What Matters...

In these seemingly never-ending dark and difficult days, LIFE Matters.

This blog supports the peaceful and righteous protests in America, indeed around the world. The brutal and indisputable murder (a "hit" even?) of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, has rightly sparked a renewed wave of rejection of endemic racism and the institutionalised corruption across the very authorities meant to instil confidence, protect and provide peace-of-mind for all citizens.

Of course, there is no place for the mindless violence and looting that has accompanied and morphed. Sure, it was to be expected - what with the levels of frustration and boredom created on the back of Covid-lockdown, the warm weather of long Summer's days, increasing frustration with "leaderships" and the visceral income inequality that has continued unabated. People do not need much encouragement to exacerbate those flames of the fire. People are also all too easily incorrectly encouraged to looting and wanton destruction by nefarious organisations - always keen and ready to exacerbate situations to their our ends.

No matter what the mitigating circumstances however, allowing a devolution of a morally water-tight and strong protest, does no favours for the long-term game. For true change and effective lasting legacies of uprisings, history has shown that firm principles and level-heads with strong, consistent and mainly peaceful messages, bring about the shifts in systemic prejudices required. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela the epitome of such understanding - struggles there still ongoing but their initiation of the message echoes each day.

Unfortunately, Trump and his administration are quite good at taking advantage of these situations - rather like all scarily astute and manipulative historical tyrants.

Leadership is required on the part of the protesters. A lighting-rod and beacon for the grief and frustration of the crowds. Not necessarily one-person, a top-level consortium of voices perhaps, capable of articulating and enduring the harsh environment of hatred and seeing through the mist of anger to reach out a hand and seek solutions. No celebrities, no legacy leaders - fresh, honest and frank faces, open voices, innocent minds and souls, capable of forgiveness, cognisant of children's futures and generations needing to be hopeful and better than their own. Maybe then can true dialogue bring about enough (of course not all) shifts in attitudes to reach a critical mass and break through the walls of a sickening circle of racism.

Peaceful protest in the face of one man's photo-op requirements (tear-gassing crowds to disperse and make a route for one guy to waddle across a lawn with his sickeningly affirmative entourage) indicate difficult days to come. This is not exclusively an American issue. They might shout against it louder than most but these issues exist all around the world in various iterations - how this concludes may decide the shape of many global expressions of frustration to come.

Right now, the world watches on, wincing with every blow of the baton and cheering with every taking-of-the-knee. Let's hope this movement neither trips itself up by diluting its message through counter-productive aggression, nor is violently forced to fall-flat-on-its-face - that would be a dangerous position for us all.

Three Magic Words...

Vaccine Vaccine Vaccine. Simple. Elegant. Seemingly impossible to imagine at this difficult and frustrating moment in time.

We will only return to normal when a full Covid-19 vaccine has been developed, tested AND widely distributed. Until then, sit back, listen to some more Deepak Chopra abundance meditations, read, Zoom/Hangout/Teamssss or whatever your eyes go googgly on first and enjoy this quieter time of life.

First there was shock, bewilderment, anger and then open acceptance. A couple of months in and a few wonderful books later (particularly enjoyed the beautifully apt "Gentleman In Moscow"), we have all rationalised and identified a path for ourselves out of this crisis. No matter what we say and do, we are all in the same boat from an economic perspective - simply because nothing can get to the way it "used to be" until the vaccine is available for everyone. Or are we indeed?

No. We aren't really, be honest. There will be boats and then there will be yachts. Worse, there will be larger-than-ever super yachts of inequality. The antibody tests will at minimum create more of a two-tier global system than anything else - the younger, "healthier" and more capable of travel (should that be "more allowed") across international borders, reaping the advantages of being mobile and apparently immune to either catching or spreading the disease.

The difficulty of this two-tier world will become more apparent as the months go by. The elites will feel more superior than ever. The masses and those that likely need to be freed from the constraints of global lockdowns, resigned to longer periods of impoverishment and a difficult path of return to gainful employment.

