H/T Don Emslie
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
An open letter to the Western banking establishment.......
Re. your unauthorised overdraft
Dear Western banking establishment,
I notice that your unauthorised credit facility from international lenders of last resort now totals approximately $10 trillion. As a taxpayer and therefore your largest shareholder I would be grateful if you could repay this facility at your earliest convenience. I have charged you an additional £30 for this letter and a monthly unauthorised overdraft fee of £28. If you do not repay this facility shortly I will have no choice but to become further massively impoverished along with legions of fellow taxpayers for multiple generations to come.
I would also be grateful if the strategists and economists who work for you could abstain from publishing their unsolicited opinions about resolving the banking crisis within the financial media. I am sure you will agree that hearing from the same strategists who worked for the architects of such widespread financial destruction is likely to irritate those of us who were not actually complicit in the extraordinary and venal credit boom of the last several decades. There is an expression that if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Those of your employees who were the public face of the problem are, I think you will agree, unlikely to represent the solution, unless perhaps they are fired – en masse, from a giant howitzer, into an area where they can do no further harm. Alaska, perhaps. I would further suggest that the high profile commentators who work for you and who have implicitly played their part in marketing and then amplifying this catastrophe might consider quietly entering another field with superior ethics and enhanced value to society at large: perhaps as piano players in brothels. This note has been copied to the letters editors of The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal (which I understand is shortly to be renamed simply The Journal on the basis that Wall Street no longer actually exists – as was noted this week by Messrs Wen Jiabao and Vladimir Putin at Davos. Don’t worry about not being there – you weren’t missed).
Since the start of the year is always a time for slimming and working off the excesses of the festive period, I wonder whether your industry would consider operating along similar lines. Just as there is no real need to have 18 different coffee bars all touting their wares along my High Street, there is probably no real need to have 18 different banks, not all of which are subsidiaries of Santander, clogging the High Street and busily not wanting to extend me back any of my own money so generously lent to them.
I would also be interested in your views as to the wisdom and efficacy of the monstrous pile of credit being shovelled at you and your peers by governments when it was overmuch credit creation that precipitated this crisis. I do not, of course, expect anything other than a self-interested response. But you may find the following observations pertinent. If they seem acutely relevant today it is because they were written in the early 1930s, by one Garet Garrett (and a grateful hat tip to M. Gandon):
“The general shape of this universal delusion [that is, credit] may be indicated by three of its familiar features.. First, the idea that the panacea for debt is credit.. The burden of Europe’s private debt to this country now is greater than the burden of her war debt; and the war debt, with arrears of interest, is greater than it was the day the peace was signed.. Debt was the economic terror of the world when the war ended. How to pay it was the colossal problem. Yet you will hardly find a nation, state, city, town or region that has not multiplied its debt since the war. The aggregate of this increase is prodigious, and a very high proportion of it represents recourse to credit to avoid payment of debt.
“Second, a social and political doctrine, now widely accepted, beginning with the premise that people are entitled to certain betterments of life. If they cannot immediately afford them.. nevertheless people are entitled to them, and credit must provide them.. Result: Probably one half of all government, national and civic, in the area of western civilization is either bankrupt or in acute distress from having over-borrowed according to this doctrine.. Now as credit fails and the standards of living tend to fall from the planes on which credit for a while sustained them, there is political dismay.. When [people] have been living on credit beyond their means the debt overtakes them. If they tax themselves to pay it, that means going back a little. If they repudiate their debt, that is the end of their credit. In this dilemma the ideal solution, so recommended even to the creditor, is more credit, more debt.
“Third, the argument that prosperity is a product of credit, whereas from the beginning of economic thought it had been supposed that prosperity was from the increase and exchange of wealth, and credit was its product.”
It will probably not have escaped your attention that the National Housing Federation this week urged the UK government and its wholly owned banking subsidiary, Northern Rock, to extend mortgages to people on lower incomes. “Given that Northern Rock has been nationalised it should now be made by ministers to take on a social purpose and ensure that those people on low-to-moderate incomes who can afford to buy a low cost home, and have a good credit rating, are given access to mortgages,” said NHF chief executive David Orr. Be careful what you wish for. The Nationwide building society, on the same day, reported UK house prices falling at an annualised 17%. Perhaps Mr. Orr wishes a whole new sub-class of low-to-moderate wage owners to be lured into a collapsing housing market. Nice one. Said wage owners should perhaps be grateful that the banking system is currently so dysfunctional (a.k.a. “finally prudent”) – it may end up saving them a fortune in lost housing equity.
Perhaps you, like I, find it richly ironic that members of the public still use your investment subsidiaries as a means to protect and grow their private wealth. I think you should promote the activities of these subsidiaries more widely. My idea for an advertising slogan: “When it comes to moral hazard, we’re Number One. We helped trigger the biggest financial and economic collapse in history through our imprudent lending and investment. Between 18 million and 30 million jobs throughout the world are almost certain to be lost. And more than 50 million jobs throughout the world are now in jeopardy. As a result of our investment expertise, we’ve lost billions, and those of us that still exist and aren’t owned by the taxpayer are technically insolvent. Now, how can we help you with your finances ?”
