh and we’re overexcited because it affects our futures and our children’s futures. The great depression is hopefully a bit strong but these things are all relative to your starting point and in the West we have quite a high starting point. We may not be in queues for bread but in the developing world I think the situation may be startlingly different. Oh they’re not my children though sorry I shouldn’t give a shit about them should I – not in my line of work.
Funny that the phrase “you don’t know what it’s like to handle millions of dollars’ and so forth is never countered with the phrase “well then you should bloody know better shouldn’t you”.
Dear Jon, not wishing to be a twat, I am glad you commented. The tension you describe between actual thinking and herd instinct pretty much affects all of us every day. We can talk a good game, but ultimately no matter how clever a species we think we are, we are incredibly limited, as animals go.
We know that we are exhausting the planet’s resources, but no-one will ever reduce their red meat intake just for that. Everyone in finance involed in creating the bubble must have known it was a bubble, long before it burst. What it comes down to is the fact that we are a herd animal, and despite our ludicrous boasts about the size of our brains, we are basically just sheep – all of us.
The same instinct that saw financiers create the bubble from which we are now suffering is identical to the bubble that creates media hysteria around a shit new band – no-one wants to be last and no one wants to miss out.
And of course, the partisan question. The Blair/Clinton axis has massve resonsibility for this crisis. Incidentally, the same resonsibility that Obama will be taking on, because he is the same kind of charismatic, populist economic conservative that Blair was. That Clinton was, And that Brown is, The left in America may be in for a disappointment f they elect Obama, but McCain has so little to offer that they would appear to be better off with disappointment than complete disaster.
The main problem is that governments are elected for short periods whereas people really have to invest over long ones for a decent retirement.
Consequently, Brown’s short term decisions like plundering tax credits from UK pension funds and creating SIPPs (Self investment pension Plans) saw investors make an entirely rational choice to react to the devaluation of their future returns from equities (the tax credit may not have been huge but compounding is powerful) by buying alternative assets to fund their retirement.
Given that long run returns from property exceed short term financing costs, that property is a familiar asset and that households can gear up to acquire it (try going to your bank manager and telling him you want to borrow £180,000 to invest in equities for 25 years and see how far you get) and that they have to live somewhere anyway, for many it appears the ideal nest egg solution. households don’t think about opportunity cost and risk they way that economists do, otrherwise our rental sector would be a hell of a lot bigger.
The intangible, relative benefits of owning a home in the UK (not sure re US) have also been increased by the successive attempts by the landlord lobby to undermine security of tenure. In many European companies, long term unfurnished lets with discretion over decor etc are common. Many German people never own a home whereas in the UK, short assured tenancies with 1 month notice are prevalent in the private sector.
The intangible benefits of course, turn out to be a kick in the nuts when you are 30% underwater and need to move 100 miles to replace the job that you have just been canned from. Our addiction to home ownershio exacerbates our inability to maintain labour mobility at a level to cope with inevitable periods of economic stress and perpetuates pockets of unemployment in hard hit areas.
However, the “getting on the ladder” urge remains a key part of the british mindest regardless and most government policies perpetuate rather than erode this. Why not tax houses just like other capital assets and give tax incentives to focus people on more diversified savings packages? Then landlords and houseowners would focus on present value and yield a lot more than capital gains from property.
Dear Toad,
Is it me, or do you tend to stick Idiot Wind at the end of your post everytime you get a bit angry at someone?
(a great song for angry days)
Blimey. Can’t compete with Mrs Toad. But could I point out that the financial deregulation that in part underlies the problems we have been having, in the UK at least, have roots far beyond the current administration, going at least as far back as the Big Bang of the stock markets in the 1980s and the start of a deregulatory approach to financial services. these are the same financial services who are blaming Government/regulator inaction on both sides of the Atlantic that spent the last twenty years bleating about over-burdensome regulation and threatening to quit the UK if they weren’t so ‘oppressed’ by Government. And in the UK, the Tories were on the deregulatroy kick even very recently.
Petro – you’re quite right, I think I have done this more than once. I have been trying to steer clear of Billy Bragg because I overused his stuff on ranty posts for a bit, but it seems I am now erring in the other direction.
Ted, well free market fundamentalists tend to assume that rules governing competition are bad in and of themselves. I think there is only one way to characterise these people: a hopelessy naive bunch of idiots.
I imagine Mrs Toad will be gutted that Fayed has found another way to get himself on the front pages again! Jeez, how publicity-hungry must that guy be? WIll he stop at nothing to get in the Daily Mail???
Oh yes, she’ll be delighted.
I’m inclined to agree with you, if it were a perfect world, without religion, fraudsters or self serving politicians we would need no rules governing competition, there’s always going to be a few who ruin it for everybody else, that’s life I suppose.
The danger as I see it is the government get into their heads that everything needs regulated. Just get CDS market sorted out (if there is one going forward), ban self certification mortgages and only allow a portion of the debt you securitise to be passed onto 3rd parties, keeping the remainer on your books. Rather than the whole obfuscated mess going round the washing machine at 1400rpm.
Also, please to god Gordon Brown, don’t go the way you’re heading and start to believe that the government is an efficient allocator of capital.
As said in this article http://cityunslicker.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-do-we-get-for-our-recession.html we do not need “Equality advisers, firework officers and wheelie bin detectives.”
Or maybe the New deal could be a computer for every home. Mind you Hitler coined that type of idea after the last depression with a VW for every home.
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