178 days ago
Investor Gary Savage of Smart Money is the sort of commodities bull who makes our own Nigel Somerville seem almost sane. Almost!
491 days ago
I am sure that Artificial Intelligence will change the world. It is a fascinating area as I have discussed in five episodes of TechCast. But that does not mean that AI might not create a stockmarket bubble. For into every boom the chancers are attracted.
616 days ago
I start with Versarien (VRS), the potentially £200,000 scandal and Neill Ricketts. Then to the demise of Silicon Valley Bank, a bubble blow up with associated crime and the wider ramifications: which listed companies could it screw up?
675 days ago
I start with Williams. Everything that is wrong about fat Tory conceit and sleaze. Then the bursting of the green and pot bubbles and why Malcolm and Darren just cannot see either.
680 days ago
Maybe this time Mr Gloom will be correct. Investor, commentator and libertarian Peter Schiff has some stark warnings.
732 days ago
I weigh in on the debate on Biome (BIOM) looking at macro babble & bubble and bottom up analysis to decide which of my colleagues is, I suspect, right.
845 days ago
One of the reasons that I have always perceived crypto as a bubble is that its promoters spout goobledygook which is clearly designed to deceive and befuddle rather than to enlighten investors. Maybe one of our in house loons (calling Jimbo!) can translate the sentence below into understandable English. Good luck all.
Ethereum co
883 days ago
I describe Thursday morning for me and Jaya, including a stop-in with my parents-in-law. This is relevant, as I discuss what my mother-in-law was watching on TV. I look at the house price bubble, the Bank of England, and interest rates. Then, I touch on THG (THG); ASOS (ASC); Sosandar (SOS); Zephyr Energy (ZPHR) – get your wallet out, Cliff; Wildcat Petroleum (WCAT); Kinovo (KINO); and Boohoo (BOO). I also discuss the notion that MusicMagpie (MMAG) has a list of “spiffing institutional inveestors”, and that this will save the company. It won’t.
955 days ago
I explain why the podcast is late. Apologies. Then I look at a bubble which is clearly bursting, what caused it and what happens next. I mention a number of companies including: Cellular Goods (CBX), Seed Innovations (SEED), Eden Pharma and Chill Brands (CHLL)
1004 days ago
Can we all agree that the covid bubble/lets all WFH bubble has burst and also that the tech bubble is bursting.I will write up the top way to cash in on this on the N50 website this weekend. Meanwhile here is some more free money for the bears.
1041 days ago
I name all those shareholders or their BB or Twitter names that Union Jack Oil (UJO) is using shareholder cash to troll in a most thoroughly unpleasant way as I exposed yesterday. I also comment on THG (THG), Cineworld (CINE), Tintra (TNT), Versarien (VRS) and then on the bursting of the Covid testing bubble with particular reference to Omega Diagnostics (ODX), Avacta (AVCT) and Novacyt (NCYT) which has its own BIG question to answer. Plus, of course, MyHealthChecked (MHC). I reference vaccination and covid rates in Israel in the podcast which is covered in more detail HERE.
1042 days ago
Oh dear. How sad. Never Mind. The Covid testing bubble is bursting and an admission this morning from Avacta (AVCT) is even more of a disaster than a 27% share price slump suggests. This collapse is only just beginning and will spread across the sector, so completely vindicating we cynics of stocks such as Abingdon (ABDX), Omega Diagnostics (ODX) and others. As a bear, preparing to crack out a celebratory ouzo, Let me explain.
1109 days ago
In today’s podcast delayed by the birthday of Mr Atwater Snr (perhaps) and by Christmas pudding making (for sure) I reference two other articles on the website today and two of the manias currently in mode which will end in tears.
1130 days ago
The murder of Tory MP David Amess is shocking and horrible and, naturally, one thinks of his family. But the reaction of the media and political class has been telling, a sign of just how completely and utterly out of touch they are with we dirty plebs. The same could never have been said of East End born David Amess but he was an unusual fellow inside the Westminster bubble.