In any event, this letter is also to let you know that now that you and your members, in collusion with your governmental paymasters, are offering negative real returns to cash depositors, I am withdrawing what remains of my funds since I can find altogether better opportunities for the preservation and growth of my capital within high quality pockets of the equity and corporate bond markets, and I can get sufficient “insurance” for my increasingly worthless fiat currency in the form of gold. I appreciate that the withdrawal of my funds may send you spiralling into nationalisation. Sorry about that. And since you appear not to know the meaning of the word:
“Sorry. (“sQrI), a. Pained at heart; distressed, sad; full of grief or sorrow. In later use freq. in weakened sense, and often employed in the phrase “I’m sorry” to express mere sympathy or apology. But not by members of the banking profession.”
Yours sincerely
A. Customer.
H/T DML
Monday, 2 February 2009
The First Aircraft Carrier........
and the Royal Navy test their new carrier thanks to Brown's Budget Cuts.
H/T JM Heinrichs.
Sooo true....
An Israeli doctor said, 'Medicine in my country is so advanced, we can take a kidney out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks'.
A German doctor said, 'That's nothing! In Germany, we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks'.
A Russian doctor said, 'In my country medicine is so advanced, we can take half a heart from one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks'.
The English doctor, not to be outdone, said 'Hah!. We can take two arseholes out of Scotland, put them in 10 & 11 Downing Street and have half the country looking for work within twenty-four hours'.
H/T DML
Quote of the Day.....
'We have the right kind of snow, just the wrong quantity'. - Boris Johnson, Mayor of London.
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Important health alert for women.....
Do you have feelings of inadequacy?
Do you suffer from shyness?
Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about Margaritas.
Margaritas are the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident about yourself and your actions.
Margaritas can help ease you out of your shyness and let you tell the world that you’re ready and willing to do just about anything.
You will notice the benefits of Margaritas almost immediately and with a regimen of regular doses you can overcome any obstacles that prevent you from living the life you want to live.
Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past and you will discover many talents you never knew you had. Stop hiding and start living, with Margaritas.
Margaritas may not be right for everyone. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use Margaritas.
However, women who wouldn’t mind nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it.
Side effects may include:
- Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, incarceration
- Erotic lustfulness
- Loss of motor control
- Loss of clothing
- Loss of money
- Loss of virginity
- Attraction to the same sex
- Table dancing
- Headache
- Dehydration
- Dry mouth
- And a desire to sing Karaoke
WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
WARNING:
The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to think you can sing.
H/T DML
The Texan Chapter of The Democrat Party.....
Shot in Palo duro canyon (just south of Amarillo, Tx )
H/T Chad
News......
Snow Day! Millions trapped at home by travel chaos as Britain is hit by 10 INCHES of snow. And there's much more on the way. What effing snow!
Persecuted for praying: Nurse who faces the sack after offering to pray for sick patient. WTF!
Sellafield workers join wildcat strikes as they demand jobs 'level playing field'. Blame European legislation and the Government for letting the EU run Britain.
Cricket team told it can't call itself 'the Crusaders'...in case it offends Muslims and Jews. Oh for f**ks sake. Not sure about the pink shirts either.
How can a baby chimp become smarter than a human child? All they need is love, say researchers. When they grow up they can become politicians.
Barack Obama preserves CIA renditions as he keeps elements of Bush's war on terror. Welcome to the real world Mister President.
African nations call on West to lift sanctions against Robert Mugabe. Assholes. It is time to cut off all aid to Africa.
Families forced to put down their horses as recession takes hold. Keep the horse and cancel the holiday.
Schools becoming 'anti-reading' zones, claims author. Our education system is a disaster. The Teachers Unions and Ministry must be held to account.
Rare Second World War pictures go on sale for Bomber Command appeal. A great appeal serving the memory of all those who died in Bomber Command. More details HERE
Confusion over registration restricts turnout in Iraq poll to 51%. Which is about the same as the UK and US.
‘Jimmy Carter’ tag has Obama wincing. And they are right.
Happy few get access to world's most exclusive e-mail address. You mean wanker@whitehouse.com
The Ant Story.....South African Style
ORIGINAL VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food
or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
SABC1, 2 and 3 show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The world is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Good Morning Live with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
Demonstrations are held in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'
TV commentators explain that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and there are calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the Government drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government and handed to relatives of the grasshopper.
The grashopper instigates a lawsuit against the ant, and the case is tried under the watchfull eyes of the trade unions.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighbourhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be VERY careful how you vote in 2009!!
H/T James M who says 'we have a National Election coming up here in South Africa later in the year, I find this quite fitting for the attitude of the poor masses here in our country, such a sad “culture of entitlement” and still after 18yrs of a democratic “peoples government” it’s still “apartheids fault”!'
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