Thank you for the clarity. At the risk of levity - I might say "we are all Andrew Neil" even though I imagine I have quite major disagreements with his position/s.
Thanks, Ann, once again your insights are invaluable. And I laughed out loud. Which made me think...
... *This* is your Edinburgh Fringe Show, Ann! Right? If you were to just tell this story, *in this tone*, it would be comedy gold. Joe Lycett would kill for material like this.
As always, conservatives are surprised by the face eating leopard they’ve been riding. In the US Fannie Mae (or Freddie, i don’t recall which) has started to look into real estate investors lying about their purpose, they speculate and don’t reside, thus messing with the risk profile of what are supposed to be low risk residential loans. It’s subprime like material, with credit defaults still immensely profitable. The feral market is always smarting economists. They will find a way to their feed stock for profit. Oh look credit is plunging after the driver has been gorging in the open for months or years! Really? Quelle surprise. But maybe the federal guys caught on soon enough.
In a world tyrannized by those whose fundamental ethic is to pillage and beggar their neighbor, “value” is simply a game to be played in pursuit of that act. It has to end or it will end us, either in economic or ecological disaster, but most likely both, just as Rome finally unraveled in empire with 25% of the population in slavery, and 90% of its soil fertility depleted by cash crop economy:
At Rome’s foundation, an extended family needed only .8 hectare to sustain itself with its own members’ manual labor. Their agricultural practice was regenerative. By Rome’s fall, centuries later, that acreage was 20x larger and required a huge labor force to grow a cash crop, because of “productivity” of oxen drawn plows destroying the soil. Grain was imported from an enslaved periphery. Sound familiar? It should. That’s called Western civilization.
The kind of wildly unethical financial speculation that gave us the GFC (Great Financial Crisis) in 2008 IS the direct result of the current monopoly paradigm concept of Debt Only and the human propensity for greed. Strategically integrating the new monetary paradigm of Gifting into the debt ONLY based system and terminatedly closing the door on such speculative nonsense will end this insanity and enable us to pursue the rational resolution to the converging ecological, energy and socio-political crises looming up before us.
Ironically, the most powerful effect of changing/resolving the anomalous current monetary paradigm won't even be an economic one. Monetary Gifting, properly acculturated, will transform participating in the economy, especially at the continuously and universally participated in points of retail sale and of loan signing, from an aggravating and depressing experience into the greatest opportunity to self-actualize gratitude since meditation and prayer.
Brush past the human civilization long cynicism that the current paradigm makes so apparently true and advocate for monetary grace as in Gifting.
Can you tell if what you describe is similar to what is called Private Equity in America ? What is your take on the upcoming transaction between Tortoise and the Observer ? Thank you for positng !
What about nature? Nature is the source of all material wealth we produce by our labor with the assistance of tangible capital goods. Every parcel or tract of land (including the seabed) has some potential annual rental value. That value is directly related to demand for what is a finite resource with a nearly inelastic supply. In our towns and cities, the value of a square foot of land derives from locational advantage, by the quality of public goods and services brought to the location and by the population competing for control of that location. Yet, locations are almost universally under-assessed (and assessed at the supposed capitalized rent value). Thus, most of the imputed or actual location rent is left in private hands, unearned income to individuals or private entities and rightfully belongs to the community. Communities, then, impose confiscatory taxes on income earned producing goods and providing services, on tangible depreciating assets (i.e., buildings) and on commerce. This is not wise public policy. And, it fosters speculation or production, extending privilege to rent-seeking interests and a redistribution of income and wealth to that segment of the population who takes without giving anything in return. The stress on capitalism and on democracy is everywhere in evidence.
Spare a thought for Andrew Neil and Fraser Nelson 😅 Thoughts and prayers etc..
Great analysis, thanks for posting!
Fantastic. Thanks for this. I have to admit chortling throughout at the idea of Neil and fellow Spectators being hoist upon their own petard.
Thank you for the clarity. At the risk of levity - I might say "we are all Andrew Neil" even though I imagine I have quite major disagreements with his position/s.