1201 days ago
Asset manager Peter Grandich says that during his forty year career, financial markets have changed to become high-tech casinos. Spot on!
1248 days ago
Bankster and author Diego Parrilla defines a bubble and how misconceptions can distort reality at extreme values, either high or low. Every bubble has an anti-bubble.
1257 days ago
Libertarian philosopher, speculator, and author Doug Casey kicks off by suggesting paying for a University education is a misallocation of time and money to have your head pumped full of Marxist ideas.
1260 days ago
At peak ramp, folks like Zak Mir were telling you that Remote Monitored Systems (RMS) would be drowning in cash from selling gazillions of its high margin face nappies. I warned repeatedly that this was pure fantasy. Today the grim truth has emerged and the shares have slumped. Worse will follow.
1278 days ago
Professor David Collum of Cornell University is an expert on inflation. David starts with the observation that actual wealth creation involves making life better, and the 1870s to 1940s are a good example. Since the 1940s, wealth creation has become much more gradual. GDP today does not consider inflation or planned obsolescence from cheap consumer goods.
1280 days ago
Suddenly we dinosaurs who did not understand why a worthless piece of code, which was inherently vulnerable to substitution by other worthless but cheaper pieces of code, was so valuable don’t look quite so dumb. Bitcoin is down by 18% at sub $35,000 having been $64,870 just four weeks ago. This time it is not the prick Elon Musk to blame, the bubble today is being pricked by China.
1282 days ago
After part one of the Musk pump and dump and then volte-face on bitcoin, the great fraudster faced the problem that Tesla (TSLA) was still sitting on around half of the $1.5 billion of bitcoin it had bought to great fanfare in February. But this bitcoin is dirty and environmentally tainted said the great green auto-maker – what to do with it?
1298 days ago
I start with house hunting with my mother-in-law in what is a bubble within a bubble. It has to end in tears. Then I look at Nightcap (NCAP) and the disgrace of its IPO on the AIM sewer becomes even more disgraceful after today’s expose HERE. Tomorrow a modest 15 mile Woodlarks training walk is planned. we are at more than 33% of the Rogue Bloggers target but 94% of you are yet to donate. Go on, please give generously today HERE.
1303 days ago
96% of you are yet to get your credit card out. I really do have a Dan Levi in his underpants picture and am not kidding about publishing so please do donate to Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks now HERE. Then it is onto NFT Investments and NFT’s and the scandal I covered HERE. I look at previous bubbles and try to put it into context. All those involved: the promoters Jonathan Bixby & Michael Edwards, scumbag broker Novum and Aquis should hang their heads in shame. They won’t. They are preparing to do it all over again and soon.
1308 days ago
Brian Hirschman is the Managing Partner of Hirschmann Partnership, dubbed by ValueWalk as the “World’s Most Bearish Hedge Fund.” He warns that all the bubbles have only grown in recent months and that the two biggest bubbles are bitcoin and residential real estate.
1356 days ago
What a delightful day it was. I had great fun on family researches as you can read HERE and then watched the asbestos removal men start to do the work. Then it was bonfire time as our accountant and I worked on filing our accounts with an efficiency for which we are not noted. In the podcast I discuss public/private company filings and then Rishi Sunak’s Budget, the threats and a big mistake I fear he will make.
1373 days ago
I will not make that joke about Paul, Lent starts tomorrow and my minimal alcohol intake will be going to zero until Easter. I may have a couple of glasses tonight to brace myself for a period of thirst that lies ahead. In this podcast I discuss Paul’s comments on Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and why I think the FCA may not allow this fraud to relist. I look at Zoetic (ZOE) where I am hopeful of an imminent share suspension, and the pot and small cap bubble in general, also looking at today’s pot float, Kanabo (KNB).
