False Idles

In this modern and progressive age, we are all show what to desire, what to wear, what to aspire to and how to be by the ever-present barrage of misinformation as delivered by the media channels. The present shift by the consensus of thinking people away from the tailored messages, from the propaganda biased channels and papers through the medium of the unnoticeable internet, in blogs and sound and vision bytes. The mixed messages and ground level reporting that is rapidly evolving into the modern information expressway, reflecting true public opinion instead of some media hype seem to have the bit between its teeth as it takes a chunk out of the current trends and thinking patterns of formative thinkers everywhere. Twenty two million people worldwide have chosen to view the buffalo turning the oppressors tide. Is the shoe now firmly on the other foot and are the old guard oppressors of the post cold war era about to be washed away in the turning tide of the new age children of tomorrow’s assertion as they find their voice and can now apply it communally without the fear of reprisals from the old guard order as it goes through its death throes in the public domain. Some wag somewhere gave an innocuous slogan of ‘Vote for Change’ whatever that means to the struggling and diminishing old guard new age reformationists that swear they are not like their predecessors. Yet they immediately went into the old tradition of back biting and mud slinging before the ink was even dry on the placards. This animal cannot change its spots for they traditionally reinvent themselves in opposition and level their attack using the old established techniques of the old fossils and old guard. The wind of change that is clearly blowing through the old corridors of power, the new distrust of banks and capitalism, and the weary tragedies of the oppressed minorities that have traditionally been left to foot the bill from the sweeping changes from the handover of power as each re-resurrected ‘phoenix’ ascends from the ashes of its last defeat is now being treated with the contempt it deserves. Political structure the world over have been finally seen for the sham that they really are. Financial institutions (remarkably prison-like description for the debtors paradise) are all feeling the pinch as so called financial investors and pensions investors are being given a wide berth because their slogan, ‘Investments can go down as well as up’ are now proving that in the majority they will defiantly go down and return no investments and, the moral undercurrent of this is if you were not so greedy in the first place and chose to gamble then you would still have your original investment capital.

It is after all just capital if you have money in the first place. Letting someone you don’t know gamble it for you is a bit like taking your hard earned and scrimped to achieve family pile, and randomly going into a betting office and asking a addicted gambler who is the luckiest punter in the room and then saying you will give them a percentage if they invest it for you as they were recommended by the betting shop barfly. A bit like asking the lion how to feed it isn’t it when its laid out like that. But the film about the runaway failure of the high flying investor being given his head really brings the whole point into perspective doesn’t it.

So just how lucky do you feel and how good are you at guessing (guessing right a few times in a row is called predicting) what will happen next. Try watching Harry Hills what happens next clips to test your new found ability before waging any bets on outcomes. Funny how most of us can do it reasonably well when no risk is involved, but add the cash to the equation and then you don’t have to guess what happens next, we already know the cold hard facts of life.An old saying that was common in my youth was, ‘the shilling (five new pence to all the kids out there) in my pocket means I’m better of than if its in someone else’s pocket’, that will be the bird in the hand to all you speculators. The saying you have to speculate to accumulate is another bum steer. Investing your hard earned in a cash turnover business that relies on your energies has more chance of success than any lazy enterprise that involves handing your cash over to a compulsive shares gambler. If you don’t believe this then just look at Dyson, Hoover, Ford, Cadburys, Airfix to name but a few. Bill Gates, Apple and CR Smith are more pertinent in the modern times.

These innovators and entrepreneurs never handed their wads over and then sat back waiting on their ships coming in. The eighties gurus of the new age go getters who cashed in on the popularity of the self help books should have been the under writers of the new age prophets. That failed to take hold in the deep waters of the fast turning tides of the high speculators eighties markets where previously the bottom line was gilt edged bonds and property from the short term investors, who were dipping in and out on hunches. This tactic gave a false view of a quick turnover and high rewards (easy money to all the lazy and greedy gamblers) and gave the impression that big rewards were there to be made if your nerve and savvy could be relied on to hold just long enough to take a reasonable profit through the prescribed quick turnover method.

The new age property developer programs have shown that with hard work and effort and a good deal of investment, cash loans whatever. Then a reasonable profit can still be gotten out of a buyers market. It still seems like the golden bubble has finally burst and the bottom has finally fallen out of the market for the majority of us, and this has been reflected in the current price slump that is affecting property in this country. Negative equity has land locked quite a high percentage of ill informed buyers, while tumbling prices have reflected that the buyer has greater discernment and has started to enforce the location rule before parting with the hard earned.

