"Gizza job"

As 'austerity' is the new black perhaps we should take a minute to remind ourselves of how the job application process during tough times has morphed over the years into Great Expectations. Reality check coming to a town near you in 5..4..3..2..

ContagionEx

 A little STD humour to get you through the post Jubilee blues

The Robber's Dilemma

Next year sees the 30^th anniversary of the Brink's Mat robbery often touted as Britain’s ‘biggest and most notorious heist’ in which a rather large amount of gold succumbed to a ‘five finger discount’. Supposedly worth around £500 million at today’s prices it certainly gave the gang that stole it a headache, or was that just a hole in the head given the number of associated people who have been bumped off since (over 20 at the last count). Like all thieves, as well as being ‘thick as...’ (one of the perpetrators decided that buying a 'mansion' immediately after the event and calling their pet Rottweilers Brink’s and Mat was a good idea), they would have had the usual dilemma - where to stash the cash? Or as one criminal said at the time ‘the robbery was the simple bit’.

Before we focus on good places to hide your money - that’s your hard earned cash, not any ill gotten gains - I would like to remind you of that other infamous daylight robbery that has yet to be fully resolved, our monetary system. In fact it makes the Brink’s Mat escapade pale into insignificance because as we now know the largest heist in history occurred far more recently, namely the socialising of losses caused by our favourite 'pyramid scheme' otherwise known as a bank/our Fiat money system. As one commentator recently put it, 'the banks get the stimulus, the people get the austerity'. The bad news is, that so far, what we have had is 'austerity lite' and the more overt robbery is about to take place in the not too distant future. Providing you are not asleep, this should be giving you the same level of dilemma, if not greater than the original Brink's Mat lot. It's one thing to lose money that wasn't yours to begin with, it's another story altogether if it was. And as we have witnessed in Greece, in extreme cases of desperation the hole in the head may end up being a self-administered one. This is an example of the 'collateral damage' that the financial sociopaths manage to ignore rather than link back to their own actions.

In order to lower the future suicide rate finding a place to stash your cash, before the finance industry manages to permanently 'hide' it for you, is essential. In the midst of a crisis everyone tends to panic and freak out but as Tim Price points out 'if you are going to panic, panic early'. Well today looks like a good idea, if you haven't got around to it yet. You have probably got until the start of the autumn to get your arrangements in order and that's one reason why OUCH! will be available by 17th Aug. Telling people what they should have done in hindsight is not very helpful although at this rate you might have to be good at speed reading.

The dilemma however is clear, what has represented a safe haven in the past may no longer be the case. The likelihood of bank runs across Europe have increased dramatically which means even if you go to, or are already in, cash, your money may not be safe (especially if you are in the Euro). As I point out in more detail in the book, money deposited by you at a bank does not legally belong you, it's actually the bank's property.  It is still your asset and you can ask for it to be returned at any time but that doesn't bestow on you the same ownership rights as if it is under your mattress. This will come as a surprise to the vast majority of the population. So your starting point is to assume nothing is safe and then read the following. Now panic.

As already suggested in the first post on 11th May why anyone would want to be in the stock market currently is beyond me. It's an accident waiting to happen and 2012 is looking like Crash but without the paraphilia bonus. The number of real safe havens can be counted on one hand and that doesn't include your bank. So if you hold cash in one at least make sure it isn't over the £85,000 threshold and if you hold more than one account (the sensible option) make sure it doesn't belong to the same group or institution as you are only covered once. This doesn't guarantee you won't lose your money (government promises are not always fulfilled) but in theory it should give a greater level of protection. A better one is gold as it offers the ultimate insurance against financial mismanagement and feckless governments but we will return to that point in a later post.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. But the worst involves not only your savings being wiped out, it might also mean your pension (if you have one). Have you asked yourself recently where they have that stashed? Oh yes, in bonds of insolvent governments - no need to worry then. It may prove to be a short term safe haven but would you lend money to a bankrupt with a gambling problem? Check your pockets, Victim Support is a great resource that if you are lucky, you'll never have to use. Happy stashing.

As for me. All I know is that I know nothing

Anonymously yours

Vote Delusion – You Know It Makes Sense.

You are unwittingly driving towards the edge of a cliff at 100mph.Would you like to be told that the cliff edge is approaching

1.      Before you reach it?

2.      After you go over it?

If we eliminate suicide girls, lemmings and the manically depressed from this hypothetical survey I am assuming that most people would prefer to be in the self-preservation society and choose life i.e. option number one. Wrong, well at least partially in that we don’t really want to hear that the cliff is approaching in advance but will complain bitterly afterwards that we weren’t warned. Ridiculous, illogical yet apparently true.