1390 days ago
I start with ShareSoc backing an investor action group at bust mini bond outfit Wellseley. I warned folks explicity about this almost two years ago HERE and many times thereafter so have scant sympathy. I discuss the role of the floor shitters at the FCA in this debacle. That brings me to Supply@ME Capital (SYME) after today’s dynamite expose HERE. The email is genuine. I ask what next? Finally I discuss comments by populists seeking cheap love, such as shamed Neil Woodford promoter Jeff PressTrip of the Mail on Sunday and Nigel Farage, about GameStop. Do they both really support bubbles and capital misallocation?
1557 days ago
On 24th July I asked, in this column, if the gold market and shares in gold companies were a bubble? My conclusion was that although there were signs of froth there was no bubble yet.
1576 days ago
Finally, the deadwood press is starting to notice that gold is reaching nominal record highs while silver is racing ahead. Admittedly, silver still has a way to go to catch up gold in terms of relative historic underperformance. As I revealed this week, David Lenigas is planning to launch a gold shares investment company on AIM. That the old charlatan has moved from pot to gold tells you where the action is at. But is this a bubble, as was pot? We called the pot bubble, is it time to start lining up your gold shorts?
1589 days ago
Forgive me, dear readers, for returning to the matter of the great Coronavirus bubble but data came out late Thursday from the ONS which screams at you that it is about to pop.
1670 days ago
I start with the defamatory and anti semitic blog attack on me from Bidstack (BIDS) owning loon which I rebutted yesterday HERE. I have now identified the author who is not as “she” claims a female investigative journalist but is a male Bulletin Board Moron. I shall expose his identity and also his close social media links to Bidstack boss Lyin James Draper, which “she” has been trying to hide this weekend, later. When, I wonder did “she” last swap ideas with Lyin’ James? Then I look at the prick which will burst the Coronavirus testing bubble on AIM. If you own shares in Novacyt (NCYT), Avacta (AVCT) or any of the other Covid test plays watch out! Finally, I am in despair at smug Sam Smith of FinnCrap (FCAP), La Horlick and various other women determined to see taxpayers cash spunked by Rishi Sunak on gender quota lines in his start up bailout scheme. This is insanity laid upon insanity. There is no such insanity at the ShareProphets Shares Show. I am busy making recordings for it every day now, please do book your seats for May 9 HERE
1733 days ago
I start with a bit about the US election this November, the Trump economic and stockmarket bubble and when it will burst. It is a when not an if and in that vein I review stocks that could be utterly cratered when the mood music changes including Petra Diamonds (PDL), De La Rue (DLAR), Versarien (VRS) and other jam tomorrow overvalued jokes and NMC Health (NMC). And I suggesy how you start to prepare for the bubble bursting.
2011 days ago
In today’s bearcast I look at Afriag (AFRI), Big Dave’s UK pot play, at Management Resource Solutions (MRS), Eve Sleep (EVE), First Derivatives (FDP), Purplebricks (PURP) and Thomas Cook (TCG). Now re Rogue Bloggers we are no at almost £44,000 and heading towards our £50,000 target. If you are yet to donate please do so HERE. To all those who have donated, many, many thanks.
2098 days ago
Analyst Luke Gromen is not sitting on the fence with this call. He argues that whereas everything is in a bubble, Gold is arguably the cheapest asset relative to history.
2175 days ago
I see that The Guardian and others are blaming Brexit for a fall in UK house prices. But hang on! House prices are crashing in Oz and Canada and sliding at an ever faster rate in the USA. What's that got to do with Brexit. The housing bubble in China is popping - how can you blame that on Nigel Farage? I explain why lower house prices are a good thing and what is really going on in today's podcast.
2193 days ago
This bearcast is prompted partly by news Purplebricks (PURP) is not telling you about and partly by Malcolm's buy note on Bovis (BVS) earlier and partly on some new housing data out yesterday. Suffice to say Purplebricks is in ever deeper merde, Malcolm Stacey is wrong and there really could be a big fall in UK house prices and volumes and it is just partly linked to Brexit. It is a pin and we know there is a bubble.
