Saturday Musings
The great illusion those that work in the stock market have is that risk can be controlled, that they will find some magic trick to keep the money flowing and each time it proves a load of nonsense and we end up where we are today.
the conclusion is that the markets are more instinctive than rational, staggering volatile and driven by herd mentality, short-terminism and greed, always have been, you only need to study the Tulip bubble in the 17th century, or the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998 but most city boys are under 30 and have probably never experience a recession, and each time they promise that 'it'll be different' and this has proven yet again to be a massive delusion, they just don't learn.
You can't do much about greed, because that will always be there but it is much worse when combined with stupidity.
The last time Britain was in a recession it lasted 15 months, so it is sure to be around the same and even longer this time.
Its such a joke, when Gordon Brown was Chancellor his belief in 'light touch' (read no regulation at all) has contributed to the current mess the UK is in. It was such a stupid idea to let the banks police themseleves, you'd have to be a serious moron to believe that they would be capable of restraint. Compare this situation to Spanish banks, which had much tighter regulation and thus avoided bad loans, the Spanish economy is not a picture of health but their banks are largely still standing.
People like Nouriel Roubini, Lib Dem MP Vince Cable etc. warned about this for months but were either ostracized or laughed at. But they proved to be true, they may not of been able to predict when but they could predict that it would happen.
I have a very simple solution, tax the super rich and stop giving them a free pass. I mean surely if your filthy rich you would not really miss some of your money being taxed, it hardly makes a ripple. But I forget that's how they got filthy rich in the first place, by avoiding tax and opening up a Cayman Islands account.
Further Reading
The Crisis Reaches the Master Class
David Osler - Britain in recession: time to debate ideological basics
'The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent' John Maynard Keynes
The great illusion those that work in the stock market have is that risk can be controlled, that they will find some magic trick to keep the money flowing and each time it proves a load of nonsense and we end up where we are today.
the conclusion is that the markets are more instinctive than rational, staggering volatile and driven by herd mentality, short-terminism and greed, always have been, you only need to study the Tulip bubble in the 17th century, or the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998 but most city boys are under 30 and have probably never experience a recession, and each time they promise that 'it'll be different' and this has proven yet again to be a massive delusion, they just don't learn.
You can't do much about greed, because that will always be there but it is much worse when combined with stupidity.
The last time Britain was in a recession it lasted 15 months, so it is sure to be around the same and even longer this time.
Its such a joke, when Gordon Brown was Chancellor his belief in 'light touch' (read no regulation at all) has contributed to the current mess the UK is in. It was such a stupid idea to let the banks police themseleves, you'd have to be a serious moron to believe that they would be capable of restraint. Compare this situation to Spanish banks, which had much tighter regulation and thus avoided bad loans, the Spanish economy is not a picture of health but their banks are largely still standing.
People like Nouriel Roubini, Lib Dem MP Vince Cable etc. warned about this for months but were either ostracized or laughed at. But they proved to be true, they may not of been able to predict when but they could predict that it would happen.
I have a very simple solution, tax the super rich and stop giving them a free pass. I mean surely if your filthy rich you would not really miss some of your money being taxed, it hardly makes a ripple. But I forget that's how they got filthy rich in the first place, by avoiding tax and opening up a Cayman Islands account.
Further Reading
The Crisis Reaches the Master Class
David Osler - Britain in recession: time to debate ideological basics
Labels: Econmics, Finance, Recession, Stock Market
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