Miles Away

Not everyone would base a short break on a distant Ham Festival but this blogger did. And either "Durante el tercer fin de semana de octubre de cada año" on the Aracena Ayuntamiento's website doesn't mean what I thought or one of us got the dates mixed up. Whatever, having driven deep into darkest Extramadura from Malaga Airport, the annual Feria Regional del Jamon y del Cerdo Iberico turned out to be a no-show. So faced with another cold night in the Alcatraz-like hotel I'd booked and minus an attraction to make the experience worthwhile, we checked out hurriedly and blazed south to the warmer and more welcoming climes of Jerez, knowing that there we'd be assured of a perfect stay there thanks to the ubiquitous influence of its Alcaldesa.

OK, I know appearances aren't supposed to mean everything. But doesn't Senora Pilar Sánchez Muñoz (left) look like the kind of Mayor who could be trusted make sure that if it said there was going to be a Ham Fair on the third weekend of Oct., a Ham Fair there would be - or else. And an elegant, sensible, properly-run affair it would be too. Just like Jerez itself, in fact.

If I say that, these days, Jerez looks like the sort of place someone like Senora Pilar would be happy in - I'd mean it as a compliment. Bright clean plazas, great service and food in bars and restaurants from the humblest up, no drunks, no vomit-stained pavements. And I like her latest innovation - instead of a flashing light that makes you dither nervously about whether to run-walk across junctions to avoid being mowed down by eagerly revving drivers waiting to beat each other to the green light, there's now a second-by-second countdown giving you a fair chance to work out whether you can do the 30 metres in Sub-Olympic standard or die in the attempt.

Bugger policies. I'm going to treat politics as a beauty contest from now on. Otherwise we finish up with horrible old tarts like Jaqui Smith, who looks as if she owes her flopping cleavage to an excessive taste for kebabs and still is clueless. Time to stop being tactful about appearance and go for the lookers. Give me fragrant Alcaldesa Pilar and pistol-packin' VPILF Sarah Palin, every time. At least they improve the scenery.

It's ever so easy (part 2)

"As the slow-motion train wreck in our financial system continues to unfold, there are going to be plenty of ill-conceived rescue attempts and dubious turnaround plans, as well as propagandizing, dissembling and scheming by banks, regulators and politicians. This is all happening in an effort to try and buy time or to figure out how the losses can be dumped onto the lap of some patsy (e.g., the taxpayer)." Dr Ellen Brown. 11 April 2008

Poker is a zero-sum game. Five players of equal skill, with equal stakes can, with an equal fall of the cards, play until kingdom come and finish up neither richer nor poorer. The only way pros can make money is to introduce a new sucker every now and again, and strip him of his stash.

Banks only exist, like any business, to sell a product - in their case they are selling money. And in an ideal world, banks would take my surplus earnings, lend them to you at a small profit, and pay me a modest interest for my trouble. Of course, this would mean that they were constrained in their lending by the amount of available savings and would effectively be playing 'zero sum'. To become infinitely more profitable, they must produce cash by loaning more of it than they hold in deposits - which, in theory, leads to a limitless supply. All you need is a printing press, and Governments have been more than willing to lend them theirs - the more money there is in circulation, the more there is for hospitals and schools and all the other things politicians love to boast about.

In fact, banks have produced so much of the stuff, that as well as us all having more of it to spend than at any time in history, there's more of it about than the entire earnings of the whole world for the next 5 (10, 50, 100, pick any number) years.

The article quoted at the top explains how the trick has been done far better than I could. And there is more - deregulation of derivatives and futures markets means that nobody cares what the actual price of any commodity is as long as they can bet on it going up or down. Only a few years ago, if you traded in Chicago Pork Bellies, they'd drop on your doorstep one day if you didn't get out of the market soon enough - contract was tied to delivery. This is no longer the case - when oil futures reached $140 in unregulated markets, there were more contracts than real barrels of the stuff. Traders were dealing in only paper, betting against each other on the rising price of a purely notional entity. Now, sure enough, spot prices have collapsed dragging the share prices of oil companies, and the Dow itself, with them. Because of course, when Indices were at their highest a few short months ago, these too were cranked up just like commodities, having no real regard for their underlying values as dividend vehicles.