2226 days ago
In this podcast recorded in my car in a side street of Kambos I discuss my journey to the Greek Hovel and being recognised by a man at Gatwick. Fame! Not! Then I look at Versarien (VRS), Asiamet (ARS), First Derivatives (FDP), UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) and the most terrifying stat of all from the Chinese bubble - a warning for you all.
2232 days ago
Forgive a brief historic digression at the start of this podcast but I start with a history lesson for those misguided souls who think that SinnFein/IRA brought peace and happiness to Ireland. Then I look at some other tossers from Ulster, First Derivatives (FDP) and the 3Xs. I comment briefly on Purplebricks (PURP) and Versarien (VRS) then move via BCA Marketplace (BCA) to Neil Woodford. Then it is onto MySquar (MYSQ), Symphony Environmental (SYM) and on to UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) with a few words for Dominic Frisby on the nature of bitcoin and its bubble ahead of our bust up next week in London.
2300 days ago
In today's bearcast I start with Argo Blockchain (ARB) and what our coverage shows again. Then it is onto Mark Carney and the Sunday Times talking Project Fear Brexit bollocks on Sterling. Finally David Lenigas, Luke Johnson and why this bubble will not be different to any other.
2329 days ago
James West has made money from the Canadian cannabis bubble, but...
2386 days ago
This session was chaired by Dominic Frisby with a panel of Malcolm Palle, Jonathan Bixby, Tony Sanders, Bob McDowall, and Ralph Hazell
2423 days ago
If you are my age you may remember the song, it was a hit when I lived there and today i head over to stay with the same folks as i lived with more than 30 years ago. Ahead of that there are more words on the gender pay gap data abuse as covered in detail HERE and then I cover Vela (VELA) and a bursting blockchain bubble, Vitesse Media (VIS) - opportunistic scumbags - Infrstrata (INFA), Inspirit (INSP), Collagen (COS), MySquar (MYSQ) and Frontera (FRR). And there may be major news on Air Partner (AIR) soon, I seem to have found a whistleblower. Happy days. If you like bearcasts then remember that at UK Investor on April 21 one of many highlights will be a live bearcast with myself and Paul Scott. Make sure you book a free ticket HERE using the promotional code WINNIFRITH.
2468 days ago
In this pre hovel visit podcast I look at the Envy ratio, life inside a bubble, a dying industry (news) and reflections on Luke Johnson's thoughts of today and our past shared experiences.
2512 days ago
I think it is Darren Atwater's 50th today. I wish him happy returns anyway. My own 50th is a week away but I celebrate a few days early so no bearcast tomorrow. In this podcast I discuss: Deltex (DEMG), Union Jack (UJO), Egdon (EDR), UK Oil & Gas (UKOG), FastForward (FFWD) and the bubble in pot stocks and why it must burst, Premier Africa (PREM) and the fraud MySquar (MYSQ)
2560 days ago
Malcolm outlines a strategy today for playing AIM Casino stocks which I regard as folly. I explain why it could go disastrously wrong in two ways. Then I look at the wider asset bubble in relation to art, soccer players, real estate and new media and how that impacts on the stockmarket and will, in due course, implode.
2560 days ago
In this bonus podcast prompted by recent events at African Potash (AFPO) and ADVFN (AFN) I look back on other bouts of market insanity. There was the radio boom of the 1920s and the dot com boom of 1999-2001 but is the blockchain bubble at 1999, 2000 or 2001? Among the companies also mentioned are On Line (ONL), Vela (VELA), Milestone Group (MSG) and Coinsilium (COIN), where we have a small holding. Madness, my friends, is in the air.
2621 days ago
Libertarian Peter Schiff is a great hero of mine and I am glad to see him calling Bitcoin out as a bubble.
