IS COUNSELLING A GOOD IDEA?

26 November 2022

I think everyone benefits from counselling - assistance, especially from a professional, with the resolution of personal difficulties - in the sense that we are all curious about who we are, we want to know more about ourselves, to understand and improve, as well as to stave off stresses and low-level anxiety... that is the mark of this period in human history, at least in advanced economies. It wasn't like that in the past, we have moved from an agricultural society to an industrial society and finally to an identity society.

AGRICULTURAL

In the past, people just survived, most people were right at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy. The purpose of existence was to have large families of children who would grow up and help them on the farm and look after them in their old age. And furthermore, they all belonged to the same community, the same Faith, the values and beliefs were shared by everyone, the same way of thinking, and so there was no need to question anything, no need to think too much, you just obey, you get on and do it. We saw that most clearly in Bali in the Hindu Society in Bali, where rituals and practises, repeated over the generations, take up 40% of their time and their money, apparently.

INDUSTRIAL

Then what happened is that economies started to industrialise, which means moving from fields to factory, from country to town... the development of banks made money available to entrepreneurs, building factories to mass produce things and railways to transport raw materials and finished goods. Building factories, taking people from the country and making them work in factories, living in cities and in mass housing projects, where you are less watched over by your neighbours, they know less about you and you know less about them, and care less, and so lots of funny things can happen when social controls are relaxed. 

If you live in a city, children turn from being a help and an investment on the farm, and become instead an inconvenience and an expense in the flat...so urbanisation brings many changes, notably more complex social relations, more money, more free time, more temptation.

Plus in the late 17th and 18th centuries, accompanying industrialisation, we went through the enlightenment, a period that revolutionised our thinking, from in praise of God to search for beauty truth and justice, emphasising reason and individualism rather than tradition, a time in Europe where philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith, moved us away from a society governed by rules set by a divine being who must be obeyed, to a world where it is we who remake the rules in a process of negotiation with our neighbours. The religious and political, church and state, sceptre and sword, are separated, state legislatures take over from royal families and lords, the rise in the West of democratically-elected republics.

After the food-delivery economy came this product-delivery economy. To this industrial operating model  producing things, were added layers of management to oversee operations; and expert units (accountants, legal, personnel...) to support managers. 

Thus the birth of the middle class. This moved advanced economies on from food, to products, to services ie to service-delivery.

Universal education was now needed, women went out to work, legislation for equality between the genders and human rights was passed ... all of which challenged our clear and simple traditional, stable, roles and responsibilities; increased the pace of change and complexity of our lives; thus adding to our neuroses and confusion.

IDENTITY

And then when you live in the city and you are subject to all these demands and contradictions and questions (how many children shall we have? Shall I go out to work too?...), and there are many different and diverse groups living side by side with only an oily curtain to separate them, you have started to experience personal freedom and choice, but you must start thinking for yourself, and at the same time you are stressed as family and friends networks break down, or anxiety levels generally rise as you are alienated from most processes that affect you, ie you lose control of your life, and you expect more from a partner and friends (life partner, lover, business partner, intellectual equal, parent-substitute, amateur counsellor even!...).

In all this, you'll become more awake, conscious, individualist, ie more aware of yourself, having to fend for yourself, alone in a complex world, you are a small boat navigating the tides of circumstance; and maybe seeking "self-realisation" or "self-actualisation" for yourself, wanting to distinguish yourself from your siblings, from your peers, needing different friends for these new roles and personal interests.

This is possible, through education and opportunity, and indeed entertainment, diversity and self-development become the highest goals: you are different, you are gifted, you are unique, you are full of talent and potential....but you are stressed, anxious, confused, possibly depressed by your non-conformity.

And so, you begin to ask who you are, so there are questions now about your identity, how to fulfill your potential, where you are heading, the long-term decisions that only you can take, and that's where some of us are at the moment.

 ... "why am I different?" 

Because we are a herd animal and herd animals all try to be the same as everyone else, so moving away from the group causes a neurotic - and often creative - gap to open up, as happiness and inner peace diminishes and we feel challenged to conform to the expectations of others, maybe those of our traditional parents. We are a kind of herbivore mostly, we want to be like the others, like sheep, and we don't really like to be different... and yet we do.

