September 13, 2006
Economics
I'm asked by a friend who trades inflation for a bank what I think. So....
"Sell in September and go away.
I dunno. UK housing is just unaffordable. We'll have to emigrate to Poland. That's not a joke, it makes a lot of sense to base an office in E.Europe, eg the Baltic States. In Poland you can get cheap Ukrainian plumbers.
US housing is more efficient than in space restricted, bureaucratic UK, so I expect the price signals to work earlier (as they are) with consequently smoother markets and less knock-on to consumer confidence in general. The UK is hard to predict because just as English is the global 'lingua franca', so London has become world city and new capital immigration (eg from India and China) can propel UK asset prices further than history would suggest.
Commodities have peaked, absent much greater tension in the middle east or somewhere unexpected.
Inflation in general has stayed low despite the commodity boom, despite mid-east war, despite China and India. Reason is China and India (abundant cheap, skilled human assets) plus tech advance plus floating currencies to permit tensions in purchasing power parity and expectations to disssipate rapidly rather than by currency earthquakes.
So :
Commodities down
US housing down 25% ish, but no hard landing for economy.
UK housing is a big fat wobbling bubble which will probably both inflate and deflate bigtime with an eventual big fat splatty pop.
E. Europe pretty good.
France will improve for sure.
Germany still stuck. Talent gets out, but they're not really hungry.
China - no idea.
India will boom. Tremendous talent, finally, finally starting to liberalise.
Inflation overall not a bigtime problem.
Sterling steady - really it's a better reserve currency than Euro.
Dollar strong. Say it again - strong dollar. More hawkish fed, purchasing power parity, lower oil prices. President Romney will be more of a deficit hawk.
Politics in the UK is rancid. Cameron's an utter scumbag and Labour/the vast public sector/the BBC will try to capture Gordon Brown away from markets and the US. That might lead to 1970's type national gangrene for a while".
"Sell in September and go away.
I dunno. UK housing is just unaffordable. We'll have to emigrate to Poland. That's not a joke, it makes a lot of sense to base an office in E.Europe, eg the Baltic States. In Poland you can get cheap Ukrainian plumbers.
US housing is more efficient than in space restricted, bureaucratic UK, so I expect the price signals to work earlier (as they are) with consequently smoother markets and less knock-on to consumer confidence in general. The UK is hard to predict because just as English is the global 'lingua franca', so London has become world city and new capital immigration (eg from India and China) can propel UK asset prices further than history would suggest.
Commodities have peaked, absent much greater tension in the middle east or somewhere unexpected.
Inflation in general has stayed low despite the commodity boom, despite mid-east war, despite China and India. Reason is China and India (abundant cheap, skilled human assets) plus tech advance plus floating currencies to permit tensions in purchasing power parity and expectations to disssipate rapidly rather than by currency earthquakes.
So :
Commodities down
US housing down 25% ish, but no hard landing for economy.
UK housing is a big fat wobbling bubble which will probably both inflate and deflate bigtime with an eventual big fat splatty pop.
E. Europe pretty good.
France will improve for sure.
Germany still stuck. Talent gets out, but they're not really hungry.
China - no idea.
India will boom. Tremendous talent, finally, finally starting to liberalise.
Inflation overall not a bigtime problem.
Sterling steady - really it's a better reserve currency than Euro.
Dollar strong. Say it again - strong dollar. More hawkish fed, purchasing power parity, lower oil prices. President Romney will be more of a deficit hawk.
Politics in the UK is rancid. Cameron's an utter scumbag and Labour/the vast public sector/the BBC will try to capture Gordon Brown away from markets and the US. That might lead to 1970's type national gangrene for a while".
TV
On live British TV I watch soccer highlights and that's it. Maybe I became saturated with The Simpsons when Haloween seemed to come round every month. I should take another look. After all Homer is, well, Homeric
.