None of this has ever been a particularly arcane secret from followers of the Markets. But what we outsiders never knew was the scale of the scam - just how shaky the teetering pile had become and, in particular, the tipping point at which the inevitable crash would come. But how conceivable is it that our leaders were out of the loop? Wouldn't the BoE, ECB, Fed, all kinds of regulators like the FSA... mandarins at HM Treasury, US Treasury, World Bank... wouldn't they know about this flimsy mountain of paper that would bring down the world's financial system as soon as the banjo-twangers started to default on their mortgages, sending whole countries into bankruptcy. And wouldn't they have mentioned it to Brown?

Brown knew alright. He must have done. Nobody could spend so much time as Chancellor and be unaware of what was coming down the track. At best he was twiddling his thumbs, hoping for the best. At worst he was paralysed, waiting for the wreck so that he could strut the stage as Dr Ellen predicts, making the grand and hollow gestures we're enduring now. Even if it took him until Northern Rock went under to find out, he's known what was wrong and done absolutely nothing to mend the rotten system which he is as culpable as anyone of enhancing for his short-term ends and the enrichment of his cronies.

Theories abound. It's all a plot by the Bilderbergers/Illuminati/Rockefellers/Shapeshifters/ to bring about the New World Order. Who knows... so mote it be, for all I know. What I do know is that if things get as bad as they could conceivably do - with mass unemployment and shortages of vital supplies caused by a worldwide breakdown of trade, then I hope Brown, the cowardly runt, is among the first targets of the angry mob.

Easy money

Speaking of lovely people running friendly banks.... The Bradford and Bingley is currently putting out an ad fronted by the hottie on the right, where a Dad is swaying contentedly in his garden hammock while two little girls play happily around him. The slogan: Rest Assured with the B & B.

Not if he's seen the share price, he won't. At 18.5p as I write, it's down 20% again today and languishing from a high a year ago of about £3. All due to management gambling on the housing bubble never bursting, of course. If he took the trouble to think about this - and maybe conclude that the bank will survive against the odds - he'd be better off buying the shares and punting on a recovery rather than leaving his cash gathering dust in one of their accounts. Not that he'd relax much if he did. It's about as safe as a Chinese milkshake. Nevertheless, I've invested. Gulp.

New Improved Labour

Ah, the Halifax in its heyday. When Howard was cheerfully asking us to pop our nest-eggs into his branch to be looked after by his chums, we could relax safe in the knowledge that a nice bloke like him would be careful where he put them. His was the face of a warm cuddly bank made up of solid Northerners - people who invested our savings wisely then went to bed early with a cup of cocoa. How could we have known what was really happening?

Now that the cat's out of the bag, now that we know that it wasn't Howard at all who was looking after our pennies, that it was nasty Southerners in red braces all along, buying up toxic mortgages owed by web-fingered dirt-poor banjo-twangers in Arkansas to make a fast buck - well! It's just not the same. It's no good simply telling us our money is safe - there's no pleasure in it any more. Our illusions are shattered. We don't just want products... we don't want to look at the nuts and bolts, we want them to make us feel good about ourselves. When we buy something, we buy its image, its vibe, its identity, its brand.

Something poor old Gordon knows only too well, or should. I saw some of his speech today... he did his best, some have said it was a great speech, others disagree. It doesn't matter though, because his brand is shot. We've been given a peek into the back office, seen what's really going on, and found that Prudence doesn't work there any more.

Politics, unfortunately, doesn't permit putting up a complete fake in place of the CEO. The carefully-honed persona of the honest dour Son of the Manse - willing to sit at his desk all night looking for new, safer and better ways to make us wealthier and at the same time more sensitive to the needs of others - can't be separated from the man we see as the boss. As the real man stepped forward, the image evaporated, exposed as a marketing myth.

Even the Halifax had to find its new Howard. It knew the public needed something else to believe in even before the current crisis of confidence happened. Next, it will seek to move away completely from anything that reminds people of its previous incarnation - not an explanation, not an apology, a complete change to restore confidence. Labour needs to do the same.