YOU

You want to know who you are, you want to know about yourself, you want to understand yourself, you want to know why you have not followed the traditional path in your society and how to actualise your great talent to achieve something of value ... and this is where counselling comes in as the counsellor will be able to explain these things, help you to understand, find and harness your motivation. So a journey of self-discovery and getting the train back on the rails of self improvement.

And many of us are very curious and open-minded and also troubled by complexity and diversity and alienation and lack of belonging, and this is how we become interested in identity and self improvement. Very positive developments for us all.

CONCLUSION

There is nothing wrong with seeking knowledge of self, of social relations and self improvement. Employing a competent counsellor is an effective way to advance this process. It can bring important insights, lasting improvements, greater happiness and inner peace. If shared, it can lead to enlightment and wisdom for all. 

For many, this might mean revealing one's secret feelings and thoughts. It doesn't of course mean that you are ill in some mental way! not at all ... it's just a reflection of a higher intelligence, a greater curiosity and open-mindedness, a willingness to work and change. What makes you different from other people is a source of your wonderful uniqueness, but also a source of suffering (because as I say we are herd animals), so a desire to be happier and more productive than you are at the moment ... and that is the mark of an intelligent and spiritually awake person.

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WHY ISRAEL MEDDLES IN UKRAINE (RUSSIA)

23 November 2022

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israel-gives-russia-ultimatum-over-iranian-arms-supplies---r

Israel. A very small country in the Middle East. But it seems desperate to get involved in Ukraine, which is very far away. Telling Russia what to do. Why has Israel such a global reach? Why does it seek to meddle in so many countries?

Israel is a Western power yet bows to Russia? Why?

In this post, let us consider only relations between Israel and Russia.

a) RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN SYRIA AND TURKEY.

Israel has pbs with Syria, its neighbour, having stolen Syrian land, 

 Russia is the dominant force in Syria,   where Israel has pbs, and Israel has pb.s with Turkey and Erdowan and again Russia has influence over Turkey. 

b) KURDS IN SYRIA ARE A PB FOR TURKEY.

N Syria is Kurds, hated by Erdowan, supposedly Kurds are allies of (treacherous) America....should Israel support them as they are enemies of Syria, like Israel, but also enemies of Turkey.

c) SYRIA IRAN SHIA CRESCENT.

Syria is Shia Muslim, which is Iran. Iran is sending weapons to Syrian/Lebanese Hezbollah who want their land back. If Israel wants to go bomb Hezbollah in Syria, Israel needs Russian agreement.

It's also a problem for Russia because Iran supplies it with drones, will be joining the BRICS and has an oil deal with Russia; while Israel supplies Ukraine with intelligence on the drones (which are more likely made in Russia rather than bought from Iran).

d) ISRAEL'S STRATEGY.

Russia is on Ukraine's doorstep, Russia is also effectively, via Syria, on Israel's doorstep : Russia-in-Syria - Israel doesn't want to poke Russia-in-Syria in the eye, like Ukraine did, but equally it does not want Russia feeding its enemy Iran with business and political.

e) ISRAEL IS A RUSSOPHILE. OK the above. But consider: there are many Jews with Russian passports and there's a lot of business going on between Israel and Russia. 

Israeli Jews can travel freely to Russia, no visa needed.

Remember czarist and soviet russia didnt like Jews, the pogroms, the Elders of Zion was a Russian scam from ? 1920s, but Putin likes Jews so they (Israel) likes Putin and Russia...

CONCLUSION

Although Israel is a staunch Westerner and even Israel is the 51st state, Israel for security, business and personal reasons is friends wirh Putin and Russia..

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ORIGINS OF THE UKRAINE WAR

21 November 2022

A few ideas - three - for understanding what's going on in Ukraine. 

One is, it would be quite useful to look up Mackinder's Heartland as the timeless backdrop:

Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland

Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island

Who rules the World Island commands the world.