I watch a few US shows on DVD, often with a glass of whisky at 2 am seeing that 'alcohol is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems' - H.Simpson. Maybe it's a golden age for American comedy. By Series 2 the US version of The Office became richer and funnier than the original with delicious supporting roles and it's just poignant in places. I re-watched some of The Larry Sanders Show. It's like comedy heaven to me, up there with Fawlty Towers. But Arrested Development may be up there too. The LSS and AD have Jeffrey Tambor in common. Also in common is the brevity of these shows - all around 24 minutes or less. 'Brevity is the soul of wit' and the lack of it undoes many shows and movies. Desperate Housewives and The Sopranos are just too long, too padded. Curb Your Enthusiasm is very decent, but too linear on Larry David. The other characters are stifled, tho they have real potential. Also it's 5 minutes too long. Am I the only person who doesn't get "24"? My highly intelligent male American in-laws love it. I re-sample for 10 minutes and give up; the characters and plotting seem so lame. And where did "Duckman" go ?
I must plug CSPAN Book TV, an amazing free resource on the web. The Afterwords and In Depth Archives are rich,rich,rich..VD Hanson, Tammy Bruce, Newt Gingrich, Bernard Lewis, Charles Murray, C Hitchens and on and on. Long, uninterrrupted conversations with intelligent, articulate, alert minds. There are plenty of liberals too plus writers of the standing of Updike and Wolfe. An unexpected gem is the interview with Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin on his book "Shooter" about sniping in Iraq.
.
I watch a few US shows on DVD, often with a glass of whisky at 2 am seeing that 'alcohol is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems' - H.Simpson. Maybe it's a golden age for American comedy. By Series 2 the US version of The Office became richer and funnier than the original with delicious supporting roles and it's just poignant in places. I re-watched some of The Larry Sanders Show. It's like comedy heaven to me, up there with Fawlty Towers. But Arrested Development may be up there too. The LSS and AD have Jeffrey Tambor in common. Also in common is the brevity of these shows - all around 24 minutes or less. 'Brevity is the soul of wit' and the lack of it undoes many shows and movies. Desperate Housewives and The Sopranos are just too long, too padded. Curb Your Enthusiasm is very decent, but too linear on Larry David. The other characters are stifled, tho they have real potential. Also it's 5 minutes too long. Am I the only person who doesn't get "24"? My highly intelligent male American in-laws love it. I re-sample for 10 minutes and give up; the characters and plotting seem so lame. And where did "Duckman" go ?
I must plug CSPAN Book TV, an amazing free resource on the web. The Afterwords and In Depth Archives are rich,rich,rich..VD Hanson, Tammy Bruce, Newt Gingrich, Bernard Lewis, Charles Murray, C Hitchens and on and on. Long, uninterrrupted conversations with intelligent, articulate, alert minds. There are plenty of liberals too plus writers of the standing of Updike and Wolfe. An unexpected gem is the interview with Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin on his book "Shooter" about sniping in Iraq.
September 12, 2006
Fake But True
Some conservatives attack Bill Clinton and gang for attacking an ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11"
I prefer an absolutist line on docudramas - "real people, real words."
Once you start down the "fake but true" road you go on thru Rathergate to the Ministry of Truth. That liberals lie is just another reason not to do it.
I prefer an absolutist line on docudramas - "real people, real words."
Once you start down the "fake but true" road you go on thru Rathergate to the Ministry of Truth. That liberals lie is just another reason not to do it.
September 05, 2006
But..
"The attack on a group of Western tourists in Jordan on Monday should be condemned by all standards as an act of terrorism, but..."
Done that. Heard it before. Writes itself. Don't buy it.
But.Me.No.Buts.
Done that. Heard it before. Writes itself. Don't buy it.
But.Me.No.Buts.
August 23, 2006
Airport madness
On Sunday we may travel to the northern tip of Denmark, one of the most tranquil spots I know because:
1. The beaches are superb and fairly empty.
2. The land is surrounded by sea on nearly all sides, so the light bounces up and down to create a special palette which was exploited by the "Skagen school" of painters.
The uncluttered landscape is mirrored by Danish design. We're partial to the glassware.
3. I like the Danes. They earned honour in WW2, saving almost all their Jews, and they have been pro-US against the EU pattern. I have done a lot of shipping business with Danes and they are great at performing their side of the letter and spirit of contracts.