Thanks, Ann, once again your insights are invaluable. And I laughed out loud. Which made me think...
... *This* is your Edinburgh Fringe Show, Ann! Right? If you were to just tell this story, *in this tone*, it would be comedy gold. Joe Lycett would kill for material like this.
Thank you Jayarava...I did have fun writing it...
Professional opinions (audit, comfort, rating and valuation) are traded daily in the financial community like coffee and bagel in the morning.
There's more nonfiction in the fiction section.
As always, conservatives are surprised by the face eating leopard they’ve been riding. In the US Fannie Mae (or Freddie, i don’t recall which) has started to look into real estate investors lying about their purpose, they speculate and don’t reside, thus messing with the risk profile of what are supposed to be low risk residential loans. It’s subprime like material, with credit defaults still immensely profitable. The feral market is always smarting economists. They will find a way to their feed stock for profit. Oh look credit is plunging after the driver has been gorging in the open for months or years! Really? Quelle surprise. But maybe the federal guys caught on soon enough.
In a world tyrannized by those whose fundamental ethic is to pillage and beggar their neighbor, “value” is simply a game to be played in pursuit of that act. It has to end or it will end us, either in economic or ecological disaster, but most likely both, just as Rome finally unraveled in empire with 25% of the population in slavery, and 90% of its soil fertility depleted by cash crop economy:
At Rome’s foundation, an extended family needed only .8 hectare to sustain itself with its own members’ manual labor. Their agricultural practice was regenerative. By Rome’s fall, centuries later, that acreage was 20x larger and required a huge labor force to grow a cash crop, because of “productivity” of oxen drawn plows destroying the soil. Grain was imported from an enslaved periphery. Sound familiar? It should. That’s called Western civilization.
The kind of wildly unethical financial speculation that gave us the GFC (Great Financial Crisis) in 2008 IS the direct result of the current monopoly paradigm concept of Debt Only and the human propensity for greed. Strategically integrating the new monetary paradigm of Gifting into the debt ONLY based system and terminatedly closing the door on such speculative nonsense will end this insanity and enable us to pursue the rational resolution to the converging ecological, energy and socio-political crises looming up before us.
Ironically, the most powerful effect of changing/resolving the anomalous current monetary paradigm won't even be an economic one. Monetary Gifting, properly acculturated, will transform participating in the economy, especially at the continuously and universally participated in points of retail sale and of loan signing, from an aggravating and depressing experience into the greatest opportunity to self-actualize gratitude since meditation and prayer.
Brush past the human civilization long cynicism that the current paradigm makes so apparently true and advocate for monetary grace as in Gifting.
Visualize it.
Can you tell if what you describe is similar to what is called Private Equity in America ? What is your take on the upcoming transaction between Tortoise and the Observer ? Thank you for positng !
Absolutely it is...see my recent post on Private Equity here: https://annpettifor.substack.com/p/the-sucker-covered-tentacles-of-private
The Tortoise/Observer hook up seems a good thing to me...
And thank you.
What about nature? Nature is the source of all material wealth we produce by our labor with the assistance of tangible capital goods. Every parcel or tract of land (including the seabed) has some potential annual rental value. That value is directly related to demand for what is a finite resource with a nearly inelastic supply. In our towns and cities, the value of a square foot of land derives from locational advantage, by the quality of public goods and services brought to the location and by the population competing for control of that location. Yet, locations are almost universally under-assessed (and assessed at the supposed capitalized rent value). Thus, most of the imputed or actual location rent is left in private hands, unearned income to individuals or private entities and rightfully belongs to the community. Communities, then, impose confiscatory taxes on income earned producing goods and providing services, on tangible depreciating assets (i.e., buildings) and on commerce. This is not wise public policy. And, it fosters speculation or production, extending privilege to rent-seeking interests and a redistribution of income and wealth to that segment of the population who takes without giving anything in return. The stress on capitalism and on democracy is everywhere in evidence.