Only the Lonely

"...what gets me is, where were his critics five years ago, when everything was boom, and the country went schizo with an official inflation rate of 2% while the housing market registered up to 20%? Still, all I saw was beaming faces...by all means, get rid of Brown, but who are you going to replace him with?!"
Selena Dreamy

I know what you mean, Dreamy. Everybody was slapping him on the back in the good times, when he was like a drunk buying all the rounds at a bar. They turn on him when his pockets are empty and now he's friendless, bitter and wondering where the next unkind cut is coming from.

They turned on Blair, too, the man who gave them their three terms in a job that half of them could never have dreamed of.

But (see post below) everybody knew there was no real growth - that it was founded on unsustainable consumer credit. And interest rates were down because of the Fed's lead, and inflation low thanks to Chinese imports. The epitome of Brown's hubris ("no more boom and bust") has come back to haunt him as it was always bound to. And he, too, must have known the truth unless he's a complete fool... but while ever the illusion of pumping up public spending and raising living standards on borrowed money could be kept going, the old fraud couldn't give up the high that came with the plaudits.

I don't want to sound tooooo sanguine.. after all, I called the top of the housing market too early myself - thinking it would fall back due to overpricing/affordability rather than implode on credit running out and banks going bust. Maybe if that had happened, he'd have got away with it.

Who'll replace him? These are small people. They probably all think they could do the job. Whether any of them will want it, once they look down the barrel of defeat and semi-permanent opposition, is another matter. Having their name, albeit briefly, on the list of British Prime Ministers, though, might be a tempter they can't resist.

Should I go or should I stay?

Whilst it's sometimes possible to believe that the Labour Cabinet isn't a particularly bright bunch, is it a genuine prospect that one of them would really be reckless enough to oust Brown and stand in his place? Given that whoever replaces him is going to lose the next election - and then face a likely two-term Cameron government - surely none of them will put their neck on the line, will they?

But Brown is looking increasingly unhinged as he faces unceasing criticism from all sides, as well as behind his back, and waking up with that pressure each day can't be a pleasant or healthy prospect. As an outside bet, I'd have a chancy tenner on him losing it altogether, going for the doomsday option, saying, 'bollocks to the lot of them', and calling an election before the year's out.

It's ever so easy...

• Britain is running a Trade Deficit

• The Government is running a Budget Deficit

• The Banks are lending money that doesn't exist

We're bust:

Who cares? Spending = growth, according to those who know about these things.. those doing the talking, anyway. Well I'm doing my bit. I sold a house at a nice profit and am happily blowing the proceeds as fast as I can. It will take the bloke who bought it the next 30 years of his working life to pay off what 's keeping me in shandies in the here-and-now.. but that's economics for you.

The level of personal debt in the UK is at a record high at about £1.5 trillion - with average income earners on £25K spending £3900 on interest payments. And has this money that's been sucked out of disposable income and into the banks meant lower sales in the shops? Course not... they lent it back to the suckers on credit cards so that 'growth' could carry on regardless.

Nobody can fathom it. There are about 100 houses in this village. Say they were worth £5m ten years ago, in total. And say they're worth £20m now. Where has the extra come from? Is everybody 4 times as well off? Nope. If everyone here tried to realise the asset value of their home, it would be like a run on a bank. Yet we've had banks falling over themselves to lend on this notional sum. Where did they get the money from? There's more cash in the system than can be accounted for by wealth generated from earnings.

Oh dear, it's all unravelling... Well, there are two ways the country can go.

1> Print more money. Pretend nothing is happening (HM Govt.'s preferred option).

2> Cut consumption until it falls somewhere close to earnings, and get the country working harder.

What a coincidence. Option 2 is exactly what the lazy bloated lardarses that so symbolise the Britain of 2008 need to do, and so spectacularly fail at, blaming everything except binge-consuming for their over-inflated girths. Just like them, the flabby British economy will either burst or die if it doesn't find some self-control over its inputs and outputs.

It's unsustainable. There's going to be a reckoning. Unemployment and/or inflation is going to rocket and services will collapse until they hit a value floor. I can't see the government having the guts stomach courage to do the necessary to control it, so the market itself will have to sort things out by forcibly applying the gastric bypass. Nurse! The screens! This is going to be messy!