4. They were traduced by most of the MSM over the Mohammed cartoons, so this is a good year to visit.
The bad part is Stansted Airport. This weekend a strike of check-in staff and baggage-handlers is scheduled - evil in a normal year. It's a Bank Holiday weekend and the kind of person who'd piss on a family vacation like that deserves nightmares to the crack of doom. Oh the humanity! Think of the children! Let these cockroaches get another job if they can't do this one without back-stabbing the rest of us. Backstabbing cockroaches, pah! This year the strike comes on top of the security farce, so 'treasonous' is too mild. No wonder one becomes a sulphurous old fart with age - it's the rational response to the calibrated sadism all around. Hell is other people, heaven is:
So, folks, for a great family vacation, rent a house in Jutland and fly by private jet.
As an air travel oriented coda, here's a transplanted comment to Mick Stockinger's post on Uncorrelated.com "Mutiny in the War on Terror" provoked by the Movable Type damnspamfilter (more calibrated sadism; what's the bad word ? 'race' ? 'flipflop' ?) -
"I applaud the passenger mutiny. Nobody cares what race they are - it's risk assessment. Nearly a quarter of young British male Muslims tell pollsters that 7/7 was justified.
Mick, it may be hard to get just how 'sensitive' the UK establishment has been to Muslims in ways which are beyond satire. It's been tried and failed. Repeat slowly after me "tried..and..failed."
The dhimmi mood music all around just increases their sense of victimhood. But they are not the victims. We are, and it's time that that culture paid a price and take ownership of the problem. If they can not or will not, then the West must do what it needs to do for self-preservation.
Assume the following:
1. You and your family are on a plane waiting to take off.
2. It's hot. You're wearing shorts and flip-flops.
3. There is no passenger profiling.
4. 24 Muslims, mostly young males, have just been arrested for plotting to blow up passenger planes.
5. There are 2 young male Muslims on the plane. They appear too heavily dressed. They glance frequently at their watches. They speak to each other in Arabic or Urdu rather than English.
Ok, Mick, I want to know, honestly, would you leave your children on that plane for the sake of the wider principles you wrote about ? Not me, mush, and I don't feel bad about it. I didn't create the problem. Muslims did; that's Muslims as a group and Islam as a culture. It's way past time for them to fix the problem or have it fixed around them. "
1. The beaches are superb and fairly empty.
2. The land is surrounded by sea on nearly all sides, so the light bounces up and down to create a special palette which was exploited by the "Skagen school" of painters.
The uncluttered landscape is mirrored by Danish design. We're partial to the glassware.
3. I like the Danes. They earned honour in WW2, saving almost all their Jews, and they have been pro-US against the EU pattern. I have done a lot of shipping business with Danes and they are great at performing their side of the letter and spirit of contracts.
4. They were traduced by most of the MSM over the Mohammed cartoons, so this is a good year to visit.
The bad part is Stansted Airport. This weekend a strike of check-in staff and baggage-handlers is scheduled - evil in a normal year. It's a Bank Holiday weekend and the kind of person who'd piss on a family vacation like that deserves nightmares to the crack of doom. Oh the humanity! Think of the children! Let these cockroaches get another job if they can't do this one without back-stabbing the rest of us. Backstabbing cockroaches, pah! This year the strike comes on top of the security farce, so 'treasonous' is too mild. No wonder one becomes a sulphurous old fart with age - it's the rational response to the calibrated sadism all around. Hell is other people, heaven is:
So, folks, for a great family vacation, rent a house in Jutland and fly by private jet.
As an air travel oriented coda, here's a transplanted comment to Mick Stockinger's post on Uncorrelated.com "Mutiny in the War on Terror" provoked by the Movable Type damnspamfilter (more calibrated sadism; what's the bad word ? 'race' ? 'flipflop' ?) -
"I applaud the passenger mutiny. Nobody cares what race they are - it's risk assessment. Nearly a quarter of young British male Muslims tell pollsters that 7/7 was justified.
Mick, it may be hard to get just how 'sensitive' the UK establishment has been to Muslims in ways which are beyond satire. It's been tried and failed. Repeat slowly after me "tried..and..failed."