2629 days ago
If you forgive me I start with long conversations with my father about World War Two and the early fifties, his father, his mother's godfather's son (hanged as a Nazi) and other matters all prompted by watching an episode of Foyle's war last night. You need to have these chats while you still can and I thought they were interesting. We move on to why my father thinks he is Shipston's Buffett - yes the UK residential property bubble and we see yet more signs of utter madness from the FCA on this score. Martin Fagan, all those years ago, you were bang on the money.
2637 days ago
I really do not get this bitcoin shite at all, however much my pal Dominic Frisby tries to explain it to me. I just fear it will end in tears but I am cognisant that some folks have made a complete killing on it so far. In a podcast with Palisade Capital, sector guru Michael Pole makes some bold calls. Is this just the start of the gold rush or are we close to dotcom bust in 2001?
2682 days ago
Today we learn the names of all BBC stars earning over £150,000 a year. It is only the existence of an overpaying state funded broadcaster that keeps presenter pay up at stratospheric levels. In the USA where there is a free market and no state subsidies the pay for doing an easy job (reading an autocue) is falling and not that high. This is the tip of the iceberg.
How many BBC staff you have never heard of are earning £100,000, 75,000 or whatever? Quite simply pay is out of control. And who is funding that?
2705 days ago
On June 9th the liberal media warned us that those bigoted DUP types from Ulster would want to roll back LGBT and women's rights in return for propping up pathetic Prime Minister May. We Thatcherites dared to dream that the DUP might demand some proper Tory policies like privatizing the BBC or slashing corporation tax as the price for keeping the wretched Conservatives in power. What nonsense. Ulster politics is all about posture and pork barrel and the latter is the more powerful of the two.
Thus the DUP will prop up the May creature in return for an additional £1 billion being poured into the Ulster pork trough during the next two years. The DUP are, it turns out, utterly unprincipled wastrels just like all the other folks at Westminster.
The predictable faux outrage and hypocrisy from the virtua signalling liberal establishment. was loud and
2821 days ago
I reckon China is a debt time-bomb waiting to go off and burst the bubble. Andrew Monk of VSA Resources is a China bull but he addresses this issue in a fascinating note emailed to his clients this morning. Over to the Monkey...
2966 days ago
The Crowd Funding bubble is yet to claim a high profile casualty but after a long strong of business disasters, not least investing £33 million of other folks cash with Bernie Madoff, could the self proclaimed "Superwoman" Nicola Horlick deliver the first big disaster with Money&Co? Yesterday I documented two very odd ways that cash raised from investors was heading to La Horlick, the dodgy £50,000 gift (oops I mean loan) HERE and the Bramdean payments that don't add up HERE. Now let's look at the accounts of Denmark Hill, the owner of Money&Co.
3053 days ago
There is much commentary in the USA about the revulsion that so many folks feel for the three intertwined pillars of the status quo of the establishment: the political class, the big businessmen who fund/buy that class and the media pundits who take the political/business spin without question. I would perhaps add a fourth pillar, the banksters, but perhaps they are rolled into business fat cats. The massive distrust and resentment of these people seems to be evident across the West. That Americans may well vote for Donald Trump who is, shall we say, not exactly the new Abraham Lincoln, is a sign of this, Brexit was another as is the rise of the frightful Marine Le Pen in France.
And so we come to the coronation of Theresa May
3053 days ago
In a wide ranging podcast I look at the bubbles in property and elsewhere and how we create bigger bubbles as we fix smaller ones. The day of reckoning can be postponed for only so long.
3054 days ago
Jeepers this is confusing: listening and watching Theresa May yesterday I was told that she has just become leader of the Conservative Party and will be our next Tory Prime Minister. So why was she sounding like a socialist but also a peddler of bogus religion? If this is the best the Tories can offer then, to quote a real Tory Margaret Thatcher, There IS No Alternative. TINA says it is time to quit and emigrate.