Two, is to realise that this is actually America wanting to stamp on any potential rival as it has always done since the last war ...in this case the rival is Russia, but Germany is a big rival as well and can you imagine some sort of an alliance between Germany (and Europe) and Russia and the exchange of capital and technology, for commodities and Manpower? This would certainly be enough to flatten America and China. America setup a fantastic system where basically it guarantees the trade routes and and open borders and all the rest, but instead of using co-operative means, it chooses conflict every time.

Third angle, would be to look at the history of this conflict which you can take back as far as you want to the great schism if you like but really it's enough to go back to 1991 and the promises made by America to Russia saying that they would keep Russia's new near abroad neutral but of course they didn't and all these countries were admitted into NATO and the EU, so Russia's security at its border was thretened ... bear in mind that Russia has been invaded over 50 times in its history through one of the 9 gateways along that Geographic pivot).

The next step would be 2004-8 and then with the Maidan coup in 2014, the civil war now started in ernest, Kiev outlawing the Russian language and launching missiles that over the next eight years killed 14,000 people in the east.

Then take a look at the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015 and ask why Kiev sign them but did not implement them ; and indeed why Germany and France who arranged this did nothing to see its implementation.

Late 2021, Kiev's missile attacks intensified and beginning of February 22 there was a rain of missiles and by this time Russia had built up sufficient troops on the border to go in and protect its Russian speakers to the east and that was the start of the war

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CHIANG MAI LUANG PRABANG

BOAT

1.  Mekong river the first job is to get to the river... you would catch a minivan from Chiang Mai it takes about 6 hours or you would alternatively get a van to Chiang Rai.

 Stay overnight there and then by Green bus which takes two to three hours and the hotel where you are staying - they're all the same - will fix you up for a van ride to Chiang Khong, which takes 2 hours.

2. So you leave Chiangrai at 6 in the morning and the van will drop you off at the boat 2 hours later, where you meet everyone else... there are about 70 people travelling on the boat.

3. The first day on the boat takes about seven hours and takes you to a place called Pat Bang. You arrive about three to four pm and all the guest house people will be there to meet you.

4. Spend the night at the guest house.

5. Next morning back on the boat for 7 to 8 hours and you arrive at Luang Prabang.

FLIGHT

The alternative is to take a flight from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang on Laos Airlines. It costs 110 US dollars each way and takes about 1 hour 10 minutes, they provide you with a roll in The Hostess Arms and a coffee.

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ECKHART TOLLE

15 November 2022

https://youtu.be/Ko_peK-7I5A

"Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge."

"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have."

"Life is an adventure, it's not a package tour"

~Eckhart Tolle

MAIN POINTS

Maybe you know Eckhart Tolle? Certainly you know Russel Brant.

Eckhart is a bit of a messiah- or prophet-type distant figure, can seem patronising as he orders you into his idea of space and time, not an everyday person and you will rarely see him with other people or everyday objects, he sees himself as an Olympian.

 I take seriously, sample this video, many find him a "life-changing" or intellectually moving figure.

His special insights are that: 

a) Intelligence can be very stupid, education does not necessarily make us wise. Knowledge is transformed to wisdom when you are in contact with the great unitary force and aware of the permanent reality of existence

b) Ego is the root cause of the world's problems as it blinds awareness - the malevolent force is within

c) while he advocates cosmic awareness, he also advises us to live in the present and go with the flow.

Tolle is very highly respected by many seeking a more spiritual understanding of the meaning of life.

SUMMARY

The correct attitude is to see the big picture and to be emotionally detached.
not become emotional
not think that all evil is planned
not worry if people say you believe in conspiracies
see the big picture which includes secondary effects.

Intelligence without Wisdom can be foolish and dangerous
there is a deeper stupidity than a low IQ
highly intelligent and educated people can be really stupid because they lack awareness,
because their ego stops them from seeing the greater life force
it is their ego which stops their awareness of deeper purposes
it is ego rather than some evil malevolence
wisdom and awareness: not evil, only ego

"Forgive them, father, because these people do not understand what they are doing"

We need
individual awakening
connect to the unitary force
connect to permanent reality, this is your foundation
not change your position because of temporary changes in circumstances

We are now experiencing a period of great turmoil and collective madness
it has happened before

Stay connected
don't criticize crazy people, our crazy leaders, because if you criticise, you will lose connection to them, they won't listen to you
don't deny their "facts"
...you don't have to agree with what they say either
just listen and ask questions
don't demonise those you disagree with
keep a connection to these crazy people to keep your influence
"If you gaze into the abyss long enough, the abyss gazes back into you", Nietzsche
don't listen too much as you might become a monster yourself!