The dhimmi mood music all around just increases their sense of victimhood. But they are not the victims. We are, and it's time that that culture paid a price and take ownership of the problem. If they can not or will not, then the West must do what it needs to do for self-preservation.
Assume the following:
1. You and your family are on a plane waiting to take off.
2. It's hot. You're wearing shorts and flip-flops.
3. There is no passenger profiling.
4. 24 Muslims, mostly young males, have just been arrested for plotting to blow up passenger planes.
5. There are 2 young male Muslims on the plane. They appear too heavily dressed. They glance frequently at their watches. They speak to each other in Arabic or Urdu rather than English.
Ok, Mick, I want to know, honestly, would you leave your children on that plane for the sake of the wider principles you wrote about ? Not me, mush, and I don't feel bad about it. I didn't create the problem. Muslims did; that's Muslims as a group and Islam as a culture. It's way past time for them to fix the problem or have it fixed around them. "
August 16, 2006
Leaving Auschwitz
I took these shots a few weeks ago. "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" ("work makes free") is the sign above the entrance to Auschwitz.
As a message from Islam then to Islam now I was interested to learn that : Adolf Eichmann`s deputy Dieter Wisliceny testified during his war crimes trial in 1946 that ... "The [Palestinian Grand] Mufti [of Jerusalem] was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz."
As a message from Islam then to Islam now I was interested to learn that : Adolf Eichmann`s deputy Dieter Wisliceny testified during his war crimes trial in 1946 that ... "The [Palestinian Grand] Mufti [of Jerusalem] was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz."
August 12, 2006
Don't feed the crocodiles
The morning after the woolly Franco-US UN resolution for a ceasefire in Lebanon there are reasons not to be cheerful for those who want:
1. A muscular Anglosphere
2. A timely war to eliminate Islamo-fascism. I mean war, not putzing about; war on Iran; war on disloyal immigrant groups; prompt, ferocious and simultaneous war to install acceptable regimes in Syria, Lebanon and Iran. That will simplify Iraq and Afghanistan. That is the humane and risk-averse policy, the best chance to avert a bloodier war later, which we might lose if our resilience and ferocity is the lesser.
It's not cheerful that Bush is signalling weakness in foreign policy, that the BBC's dhimmitude fades into treachery as the tension grows, that 'Dave' Cameron is leader of the party of Thatcher... that sort of thing.
But...over 0-3 years the scenery could shift to this :
US - Giuliani or Romney
UK - Brown or Reid
Israel - Netanyahu
Australia - Howard
Canada - Harper
Germany - Merkel
France - Sarkozy
Of these, only Howard has proven himself as a fighter for the West, but it's a potentially formidable wartime alliance. I might add Japan and India.
That's a best case and when the US is credibly threatened by an Islamic WMD, appeasement will seem more attractive than now. They know it, we know it. That threat is their stick, the carrot is their permission for us to enjoy life while demography does its work for the Caliphate.
Let me try to articulate the opposite view:
"Like it or not Muslims are provoked by pro-Israeli policy and Iraq. Sharia law can operate alongside western law within Europe and everyone will be happy. Iran is entitled to the same nuclear technology as the West. Ahmadinejad may be even shorter than Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, but he's charming and rational, ok, a little crazy about the Zionists and he hangs homosexuals and he hangs teenage girls for adultery, but that's a cultural thing. We have our equivalent fundamentalists like Bush ."
I hope that's a fair summary of let's call it 'the BBC view'. It has the virtue that it is self-refuting, it just needs to be stated absent the weasel words. The Bugs Bunny Democrats have no coherent view outside self-gratification and appeasement; they are the 'Feed The Crocodile 'Party.
I don't want to feed the crocodile, especially a sadistic crocodile, but I can't live with it prowling around my house. I can't live with little crocodiles inside my house chirruping away to the big one outside.
Appeasement central: hat-tip to Powerline.
