Another roll of the dice

If we were to throw a die to forecast our future we might, like Luke Rheinhart’s Dice Man, load the odds so that one face predicts rapid recovery, four faces offer progressively increasing degrees of gloom ranging from a one-year recession to four-year deflation, and the sixth face suggests something very more radically threatening.

It is probably not too pessimistic to suggest that within a year or so the sixth face of the economic die will give us a scenario in which our bankrupt liberal democratic (and as it happens, capitalist) nation states will have no choice but to accept bail-outs from countries whose politics we abhor.

In this scenario our economic survival becomes dependent on Saudi Arabia, China or Russia and its old ’Stans. None of these are remotely liberal or democratic by our standards, nor are they strictly capitalist in our terms, in the sense of a diversified, decentralised economy.

Will this dependency come without demands? I suspect not.

For decades "our" IMF has bailed out third world countries only so long as they promise to adopt developed world capitalist economic management principles. I think we can be reasonably certain that financial support from the purveyors of sovereign wealth such as China will carry similar or more stringent obligations.

What is therefore at risk is not just our economic viability but the very freedom we have fought for over centuries to run our societies as we wish.

The supposed destructive threat of Al Qaeda will have materialised, but it will have been delivered not from Islam but by the free market capitalist fundamentalists that have infested our economy, out-manoeuvred our regulators and seduced their political masters.

The axis of evil will have triumphed but that axis will emerge to be not the barbarian at the gate but the enemy within.

Mince pie futures

In these challenging times Grumpy Old Man has been relentlessly searching for undiscovered value and potential arbitrage opportunities.

We believe mince pies have been overlooked as a potential store of value. No longer is your average mince pie the product of an industrial stamping process somewhere in the Black Country

Quite conversely, we believe mince pies could now offer considerable upside potential.

Grumpy Old Man has been subjecting a range of these unique confections to a rigorous and scientific bench-testing process supported by selective and controlled use of microwave radiation.

He offers here some tasting notes to guide future investment decisions.

Sainsbury’s Deep Filled Mince Pies
Tall rather than deep-filled; filling rather bitter; pastry-style case, not very buttery; explodes after 40 seconds on high power
23p per pie

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference
Light, buttery pastry which became somewhat floppy and chewy after 30 seconds in the microwave; filling offers fat raisins and plenty of brandy-type flavours
34p per pie

Sainsbury’s Connoisseur
Mincemeat of super-prime quality
53p per pie

Konditor & Cook
Well-structured, with some evidence that a rolling pin has been applied to the pastry; variable dimensions and slightly inconsistent sizing offer a good impression of artisanal provenance; available individually or in boxed tranches of six or a dozen
89p per pie

Gregg’s at the top end of Leather Lane
A rather volatile proposition, excessively sugary and highly liquid; suspiciously handmade; pastry somewhat limp and insufficiently acquainted with heat; cloying sweet mincemeat attempts to hide some sub-prime, Alt-A rated ingredients with emerging evidence of default or impairment.
27p per pie

In current market conditions we recommend eating fewer of the more expensive pies.

What was that girl doing on the 45 bus?

Travelling up to town, as you do, from the wastelands of South London past the Elephant, on the bottom deck of the 45, I notice this girl, sitting opposite, headphones in ears, fiddling with her mobile.

I was already feeling a bit sick, sitting on the bottom deck over the engine, getting a nice hit of diesel fumes, facing backwards, swaying from side to side as we went round the corners.

She was about 17, travelling with someone who looked like her mum, and she was using her phone like an iPod. What can she have been doing?

I'm told by our new media guru that she might have been doing any number of things from downloading her favourite song collection via GPRS to listening to some tunes that she had side-loaded earlier - whatever the hell that is.

She could have been perusing a collection of dodgy pics or be on-line playing an MMORPG. She could have been paying a bill (though at 17 that's unlikely as she's probably a student and doubtless sponging from her parents) or updating her profile on Facebook.

She could have been uploading a video to You Tube or reading her e-mail. It seems the opportunities to consume new media whilst on the move are now almost endless. God forbid she might even have been simply making a phone call!

That's great, but it still doesn’t stop other people’s musical tastes being imposed on my aural sensitivities.

I’m placing great hope on Boris’s plans – how about either silence or compulsory Verdi?

Safe as houses

So the FTSE 100 did get down to the 3,000's.

But have we seen the bottom yet?

Chateau Angelus 1996 is still available at the wine bar at the end of the road at the knockdown price of £195 a bottle. And if that doesn't quite stretch the credulity, then there's still the La Tache 1982, Domaine Romanée Conti, at £1,200 a pop.

On Channel 4, the 'phenomenally successful' A Place in the Sun is still promoting dream homes in Sicily where, apparently, there is much less organised crime than there used to be. Amanda Lamb, its presenter, also fronts A Place in the Sun Revisited, Celebrity A Place in the Sun and Top Twenty Best for Channel 4.

Born in Portsmouth in a spot that is now the M27, Amanda was an estate agent for four years and then a model for six years. Amanda has appeared in commercials for companies as diverse as Gossard, Oil of Olay and Remington.

Maybe TV companies feel these lifestyle programmes, fuelled by credit mania, must be shown because they're still in the can.

What else from the pre-October 2008 era is still in the can?

Websites with text in unreadable grey font and flash animations on the home page?

Must remember to ask my financial adviser about his modelling career.

And maybe the next series of A Place in the Sun will be hosted by Margaret Beckett from Mablethorpe Caravan Park.

Well I never…

In a week that is seeing the Republican Party turn the USA into the largest example of state capitalism in the western world, one might have thought that there could be no more surprises.

How wrong one can be. Last week also witnessed a competing event – the publication by the Grauniad of a slim volume entitled "The Guardian Book of English Language", including advice on common spelling errors.

Another defining moment of post modernist inory?

Where is James Crosby now?

Yesterday's fools are today's sages.

LloydsTSB were castigated in 2006 for not making their capital work hard enough, and were thought in January of that year to be about to receive a takeover offer from BBVA, Wells Fargo or Bank of America - or possibly all three.

But now staid institutions with robust balance sheets are being courted by world statesmen.

Maybe, to mangle one's aphorisms completely, schadenfreude is a dish best eaten cold.

Should we be reassured that James Crosby has joined Alan Greenspan's panel of car crash investigators? Maybe they should also enlist the help of Hank Greenberg, Richard Fuld and Adam Applegarth.

I suggest a visit to Dr Johnson's House will be in order later in the month - both to straighten out the aphorisms and also to ingest some renewed sagacity.

Cardboard box time

Despondent financiers have been seen foraging for empty cardboard boxes in the delivery bay behind our local Sainsbury's.

What is inside those boxes they are carrying out of the temples of steel and glass?

Is it just sweaty trainers and photos of loved ones, or is there anything else of real value to be retrieved from our collapsing investment banking industry?

The fall has been coming for some time - at least ten years, in our opinion. What is the legacy?

Difficult to assess just now, but our list would include: outstanding analytical skills; innovative applications of high-order maths; highly available, resilient and powerful IT systems; truly global organisational models; and memories of a highly committed and energised way of working.

The people carrying cardboard boxes are walking out with considerable knowledge, skills and experience. Our bet is that these competencies will get a retread and be back on the road before long. But within a considerably less favourable regulatory, fiscal and macroeconomic environment, we suspect.