Wisdom will save us
wisdom is the one thing that will save us
"the great reset" will happen, but not as they imagine

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CLIMATE CHANGE

14 November 2022

The West wants The Global South to join it in a forward-looking project to decarbonise the world. So why does it try to offshore its own energy production? The rules let you offset by eg buying up farmland. This is more plea-bargaining.

DEFINITIONS

"The West", "The Global South" > philosophically, this is the spread of European ideas on freedom and democracy to The US, Australia and after WW2 Japan, S Korea and Taiwan. Economically, which is what matters here, this is splitting the world into developed, developing and emerging markets.

Forward-looking > means "overlooking", overlooking the historic origins of much greenhouse gases in Western economies. Should they pay for historic damage? Is it even possible to work out a tab for each nation showing historic contribution to a world "carbon balance sheet"?

So a responsible set of globally-acceptable policies would include polluter-pays, border taxes and country-credits, to catch historic wrongs, dumping and circumnavigations.

The whole project looks like cakeism: how can you expect to maintain living standards while re-setting, it's impossible. 

"Offshore" ie stop extracting fossil fuels at home, instead buy in from nations whose economies rely on commodities.

"Offsetting" is buying indulgences. A good example is Bill Gates who owns the most farmland in the United States. He can use this to offset his carbon bill in his technology-based companies.

"Plea-bargaining" are negotiations to get to a win-win that takes account of each nation's special needs and wants, while ignoring those of the planet.

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ARE THE UKRAINIANS BEATING THE RUSSIANS?

12 November 2022

Sell out of a losing position, crystallse lossses, is a hard thing  Difficult to bring oneself to accept defeat, always hoping that the story one believed in at the start will pass through this period of turbulence and confusion and turn out to be true.

It must be like that with Zelensky. If we are to believe post-Kherson propaganda, the Russians are re-arranging their pieces in preparation for a long war, with no negotiations expected, which is just as America planned it from the start.

Except short of a third world war, Russia will grind down everything opposing her in the east, in her New Russia, which includes Odessa and might even stretch up Transnistria, who knows?

Zelensky's got the choice to hold or fold - to accept the loss of a hundred thousand men from his army, from his people, to save 80% of his country and maybe keep an access to the Black Sea. Or if he goes on fighting, he'll lose more territory, lose his economy, lose the support of his people and eventually The West. Maybe his country will turn out to be landlocked.

That's assuming that Western supplies do not prevail over the extra quarter of a million men and machines arriving from Russia. I'd imagine the American and NATO troops massing on the border are waiting till the Russian army in Ukraine is destroyed, before entering and cleaning up.

So I'd imagine that the retreat from Kherson, which began with evacuation of the Russian civilians in that city, is not as important as Western propaganda would have us believe.

I can sympathise with Zelenski having to accept that his share in Russian Eastern Ukraine won't get any better; and so he should sell, ie negotiate and go and be happy to have saved something of his country.

Wishful thinking perhaps.

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WILL PUTIN ATTEND THE G20 IN BALI?

7 November 2022

Now here is a puzzle for us and maybe a bigger puzzle for me only because I am closer...

I m very curious about G22 next week. Zelensky has refused to attend if Putin is there. Other leaders have said that Putin's hands are covered in blood and our MSM tell us that no-one wants to be at the same table as him.

I think Putin will not come to Bali.

Actually I am very curious. Bali is closer, I am not like you as that war is far away...well, further from my reality.

Concerned but less tense than Europeans, Europeans are waiting for the bombs to fall.

So, tell me, will Zelensky and Putin meet in Bali? Or will Putin want to avoid what could be a public relations disaster?

That is the question... what do you reckon?