Now contrary to popular belief (is that the inconvenient truth?) property has to be in the relative price bracket of the first time buyer before it becomes a reasonable goal after all the established ‘home owner’ is already paying and has usually used the sale of the first property to invest in the new up sized dream home, and has offset the higher payments with a huge collateral investment and can survive the expected fluctuations in the market. Now the unwary first time buyer has to stretch beyond the normal means, and then has to survive the hikes and rises and inflation punishment for at least five years to ensure that they can probably survive the distance, most flounder and are repossessed in the first five years. This puts the reclaimed property back into the hands of the property holders (hmm who can they be hmmm beats me), all of the investment and payments are lost and the cycle resets, to fast tail spin and out the egress via Barnum and bailey’s trip the unsuspecting. Is one truly born every minute?

What to do and who to believe. Money is a static commodity and it takes hard work to make the normal person part with it. It just takes to much to get an accumulation of the stuff and we are all a bit to wary of the traps to ever fall for it again. So sales techniques are the order of the day, just look at advertising, time share, home in the sun, then think about all of the warnings they have to tell us about and how programs like ‘Watchdog’ panorama, the Cook report and these all go as far back as Esther Ranson’s shows, to see its not the disclaimers we need to worry about its not having the savvy to ask the right questions. There is no better business charter of good behaviour and there is no fairness in love and war. The Japanese say that business is the art of war for the modern age and you know they just could be right.Cash flow only exists where a cash business is working, the Barras, markets and shops etc. The working john has an income and outlays and is mortgaged to the hilt so cannot have long term savings, as savings are for life’s luxuries, holidays, hospital or vet bills, second hand cars etc. One emergency or major calamity and over ninety percent of ‘home owners’ are suddenly insolvent and heading for bankruptcy (the bank interruption will make you cry) and repossession.

The average punter runs close to the winds of a potential typhoon to try and stay ahead of the impending storm. Sounds familiar then you are my target audience.

The illusion of a cash flow is maintained by the banks lending to cash turnover businesses from your savings, which they also charge you for handling talk about a double whammy. This sounds like the best of both worlds as they sit on the razors edge of the precariously poised sword of Damocles. Now with all the failed money strategies of the last two decades, the Bundersbank crash, the bamboo binging (cheep grey imports and cloning brands), the Wall Street fiascos, the high flyer crash and burns, Lloyds going belly up. Couple all of this with the sustained efforts of investing in war (usually a good return, with lots of spoils), then the property markets topping off and crashing in a horrifying slow motion pile up. Sustained weather fronts causing fires, destroying property, twice yearly flooding and no underwriters to soften the blows and global warming will now ensure they never will. This will price certain areas out of the property insurance brackets, but the people won’t move, people like to sink with their properties as history has clearly shown.

The illusion is further maintained on the surface, and suspicion says that is the professional exterior trying to be the swan in a typhoon, there is frantic efforts going on under the waters of the so called ‘flow’ to make the illusion last a little longer. These failed guesser’s and investors, these bill the client and the investor (that’s savers to you and me) for the privilege, still cannot get it right. They claim unstable forces in the market. Natural disasters and acts of god, those old chestnuts unforeseen circumstances and forces beyond our control, are already on the lips of the spin merchants as they strip bare the coffers of the old bastions of a bygone age of imperialism.

When will we learn never run risks, never take chances. Guilt edged investments are long term investments for a good reason. Star young and cash in at early retirement age and S.K.I. all the way to your private utopia and let the kids fend for themselves. That’s the new philosophy of Thatcher’s children, the me and I want it all and I want it now generation.

It may not come as a surprise that the coffers are finally depleted, after all with this level of professional incompetence linked to poor returns and no underwriters to soften the blow. Couple this with the masses of people that have lost property to the winds of fate, the changing tide, and poor location and the picture is slowly coming into focus. Enhancing the image a little, with more negative equity, the prospect of working a lifetime without reward and being pressured into poor working conditions, bad pay, and lousy hours, estranged kids, unrealised dreams or even expectations for retirement and an eventual comfortable lifestyle are all being consigned to room 101’s failure bins by the day. Is the world finally on a spiralling meltdown. Where is a saviour when you need him. Will Arthur be reborn, will Christ step in and save the day. Or has the old devil taken his due on the backs of our collective gullibility and greed, as he sits back and fiddles as the world burns.

Oh yeah almost an afterthought and probably not related at all. Old Teflon Bill is a sure footed mountain goat as he heads for the unclaimed throne at the pinnacle of acclaimed world class statesman wish list, and he is not alone. But it is interesting that nothing seams to stick to him and nothing damages his image, what a charmed existence he has had up till now. What a perfect point for the race to be the first president of the world of the third rock from the sun in the outer galaxy of the outer rim of the milky way in the known universe. For fate to step in and let the man for the job be the only one for the job. Awe bless and he was looking so likely to suck eeerrrr seed or was that, a Havana good time.Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment of the ‘As the world revolves.