It may or may not have escaped your attention that most of The West is broke. We have spent decades borrowing from the future i.e. saddling the next generation with gargantuan debts to fund unsustainable lifestyles/wars/bubbles and other Ponzi charades. There is only one problem with this – just like a Viagra addict, you can’t keep it up forever.

Let’s take the recent strike over public pensions and the ‘68 is too late’ [to retire] campaign. People are annoyed that their benefits are being eroded (although technically speaking it’s hard to erode something that doesn’t exist). What actually exists is purely a promise to pay and those promises are not fulfillable. Unfortunately that’s mathematics for you. So many people are relying on something that will either not be there (work until you drop dead a.k.a. ‘is 108 too late?’) or is only there in nominal terms i.e. yes you can retire but your agreed pension now only buys you one loaf of bread. It is an illusion waiting not to happen. Fair? Absolutely not.

There is a saying that goes,"if you can’t pay, you won’t pay". So regardless of how totally and utterly justified people are in their standpoint the reality is going to be different from what they expect – probably by a rather large margin. Who’s to blame? OK next questions:

1.      Do you vote for the party that promises you what you want/like to hear?

2.      Do you vote for the party that tells you the truth?

Well this one is easy to answer because option 2 does not currently exist. Why? Because for years telling lies has been an election winner. Whose fault is that – the liars’ or the voters? So instead of reality we 'choose' to vote for delusion but delusion eventually has consequences.

Let’s hop across the Channel for a moment. The French have just voted for a President who won on the back of promises of growth and lowering the retirement age. But why stop at this? Why not promise people eternal youth? This isn’t possible either but who cares when it gets you the most votes?

In America they voted for change in 2008, and got short changed instead. Unless you consider no change is ‘change you can believe in?’ 2012 now looks like a race between Barack O’ Romney and Mitt Bama. Both appear to be Wall St Manchurian Candidates promising to further assassinate the country’s finances. Of course there is Ron Paul but that isn’t going to happen and, on a personal note, maybe for him it’s best he doesn’t win – it’s not only finances that get assassinated.

Back to the UK – we have far more choice right? Err...if the full theoretical electoral spectrum was represented by a dartboard then all 3 main parties would be stuck in triple 13 - unlucky for everyone. Strip away the specific vested interests and you have a very tricky spot the difference competition. They all borrow from the future...because they can (for now)...and because there are only long term consequences, not short term ones. Except, the future is already here.

We see the growth Vs austerity arguments framed as a battle between ideologies: Left Vs Right or in the case of pensions pitching one half of society against another with the Public Sector Vs Private Sector debate or alternatively the generation game with the young Vs the old but all this does is serve as a distraction away from the most fundamental issue.


There is something far more insidious and all encompassing at work...the monetary system that we live under. Ever wondered why this is hardly ever discussed? Oh look, its Wile E.Coyote

Time To Press The Eject Button?

Convention would suggest as this is a first post it may be best to focus on an introduction but as we live in interesting times and I’m arguably a tad behind schedule in getting these online machinations underway it’s time to jump in at the deep end, sans budgie smugglers, and return to the pleasantries later.

There is one golden rule reference making predictions; don’t do it. Or more precisely if you are stupid enough to make one then never apply a timeline. So predicting I will die is a fairly sound call but not if I add in next Tuesday lunchtime (unless of course I have a pre-arranged tête-à-tête with a Bulgarian umbrella operator on Waterloo bridge). So ‘stand away from the prediction’ is generally sound advice.

But thinking about, as opposed to predicting, the future is perfectly reasonable behaviour. And whilst not doing so up until now has had few negative consequences this is no longer the case. To cut to the chase, we are still facing a possible systemic collapse of the financial system or at the very least a massive bout of uncertainty and disruption to it. Ignorance and inertia are now very high risk strategies as far as your personal finances are concerned. Risk mitigation should be a priority regardless of whether the worst does or doesn’t come to pass.

So what can you do? Well let’s be clear, I’m not offering you any formal financial advice – what you do with your money is your own responsibility. However, at the moment, most investments look about as appealing as a robber’s dog chewing a wasp. Personally speaking I have moved most of my 'spare' money to cash (the worst possible place to be in the mid to long term) and gold. Why? Well as Mark Twain once said “History never repeats itself but sometimes it rhymes”. We will be delving into the whys and wherefores in future posts but let’s just leave you with a recent quote from Hugh Hendry:

"We are single-digit years away from the most profound market clearing moment".

Well actually Hugh may I humbly suggest it may be months not years? My money is on (or rather isn’t) 2012. This isn’t a prediction, it’s just a precaution. And if you are going to take precautions now looks like a good time to start. If I am wrong, the down side should be minimal; if I am right the upside is substantial. That’s asymmetric risk for you. Eject? I already have.