Global media has not done much to assuage these fears. In the US and other EU nations, the vitriol and ugly rhetoric has started to gain traction, opposing news networks provide different realities of what the world currently looks like, with very different and very dangerous forecasts of where it will go.

The markets for now seem not to care. Just. They seem to be slipping today (Thursday 14th May). With fear and fingers on the sell buttons all around, this may quickly turn into a rout. Most ammunition has been used in the "limitless" war the FED and others central banks have so far successfully waged against this combatant.

Meanwhile, green shoots of Private Equity Covid-19 recovery funds (as predicted here a few weeks back) continue to gather pace. Chances must be taken. Fears overcome. The woods have not been cleared as of yet but we shall smell the clean, fresh grass of unencumbered attractively-valued-portfolios and pipelines once more.

Stay calm, healthy and happy. Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine. Repeat slowly and calmly with each breath. It will happen. As per our elegant protagonist in situ within Moscow's Metropole Hotel, after a delicious meal and nightcap, we will meet in person again.

Humanity - Locked Down but NOT Knocked Out

Humanity is a fickle companion, no? We cling to its most beautiful and admirable qualities - community, society, knowledge and thirst for development and all that, when purpose serves, only to turn on it within a flash or a wobble to our sensitivities.

Whilst it is certainly "human" to panic in the face of an unknown terror and lose certain civil liberties and senses in one fell swoop, it most certainly is not OK to witness the rash of idiocy and ignorant resentment a large swathe of global citizens currently display. Will not bore you with the usual repetition of such actions here, we all know what - and whom - we are talking about..every City around the world has these people.  

We will prevail. We must prevail. There is no other option but to come together and defeat this virus enemy. For now, it would appear we are in the acceptance phase of the psychological rollercoaster the entire globe has gone through. There will be more phases, not all good, yet we are not left with any other option but to overcome.

A few interesting observations of the last couple of weeks and forecasts of what is yet to come...(coming soon...heading out for my state mandated exercise now...only 36yrs after Orwell predicated such a scenario..close)

Covefey-19!

Here we go again..all those with dry powder are set to become (even) richer by 2025 (read; the titans of US PE..oh..and Warren Buffet's $128bn..lest we also forget Apple's $220bn..what about lucky Jeff with his own $100bn arsenal)

Did capitalism's supposed best representation and supporter somehow know this was coming..sending a private message out to his friends in the form of "Covid19" which somehow was auto-corrected "Covefey". Can picture it now, after a couple of Big Macs and one too many Diet Cokes..he reaches over at 3am for his trusty device..no, not that one, come on people!...and says.."Hey Siri..send a message to those suck-ups on Wall Street..group name..Dark Nights".

Hmmm..nothing surprises me about "The President" - not since the day he claimed "Ginaahh" was an easy negotiating partner..really?..how's that going for you buddy?

Markets are finally reacting as they would have been well to do over three months ago. Complacency has given way to capitulation. As if almost 12yrs of rising markets had numbed those that should have known better and remember, combined with likely 70% of the financial workforce being somewhere between 28-32yrs old and hence probably never witness to a severe downmarket. Recipe for a disaster - hold on for the ride!

However, we have been here before. We will prevail. Markets will return to record levels. The true winners will be those PE titans capable of purchasing practically any asset they so desire. The 2020 PE Vintage will likely go down in history much like the Lafites and Cheval Blancs of the legendary '82 crop...incredible and only for the rich.

Trading the War

Trading the War - Monday 1st October 2018

There is nothing worse than watching someone cause insufferable pain to their own body. The sheer trauma and experience of what one must be going through to ensure self-immolation satisfies the end result, must be so excruciating, that any alternative simply provides a lesser exit outcome, compensated only by the short-term "relief" of whatever resulting pain is replicated in another part of the body. Is there any other so saddening definition of desperation? One must surely feel for such an individual.

Or perhaps not...if that individual happens to be sat in an over-sized-leather-bound (somehow still not a Golden-Throne, for now) reclining chair in the Oval Office? That person is fulfilling a number of election promises to the US people, or someone else - hmm...please tell us already Mueller..stop teasing - with little regard for the incoming pain and suffering.