Here is one answer:

🤣🤣🤣 Reckon Putin won't attend. The Western leaders will use the conference to try and humiliate him. Loads of PR opportunities for those leaders to show how virtuous they are. Even inviting Zelinsky tells you all you need to know about the agenda.

FOLLOW UP

WILL RUSSIA BE LISTENED TO AT THE BALI G20?
AND IS SO, BY WHOM?

So 15 of the countries invited to attend the G20 at Bali, 15 out of the 20, won't attend Iif Putin does because - so they say - Putin has blood on his hands. That's remarkable. Even more remarkable is there all diplomat's and politicians and so people who believe in the value of listening and negotiating.

But we also know that these are the 15 followers of America out of the 20 - and we also know that 135 out of 195 countries who were asked to vote at the UN either  abstained or voted in favour of Putin.

So it looks like it may not be a vote simply about this war, but more an ideological vote of the Developed North vs the Underdeveloping Global South.

Very worth noting that the Indonesian Prime Minister who is hosting this is keen that Putin should attend and his country is a member of the global South

What I think is important to say is that the north, its ideology is Liberalism. This is important as the North appears very  hypocritical.

LIBERALISM

What is liberalism?

Liberalism is about freedom of expression, open borders, market economies, the rule of law, international law.

And importantly here, Liberalism is about tolerance of the other. In its original form, Liberalism only required the state, the state to be there as Judge, to intervene in cases of a dispute between two parties who couldn't resolve a matter on their own - in other words, Liberalism meant tolerance and respect for the freedom of others.

The idea of liberalism is that every man and every woman should be free - free to have their own beliefs, religion, orientation... and that colour and other charscteristics should make no difference.

And that these Human Rigjts are Universal, the same the world over, which unfortunately means these blimming Americans go around trying to impose their universal human rights on everyone and bombing them flat if they don't accept!

Point being that the very same people who believe in universal human rights are also the people who now discriminate against anyone with a Russian passport and "cancel" anyone who doesn't agree with them.

So for reasons of hypocrisy no Putin will not be listened to and that's because he won't be there to talk, excluded, "cancelled" by an ideological unthinking woke culture

WHAT IS "WOKE"

Here some quotes and then my opinion....

The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness of injustice or racial tension, it became a word of action," according to Merriam-Webster. "Activists were woke and called on others to stay woke."

But the meaning of woke evolved again with the rise of "cancel culture" -- as the two terms saw increased use, they became intertwined in the public consciousness. Often, someone gets canceled after they say something insensitive – something not woke.

So in addition to meaning aware and progressive, many people now interpret woke to be a way to describe people who would rather silence their critics than listen to them.

And the activism side, which means shutting up your critics, goes into all areas of social policy like education and health, even story books for children, and is also adopted by all the personnel departments in large private companies.

So now "Woke"no longer so much a racial term, as an ideological term. 

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EUROPE, THE WEST AND EURASIA

6 November 2022

One thing I like to start with is clarity over definitions.

So it is really important to understand the importance of balance of power geopolitics and to distinguish between Europe, the West and Eurasia.

EUROPE, THE WEST AND EURASIA

EUROPE, of which the EU is but a part, includes 80% of the Russian population. It is in De Gaulle's words "Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic". But Europe is divided east and west by a line joining the Adriatic to the Baltic, a line that is also a zone of struggle between the Teutonics (Germany) and the Slavs (Russia), or in mackinder's speak between the powers of the sea and the powers of the land, or in mythological terms between the sky and the earth, with no established balance of power.

THE WEST is that group of countries in Europe, Great Britain France and Germany, that defined certain concepts around democracy, liberalism, individual freedom, the rule of law and a functioning state, capitalism and these days a market mixed economy ; and spread these ideas to America and Australia ; and after the last war to Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan (China's eastern seaboard).

EURASIA is from the Bering Straits across thousands of miles of Russian steppe, over the Carpathians Mackinder's East-West fault line, possibly taking in the Caucuses and the Baltics, then on down across the plains of Europe.

I might have got this wrong, between heart- and rim-land, but if you think that geography is the number one determinant then this is quite a useful view from which to start thinking about International Relations.