Shine damn you.. Shine.

My dahlias don't seem to agree with Michael 'What Hurricane?' Fish's assertion that we're having a typical summer. With the show looming this weekend, all I've got is a damp and bedraggled plot with just a few showy heads but barely enough to make a vase of matching blooms. I'd say we're at least a couple of weeks behind schedule and need a week's worth of sunshine in the next three days to get back on track.

There's always next year. But damn it.. I said that last year. Global Warming? Somebody tell Lincolnshire!

Over there, over here.

".... our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans."
Ronald Reagan.

It's impossible to imagine those words spoken by a British statesman, with the word "Americans" swapped for "British". And I'd be willing to bet that the two most frequently used words in this year's Presidential Candidates' speeches were, "America" and "Americans" and that they occur many times more often than "Britain" and "British" fall from our own leaders' lips.

America, as pure concept, exists in the minds of its citizens in a way that we can barely fathom. The notion of a society dedicated to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is embedded in their consciousness so indelibly that it can be invoked any time and guaranteed to resonate with any audience. To the Right, it signifies self-reliance, independence, opportunity - the Left emphasises the use of the nation's strength to provide prosperity and safety for all. When things go wrong, each will accuse the other of betraying the concept - never suggesting that the concept itself is flawed.

Indeed, there can never have been a time when the opposing tickets have included such conflicting yet representative archetypes of the dream as now - with Palin and Obama standing at each end of the spectrum yet equal in their ability to appeal to deep yearnings in the minds of their constituencies. It's like watching Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan in a run-off for the best vocalist - there's no possibility of one set of fans voting for the other's favourite.

Nor can we over here share in the dynamics of the contest without being somewhat aghast at its level of polarisation. We're almost forced into support for Obama on the grounds that he's the nearest thing to what we're used to seeing as a politician here - someone who's trodden the familiar path from activism to party prominence. But I cannot think of any scenario for a Sarah Palin to emerge, fully formed as right-wing pinup complete with lifestyle, family accoutrements and political background. It's not just that there's no British equivalent of her - neither is there any stereotype I can think of, who could be summoned up from anywhere in the Shires or suburbs, who could similarly embody our own sense of nationhood and destiny.

Because, unfortunately, we no longer possess one. We have no ideals left to which we can be asked to aspire to on an inherently, almost subconscious, level. Our idea of Britishness is rooted in the notion of history and a sense of belonging by birthright to a superior tribe - it's not one which can easily be extended to incomers. Much as we might be uncomfortable with this fact, and wish to reinvent it, Britishness is not like Americanism - not something that exists above the mundane workings of the State, that can be collected on production of a Pass Certificate in a citizenship test.

What we lack, here, is the ability to promote some higher ideal which, by galvanising the whole of society into a true and active aspiration to better itself would, at a stroke, remove much of the effect of the drag-anchor that holds Britain back. Our politics have reached a stage where each of the parties is trying to appeal on almost identical grounds to identical constituencies, with only the most subliminal of nods towards satisfying the conflicting desires of rich and poor, haves and have-nots, workers and shirkers. Yet despite the decline of ideological differences, we don't have a common set of definable goals. We've thrown out our Land of Hope and Glory and can't find its successor.

Art imitates life

Who needs a strong plot and sensible dialogue when there's dazzling colour, pumping music, pounding flamenco, enough gags and tricks to fill a dozen pantos and a sword-flashing hero? Zorro at the Garrick has the lot and after the all-singing, all-dancing, up-on-your-feet, clap-along finale, you just have to stamp and heel-click your way back up Charing Cross Road to the Tube if you've got a fun-bone anywhere in your body. Loved it. Hope it runs a million years.


I'd say much the same thing about pistol-packing VP hopeful, Sarah Palin. Thank heavens for a politician who just makes you want to feel good instead of pretending she can save the world. Who cares whether she knows what she's doing - I'd back her in an arm-wrestle against Putin any day. Forget Obama, I'm done with feeling everyone's pain. And move over McCain, collect your pension and give Sarah the No1 job. Let's at least all go to Hell rocking and rolling.