Shiller’s Irrational Exuberance dictated the ostentatious display of market wealth that would result in disaster back in the mid 00’s. Now, we have all but forgotten those days of “austerity” and had nothing but rapid growth and social-media friendly-super-sized-ostentatious spending, as well as accumulation of wealth - personally I blame the instagrammers and their enablers (read: advertising companies), those that know the cost of only "aspirational items" they probably cannot even correctly pronounce and nothing in between. 

Back to the pain - What must one be experiencing to decide it is easier to cut their nose rather than alleviate the actual problem? Given the latest salvo in the Trump-Trade-Tirade (this guy is amazing isn’t he?) there must be some serious pain being endured across the White House as we speak.

I am more interested in attempting to comprehend recent global economic necessities - China/US trade wars, tariffs, EU rate-freezes, market-IPO mania, the death of regulators, Gold miners hugging one another (do they know something we don't?), Oil acting squarely in the face of fundamentals (what's new)...even China moving to ensuring they elicit the next World War by doing what Saddam Hussein failed to do in 2003 and launch their own oil trading based in Renminbi. What about emerging markets..as the US increases rates, will anyone still want to invest in riskier jurisdictions or will we simply leave it once and for all to the Chinese, again. Will OBOR really flatten Pakistan into a nuclear-puddle of debt disaster or does the US realise it is almost too late and make up for lost time..perhaps they are slightly occupied attempting to kick-off the GCC conflict by stoking the reluctant Iranians into a confrontation with the might of US-military massively building itself-up on their doorstep in the guide of "arms sales" to Saudi+UAE. As ever, we are confronted with nothing but questions, all of which will eventually be answered, whether with discussion or aggression is the only main concern.

The reason I stopped writing was that my soul was quite literally shattered after Brexit and the Trump election victory - I know, I know..it was all “written on the wall” and we are experiencing a strong resurgence of nationalism with a sign of the times..blah…blah..but come on..where is the rationality of human logic and goodness? Have we learnt nothing from the last 6,000yrs of violence and hardship? Is humanity truly destined to continue to inflict pain on itself? Is Man as violent as we deep down believe, or are we capable of change and development? 

I really have no answers to these profound questions..and I apologise for the large number of question marks. Perhaps a sign of my exasperation and helplessness. When reading through my “blog” I am even shocked at the gradual erosion of optimism and an overriding belief in human goodness in less than a decade of writing. Are adults always doomed to pessimism? Oops, just did the question mark thing again, really sorry.

We once thought Martin Luther King (the 50th anniversary of his assassination passed earlier this year in April, he was only 39..39..most people have not even begun to fully mature before their 40th bdays) had all the answers, that we had finally succumbed at long-last to a pure, white and shining goodness within our very beings, eliciting desires of passive freedom and loving - borrowing heavily on the Zionist tales of freedom and escape from evil captors (the Jews being freed from the Pharaohs) - what have we achieved since then? False prophets abound, Twitter Trolls and Cambridge Analytica now rule supreme. Manipulation, deceit, privacy infringement, fabrication - oh how sad that we are accurately living in an Orwellian nightmare. Probably worse in fact. Technology has enslaved us. Similar to purchasing a pair of jeans in 1982 and awaiting its fashion revival (cyclicality is truly conveyed throughout nature and replicated by all within the animal kingdom) not having ever been on Facebook once saw me ostracised as a pariah and now lauded as some sort of foresight induced genius - able to understand the deeply concerning machinations of a globally connected US CIA fact book - see, I told you soooooo people! 

A presaging narrative penned by George Friedman back in 2009 (The Next 100years) has proven quite accurate with a number of its fore-tellings - none less so than Russia's renewed regional muscle-flexing, the rise of global populism, demise of oil-producing states and their politics due to US fracking etc., however it certainly feels that media pundits and a large number of “experts” are lost at sea - with little or no defining sense of the next 5yrs. Is that why they focus on frivolous matters and seem to report more gleefully the latest moves of Strictly/Dancing with the Stars - we're transatlantic darlings - happier to tussle over the immediacy of breaking news concerning butt-pinchers, anthem kneelers, lip-pouters, IOS release issues and of course, of courrrrseee, the all-important endless digestion of the real leaders in 2018...the #taggers. 