THE WORLD ISLAND THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

We have considered this theory by Halford Mackinder from 1904 in an earlier post. Very important as it was the basis of the thinking of Spykman, George Kennan and handed to Harry Truman became the basis of the theory and practise for containing Russia i.e. the naval power of the US containing the land power of Russia. 

The US seems to work to four action imperatives.

1. Dominate the seas for open trade and you dominate the world.

2. Break the domino chain, by which the fall of a non-communist state to communism would precipitate the fall of non-communist governments in neighbouring states.

3. Divide and conquer, from chaos theory and the power of nationalism.

4. Create international institutions to set the rules for a heavily militarised America to run its dollar empire.

The world Island theory and the domino theory for South America, implemented through a strategy of divide and rule by creating chaos (war, invasion, colour revolutions) to break up large power blocks into many smaller, weaker, pieces that you can then set against each other, is how America dominates an area, and the world. 

It explains capitalist American Russophobia.

It explains how the capitalist West (America and NATO) has contained Russia and the global South or BRICS, or what we used to call the Communist world. And why NATO must be expanded to Asia.

Worth noting that maybe the peoples of The West, through their elite's propaganda machine, feel a hatred of Russia and all Russian people, but the elite, the American military-industrial-government power elite, is guided by this cold logic of power and money and this strategy of conflict rather than co-operation.

Also it is somewhat bewildering to see Europe on the end of America's skewer with no idea what to do. Germany in particular is staring at its forthcoming deindustrialisation and impoverishment.

MACKINDER WAS NOT THE FIRST

Mackinder argues that the heartland with all its resources would eventually come to dominate the rimland and thus the world (unless something is done to contain the heartland):

“Whoever rules East Europe, will rule the  Heartland,

Whoever rules the Heartland, will rule the World Island.

Whoever rules the World Island, will rule the world.”

His theory is much criticised today, with the railways, manned flight, the re-emergence of China and its new silk road. The fundamental idea that the heartland with all its resources should eventually win the planet, but note that the expected outcome - a win for the land power, was not always thus.

Geopolitics is essentially about finding a balance-of-power in the never-ending struggle sea power v. land power. This statement by Sir Walter Raleigh must have been the template for Mackinder's.

"For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; 

whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world

and whosoever commands the riches of the world, commands the world itself."

SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 

“A Discourse of the Invention of Ships, Anchors, Compass, &c.,” 

The Works of Sir Walter Raleigh, vol. 8, p. 325.

Raleigh tells us how globalisation, or the establishment of safe maritime trade routes, will continue to suppory the United States as the world hegemon.... unless China can break out of its containment within the first island ring of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (Hong Kong is gone).

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EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT BRITAIN'S LDI CRISIS

5 November 2022

https://www.ft.com/content/f4a728a5-0179-48bd-b292-f48e30f8603c

Far as I can ever work out, that film "Margin Call" didn't really tell the whole story of the Sub Prime crisis. The scam was bigger than portrayed in the film. To understand it it is necessary to understand how the bond markets work and how they are the absolute core of the entire financial system - any problems in bond markets and the financial system teeters on the brink of collapse. That's exactly what happened with the subprime, Lehman went bankrupt and if the Fed hadnt bailed out the banking system, the whole economy, the whole world economy, would have collapsed. 

And that's what happened again with the LDI crisis in the UK.

So today let's take a look at both of those events : one back in 2008, the subprime crisis that provoked the Great Financial Crisis; and the other UK PM Truss' mini-budget crisis in September 2022.

SUB PRIME CRISIS

Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac were setup many decades ago in America to help Americans acquire their own homes. Private sector mortgage companies were issuing mortgages and then Freddie May would come along and buy these mortgages and would take on the responsibility for collecting the interest and capital repayments. The private sector companies with the profit they made from these were supposed to issue more mortgages. So far, so good.

But then the trouble started, as I recall, under President Clinton, who wanted to get the support of the poor by making mortgages easier to obtain. Thus, Freddie and Fannie were encouraged to encourage - with government underwriting, private sector lenders - to lend to people who would never have had sufficient credit score to borrow on their own honest record. These were sub prime risk people.