It is not that Mrs May is already speaking weasel words on Brexit. She states Brexit means Brexit but then waffles on about how we may have to accept certain things to get free trade. Mrs May we voted for full on Brexit, not Brexit light.
It was not the quasi evangelical clap trap
3070 days ago
In the third bearcast of today's trilogy celebrating Independence Day I look at stocks or rather at two sectors - gold miners and house builders. One is soaring the other tanking. Is this all Brexit related? Or any of it? Could both trends accelerate? I focus on the house builders and explain exactly how bubbles collapse and this is a bubble. But do not blame Brexit for the collapse. All bubbles have to implode in the end.
3110 days ago
In this interview I put controversial Mr Hon of Gate Ventures (GATE) fame on the spot about the Gate fiasco on AIM, the Chinese economy ( a bubble?) and about China fraud on AIM. Enjoy
3160 days ago
There is only one thing that Daily Mail readers love more than articles about how illegal immigrants can give you cancer and that is articles on how prices are going up. But today there is an article which warns that the Bank of England is set to try and stop Buy to Let becoming a bubble. It's too late! It is not if but when it all bursts.
3168 days ago
To the Bubble boys 5 nil, To the bubble boys 5 nil, To the bubble boys 5 nil. That great Bubble Sir Stelios has Fastjet (FJET) and its fascist bully boy PR scumbag operatives at Citigate Dewe Rogerson realing. Naturally I start with this. The heroic Sir Stelios makes me even more of an admirer of all things Greek. Well almost. I look at Hellenic Carriers (HCL) and also at Gulf Keystone (GKP) and Northern Petroleum (NOP).
3220 days ago
I gave this presentation in Clerkenwell last night. I am not predicting a crash but I am suggesting that the debt and QE bubble is only starting to unwind and will go much further
3231 days ago
I take this as a reader request. Happy Birthday K. So is the USA booming, a bubble or bust. I do my best to answer.
3480 days ago
The Chinese stockmarket is a crazy bubble right now. Hat tip to John Meyer of SP Angel for a set of crazy stats, Maybe it is time for the Bear Community to head out East?
3644 days ago
This week's video postcard looks at how the peasantry (you and me) are revolting using new media against the political and media bubble dwellers, the establishment. Matthew Parris does not like it but I loves it as you can see on the video.
Over on ShareProphets on the matter of oil stocks our writers are divided. Ben Turney sees the recent OPEC meeting as disastrous for AIM listed oil shares (HERE). On the other hand Chris Oil (HERE) and Paul Curtis (HERE) argue that the bad news is more than discounted and are buyers of the sector. I started my career as an oil analyst and so what do think? You can find out HERE
4223 days ago
This was in many ways my favourite part of UKInvestor Show 2013. Together with two good friends we chatted 100% without rehearsal on UK residential and commercial property, the death of the High street, the UK economy, Alliance Pharma, Domino's Pizza, share prices, Margaret Thatcher and much more. Leslau and Wray are always inspirational for me. And I had a ball.
4268 days ago
This went out on onefreesharetip.com a few weeks ago but perhaps meriots a wider audience I stand by my view expressed here:
It is part of the British DNA that we believe that house prices must always go up. That is not the case. Be warned. Falls of 30% or more are inevitable within the next few years.
Of course inflation (the erosion of the purchasing power of the pound) has made house prices a one way bet since the early 1970s. I will not bother serving up a chart just imagine climbing a ski slope. But this is an inflation given gain. It simply reflects, to misquote Harold Wilson that the pound in your pocket is worth far less than it was. You might note that in 1971 you could buy an ounce of gold for £14. Today that will cost you more than £1000. The destruction in the purchasing power of Sterling during the past 42 years has meant that all physical assets look, in headline terms, like smart bets, housing included. You cannot live in a bar of gold but it has actually been a better bet than UK house prices. So as it happens has been am 1870 Wisden cricket annual, but again you cannot live in it.
