from a friend called Fintag....
Bad Parenting.
As the credit crunch morphed into a game of blame, our socialist leaning nanny governments have seen the boundaries of their responsibility move from laissez faire, with the odd detention for bad behavior, to full blown naughty step beatings and confusing messages. Telling a child off but not following up with any form of punishment is the cardinal sin of being a bad parent. Parallel this to governments who have allowed electorates to borrow now and then work out how to pay it off later, whilst doing exactly the same, there is now a divergence in what to do next.
Where as families are tightening their belts, vacationing at home and hanging onto their jobs and future security, their surrogate parents are doing the opposite. Nanny is borrowing more, spending more and then taxing the children. Huge poverty traps are being built as the poor who traditionally spend instead of saving are given huge hand outs and the wealth creators are punished with future tax rises.
The upshot is families will revolt. The black economy will be the new black as we all become equal. Except some will be more equal - the civil servants with jobs for life, index linked pensions and the new haves of a new world of confused children who are being given no guidance or leadership.
The revolt will take the form of an increase in racism, crime and hate. This may seem extreme but history does repeat itself. I can hear the "but this time it is different" and we are more educated and sophisticated. If only that were true. Times ahead are going to be grim unless Obama, the new world leader, can with his advisors break the back of this fastest ever falling bear market in history and provide leadership. Instead he will provide dollars which is fine because the way things stand it is the only currency you want right now.
At the weekend I had dinner with a well known Management Consultant who told me al the CEO's and boards are in absolute panic. Planning is no more on the agenda - now it is knee jerk mass cost cutting and firings and crossing of fingers. The life of many boards of directors will be shorter and shorter and companies will become more inefficient.
Great times of course for trading you might think? Well it is a bit like being on a roller coaster. We have gone down some of the scariest drops, but it is getting dark and we are unsure when the ride ends. That is why most of us are sitting on cash and hibernating for a few months planning on how to move our business offshore.
The UK government has decided to increase income tax. This is a bad move because in this global economy the wealth creators will move and the UK will be one big public sector, lumbering around like a bureaucratic monster trying to devour any wealth creation as it feeds its insatiable hunger for revenue to pay for the life styles of retiring mandarins and pen pushers.
Someone told me 350,000 jobs have been lost in the UK. But in the public sector, they have employed 50,000 more. Nice.
I am currently waiting to board a BA flight to New York. 6 months ago the flight cost GBP5,500. Today it costs just over GBP1,000. This sort of deflation is quite extreme but of course when I arrive in the land of depression, my weak GBP will buy very little. So I am bringing some juggling balls to busk for some dollars. I have worked out that a couple of hours will buy me a 5 bedroom house in Camden Town.
So who is a naughty school boy then?