Then Freddy and Fanny were wrapping these mortgages up into a kind of fund and selling parts (shares) in the funds to mainly European banks, who sold them on to their customers. 

Maybe I'm not getting things quite right, but as I understood things, the next step was that these funds - mortgage backed securities, MBS - which were just a big bag of individual mortgages, were then sorted and grouped into tranches, tranche A, tranche B and so on, according to perceived lender risk on each mortgage; and an insurance against default was slapped on top. These very sophisticated assets are called collateralised debt obligations, CDOs, and the banks could buy shares of different risk tranches at different prices, and use these assets - now marked to market - as collateral for various leveraged operations of their own (hence the name of the film, as lenders require a certain loan-to-value, LtV, percentage and if the value of the asset drops, then the borrower is called upon to to restore, or top up, his collateral margin to the required LtV level) on behalf of their clients.

This was not so good, because it turns out that the risks were assessed using a completely felonius method and furthermore the insurance slapped on top turned out to be worthless as well. All because these funds had been calibrated according to assessed risk, but now the risk exceeded the min-max expectation as the mortgagees were not the people described in the application forms. "Liar loans", they called it.

The film Margin Call tells the story of how an imaginary bank (not dissimilar to Lehman) collected these mortgage-backed securities into the CDOs, which it then sold on to its clients. Important to note at this point that the repackaging process took some time, possibly a month according to the film, during which processing time the bank held these assets and could become victim of a markdown because high delinquency levels, and subsequent margin call. What if it didn't have the money to top-up its collateral?

The problem was that the time it took them to parcel up and sell on, which ie was the time they were holding these assets, and it turned out that the scam of accepting these "liar loans" in the subprime market was being discovered and once "outed", could devalue by at least a quarter and possibly a half, the value of these bank assets. If so, this would leave the bank bankrupt as it's borrowing, its liabilities, would then far exceed its assets.

Well, the bottom did fall out of the mortgage market when it was realised that large percentages of these mortgages were money lent to hopeless cases.

But how the guys in the imaginary bank in the film managed to shift all that CDO in the space of 24 hours is totally amazing and that's what the film is all about. Lehman didn't manage it and Lehman quite rightly went under. This film rewrites the story and the bank shifts all its "shity assets CDOs".

That is the extent of my (possible mis)understanding, I might have got things a little mixed up, feel free to correct me in the comments, I don't know, but Lehman went bankrupt, collapsed and triggered the most awful financial crisis whose unresolved consequences we live with today.

MINI BUDGET CRISIS

And so this film Margin Call, made in 2011, is particularly relevant today, because on September 23 the UK experienced a crisis in its bond market, triggered not by subprime lending but by Liability Driven Investment strategies (LDI).

Again, as I understand it, what this crisis was about was the defined pension benefit guarantees, DB Schemes. In the low interest rate climate resulting from the subprime crisis, the pension companies found themselves unable to match their future fixed liabilities, year on year, to their pensioners. 

The expected result from high delinquency in the massive mortgage market was frozen interbank lending, bailout by Paul Volcker, consequent QE money printing to lower interest rates and raise asset values (for those with assets), that would ultimately materialise into high inflation as demand chases supply into inflation, and possibly despite raised interest rates, a currency collapse and recession ...we await that.

The pension companies' liabilities to pensioners can easily be calculated, year on year, that is not the problem. It is matching those liabilities to the pension companies income streams in a low interest rate environment that is the problem. Traditionally, the company would assure its liabilities from interest payments on government bonds, known in the UK as gilts (the paper certificates once had a gilt border to insist that this was a rock solid, risk-free loan to the UK government).

 Guarateed pensions maybe, but in the low interest rates we've had for many years, pension companies couldn't match to their liabilities and they turned to riskier assets, like shares or non-govt bonds, and derivatives; and for reasons of security, ironically, they leveraged trades and as leverage means borrowing, they hedged against big moves in interest rates using swaps and options.

A leveraged trade is a trade made with money that you have borrowed against your assets. Now here's the thing ...

Truss announced unfunded tax cuts of 45b GBP that put the willies up the bond markets. The bond market "vigilantes" (so-called because they are vigilant as to the rates of return on the money they lend) don't have to accept BOE interest rates, they can hold the Bank of England to ransom by refusing to lend at rates rates they consider are not commensurate with the risk of weakening the currency in which they will be repaid. 