1. A muscular Anglosphere
2. A timely war to eliminate Islamo-fascism. I mean war, not putzing about; war on Iran; war on disloyal immigrant groups; prompt, ferocious and simultaneous war to install acceptable regimes in Syria, Lebanon and Iran. That will simplify Iraq and Afghanistan. That is the humane and risk-averse policy, the best chance to avert a bloodier war later, which we might lose if our resilience and ferocity is the lesser.
It's not cheerful that Bush is signalling weakness in foreign policy, that the BBC's dhimmitude fades into treachery as the tension grows, that 'Dave' Cameron is leader of the party of Thatcher... that sort of thing.
But...over 0-3 years the scenery could shift to this :
US - Giuliani or Romney
UK - Brown or Reid
Israel - Netanyahu
Australia - Howard
Canada - Harper
Germany - Merkel
France - Sarkozy
Of these, only Howard has proven himself as a fighter for the West, but it's a potentially formidable wartime alliance. I might add Japan and India.
That's a best case and when the US is credibly threatened by an Islamic WMD, appeasement will seem more attractive than now. They know it, we know it. That threat is their stick, the carrot is their permission for us to enjoy life while demography does its work for the Caliphate.
Let me try to articulate the opposite view:
"Like it or not Muslims are provoked by pro-Israeli policy and Iraq. Sharia law can operate alongside western law within Europe and everyone will be happy. Iran is entitled to the same nuclear technology as the West. Ahmadinejad may be even shorter than Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, but he's charming and rational, ok, a little crazy about the Zionists and he hangs homosexuals and he hangs teenage girls for adultery, but that's a cultural thing. We have our equivalent fundamentalists like Bush ."
I hope that's a fair summary of let's call it 'the BBC view'. It has the virtue that it is self-refuting, it just needs to be stated absent the weasel words. The Bugs Bunny Democrats have no coherent view outside self-gratification and appeasement; they are the 'Feed The Crocodile 'Party.
I don't want to feed the crocodile, especially a sadistic crocodile, but I can't live with it prowling around my house. I can't live with little crocodiles inside my house chirruping away to the big one outside.
Appeasement central: hat-tip to Powerline.
August 11, 2006
Correlate that
1. Time - "a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications."
2. FT - "The detectives allowed the alleged plot to continue for as long as they dared. They followed the young Muslim men’s movements in London and other parts of the UK, listened into their meetings and monitored their spending."
3. WSJ - "The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs."
4.
2. FT - "The detectives allowed the alleged plot to continue for as long as they dared. They followed the young Muslim men’s movements in London and other parts of the UK, listened into their meetings and monitored their spending."
3. WSJ - "The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs."
4.
August 10, 2006
Correlate this
I'm in London.
My family is in the US, due to fly to the UK at the weekend.
This morning there is the highest level threat alert on UK/US flights - 'critical'.
The UK police say they've thwarted a specific attempt at 'mass murder' .
21 British Asian Muslims have been arrested overnight.
Neither the police nor the BBC say the word ' Muslim'.
Nearly a quarter of young British Asian Muslims polled say 7/7 was justified.
There's a long-term, consistent profile of terrorists against planes.
Everyone knows what that profile is.
Almost all security assets at UK and US airports will be applied to the bags of passengers like my family, not to logical human targets.
Security assets are finite.
Security intelligence is finite.
Please correlate.
Afterthought: Thank God the New York Times didn't know these arrested men were under surveillance.
My family is in the US, due to fly to the UK at the weekend.
This morning there is the highest level threat alert on UK/US flights - 'critical'.
The UK police say they've thwarted a specific attempt at 'mass murder' .
21 British Asian Muslims have been arrested overnight.
Neither the police nor the BBC say the word ' Muslim'.
Nearly a quarter of young British Asian Muslims polled say 7/7 was justified.
There's a long-term, consistent profile of terrorists against planes.
Everyone knows what that profile is.
Almost all security assets at UK and US airports will be applied to the bags of passengers like my family, not to logical human targets.
Security assets are finite.
Security intelligence is finite.
Please correlate.
Afterthought: Thank God the New York Times didn't know these arrested men were under surveillance.
August 09, 2006
UNCoRRELATED.com
Today's posts are in fact posts made over the past few weeks on Mick Stockinger's UNCoRRELATED.com