House prices have not, as anyone who bought in 1987 will remember, moved in a straight line. There are periods when they fall sharply. That happens because a) they get overheated and b) because there is one of two external shocks: either a sharp rise in unemployment or a sharp rise in interest rates and either of those two triggers mean that large numbers of people with mortgages cannot pay, default and become forced sellers.
4279 days ago
The answer to the 1998 financial crisis was to slash borrowing costs across the globe so that we all over-leverages and misallocated our capital. On that occasion it was junk dotcom investments and property. In 2008 another crises and the same solution. The fact is that the world has been misallocating capital for decades, led by Governments freed from prudence by the abandonment of the gold standard in 1971.
With each crisis that crops up, the solution is simply to print more money and to get folks to take on even more debt. You owe too much – heck borrow some more. And so capital is misallocated and bubbles grow ever bigger. But at some stage the party ends. It will. The current set up is simply unsustainable.
And so what will be the black swan event that causes the mother of all reality checks? If offer four runners and riders. Inevitably if one occurs it will trigger the others. And it will probably be a fifth black swan that no-one has thought much about that starts the party. But here goes.
1. The Chinese property bubble. I have written before on numerous occassions about just how mammoth this is and how it really can knock the Chinese (and thus the worlds) economy for six. The answer of the authorities to the slowdown in the PRC in 2012 was to pump more hot air into this bubble. It has to be my top black swan bet. Read this piece out yesterday on Zero Hedge if you doubt me.
My major work from September 2012 on China, the misallocation, fraud an inevitably of a crash is HERE
2. A market refusal to buy US T Bonds in an auction. The US Government is three years away from having a balance sheet like that of Greece just before the crisis. An economically illiterate President and, to show balance, a spineless Republican party in Congress just cannot get to grips with what is happening. The US today is like sick Britain at the end of WW1. But it will take the US far less time than we took to see its currency tank. At some stage folks will refuse to stump up cash for a debt that yields sod all and is clearly unrepayable and unsupportable.
3. Sovereign default across Europe accompanied by widespread Civil unrest. The only folks buying Spanish debt right now are the Spanish state pension funds. Oooh lucky Spanish state pensioners. But those funds are tapped out. Spain is bust and its economy is enjoying an EU austerity driven spanking session which Max Mosley could only dream of. It is not just Spain. Italy, Greece, Portugal are in the same mess. The Irish economy and society has been beaten to a pulp in the name of fiscal responsibility and yet could still collapse. France is heading the wrong way fast as is the UK. The collapse of the Euro as we know it has to be an odds on bet it is a matter of how it occurs.
4. The Arab spring moving to Saudi Arabia. A regime with no legitimacy is kleptocratic, autocratic and barbaric. It bribes the people with a fraction of the nation’s wealth and panders to radical Islam in a most unhealthy sort of way but it is unloved. One day it will fall. Revolution in the world’s largest oil producer could perhaps trigger unforeseen events elsewhere.
Hey, maybe we can all carry on spending beyond our means, leveraging up as individuals and as States for a good while yet. We have been kicking this can down the road for decades so maybe we can carry on for another few decades. Or maybe not. One day something will happen and we will find our noses against the wall at the end of the Cul-de-sac. That day may be sooner than we think.
For more thoughts from Tom Winnifrith follow him on twitter @tomwinnifrith
4309 days ago
Two years ago the EU ceased to subsidise tobacco growers in Greece, Poland and Bulgaria – folks who received £260 million a year as recently as three years ago. The problem is that their tobacco is a) not very good and b) costs far more to produce than tobacco from the third world so they need subsidies to stay in business. Now the EU wishes to restart subsidies. This is patent nonsense on three levels.
1. This is the same EU that is spending £27 million a yet trying to stop folks smoking. It claims that its campaigns are helping hundreds of thousands of people quit the habit. That is 100% unprovable and I would argue that this money is also being pissed away. But if they want to stamp out the habit why subsidise producers?