Lenders were not prepared to lend money any longer at those old rates, given the impending disaster to the economy from these unfunded cuts, on inflation and the value of the currency.

Ie, lenders pushed up rates at which they were prepared to lend, and therefore pushed down the value of bonds themselves. 

But these bond assets were the collateral that the pension funds were using to support their leveraged deals and when the value of the assets went down the insurers, such as Legal & General, were not prepared to underwrite at that level of risk. They demanded that the pension funds top up the value of their collateral, i.e. restore the margin of of loan to value, which obliged pension schemes to sell their bonds to raise cash and that, reducing demand, in a particularly vicious circle, pushed down bond prices and thus upped gilt yields still more.

So that in the space of just three days, the 30-year gilt put on 1.4%, which is quite extraordinary.

Interest rates determine the absolute amount the government must pay to service its debt, so more interest to pay means more borrowing, but also business lives off debt for investment purposes (let's say) and their rollover rates would have increased quite dramatically, pushing the UK economy even faster into recession.

So in what is seen by many as a coup to remove the PM and her Chancellor for pursuing policies unacceptable to the markets and ruling elite, the governor of the Bank of England was forced to buy up the mortgages of these pension funds in order that they could meet their margin calls.

The PM and her chancellor were sacked and replacements brought in returned government policy to austerity and markets to calm.

[END]

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HOW MUSK COULD REGULATE TWITTER

4 November 2022

https://youtu.be/SHpusaIBQyI

Russel Brand and Jordan Peterson, both themselves pretty inflammatory personages, discuss anger and love and freedom in the online Town Square, and how Elon Musk might constrain these online "demons spewing toxic waste into the landscape", now that he is running Twitter. 

The problem is that online, there aren't the normal social controls that would mean if you said that kind of stuff down the pub you'd just get punched.

Instead, online, the "demonic force" gets millions of "likes", stirring up hatred; where what the world needs now is love, sweet love ... and some of Russel's "comedic criticism". (We should ask ourselves, "what would Christ do?", otherwise what is the point of Christianity?)

Social media needs a regulation that sets the right tone between acceptance and control, from a freedom-loving kind and compassionate starting point, and that comes from paying attention to the real needs of the audience.

What these two observe is that users split into two ossified camps: those who are real verified human beings; and then there are the anonymous demons - what's needed is some "cartilage" between them and this should be recognised in the platform interface. Isn't this what Musk is going to do anyway, I ask, with his Blue Tick at $8 a month? 

Real people can visit the Demons' hell, but at least if this split can be embodied in the online interface, JoJo is warned before crossing the Styx that it may not be easy to get back, get back to where they once belonged.... especially if they've been to the Tavistock on the way.

Because Jordan, who is banned from Twitter, observes that there's a link between an adolescent girl's emotional disposition and her body image, and this can be the cause of great confusion in the girl's mind...as well as get you banned if you talk about it. What makes Jordan angry is that the Tavistock didn't understand this, with the result that thousands of young people's lives have been permanently damaged. Thankfully, that awful clinic is now shut, with 5% of its customers suing the doctors for medical malpractise.

It's not just girls that suffer from this intense confusion (me speaking now), but boys too, awash with testosterone this time, boys are also in a process of self-discovery. By the mid-20s, most girls and boys return to something like what their parents wanted for them, updated for today, so it is very very wrong to wield the knife or blocker drugs in this period of natural, if disturbing, transition.

More love and understanding, less anger and control from our leadership, that's what's needed.

====

Talking about social media

Oh my God… it is 2 side of knives right? It can be bad. It can be good. You use it for good cause? It is an effective tools. You use it for manipulation? It is an effective tools too.

Regulations? I have no idea. Can you regulate this freedom world?

Slander, defamation, lot and lot here…

Smartphone in the hand of not smart person ….

They don’t know is it right news or defamation…. They just swallow what their favourite person and their favourite public figure say.

Whatever they say…

It become “guidance”….

way of life

I don’t know

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