Let's hurry up, get through the mid-terms, move swiftly passed the Christmas festive season and reach the end of this year intact. Trump-willing.

Hani

Wat Da Trump?!

Wat Da Trump just happened?

Well..in a sentence (take a deep breath)...

A global wave of populist sentiment and media fuelled inaccuracies - obsessed with all that is frivolous, sensationalist, racist, two-faced, opportunistic and down-right false - backed by a King of media manipulation with an (admittedly) genius awareness of prevailing aforementioned popular feelings, destroyed all comers with a malicious wave of unrelenting simple-minded yet clearly effective and resonating one-liners..resulting in blocking out any true intelligent conversation and surging himself into the most coveted Western modern edifice of power, along with (some decent) family members. 

Wow, just WOW. The fear we would sleepwalk into a nightmare has happened in front of a watching and (much to blame) public confused between reality-TV and plain reality. 

There has already been much written to try and 'explain' what went wrong. Sorry..nothing went wrong. This was always the natural conclusion to the stupidity of allowing us to reach such a point from the primaries in the first place. Stoke a disassociated public with fiery rhetoric and...Trump becomes President-Elect. Incredible. I tried waking up several times whilst falling asleep in front of the bewildered and in-denial news coverage, only to find the nightmare hadn't changed and it wasn't all just a dream. Sheeezzz. 

Years of West Wing, House of Cards and a stream of celebrities playing the President appear to have numbed the perception of 'fit for office' not to mention the social-media infused blurring and downright destruction of any semblance of a line between cold-hard-political-reality and ludicrous ignorance-fuelled scaremongering. There is no one to blame but the supposed 'elitists' for not trying to nip it in the bud and kill off this hideous travesty of media manipulation. No amount of counter celebrity influence was able to help the desperately fumbling Hillary in the end. Trump had that one figured out from the start - HE was the biggest celebrity attraction around. 

Now what? Already Trump's acceptance speech expressed even his admittance that all he had been saying was just bluster. That's just great. After all that destruction and Pandora's Box of racism and intolerance irrevocably ripped open, now he wants to just forget about it and move on?? 

Well done Donald, well done. You've made it into office Tweeting your way to infamy amidst almost half the very population you now must placate.  Now they are marching against you in Chicago. You inherit a country sharply divided and a world misunderstanding what their misguided voyeuristic pleasure has now unleashed. 

We can only hope the famous checks and balances will prevail. It really won't be easy but Trump can still try to do the right thing - he may even stop grabbing for female genitalia and try getting a grip on a few of the numerous and onerous challenges he now faces. 

We are all watching and waiting. Exactly what he wanted, doesn't it seem? 

(Half)-A Nation Grabbed by the P£$$y

(Half)-A Nation Grabbed by the P£$$y

What more can one say about the entirely embarrassing and frankly obscene, trashy, low-brow, reality-TV-like yet exceptionally popular and highly-viewed "drama" of the US Election?? Over the last 18mths, I here have been lost for words. I have been guilty of sitting back, reading and watching the events unfold, rather than make my own comments known through the medium of this ("so out of date maaaaan") blog.

Yes, social media is clearly the main culprit here, responsible for bringing us to this (inevitable?) incongruous match - of serious political choice that must be made and the totally cartoon-like choices to make it from. After our first (admirably intelligent and downright decent) black American President, some have taken it upon themselves to blindly support another "first" - the first woman to hold the highest office in the Free World, the first (and hopefully) last man to spout lies as if he were in a game-show that awarded points for lies-per-minute - jeeeeez, is this the best we have? Of course not..everyone knows that..but no one seemed to care for the first 12mths of this debacle despite numerous warnings and obvious signs of what was yet to come. 

Problem is - we (yes including the European audience) seem to WANT this. Our messed-up, lowest common denominator media these days is obsessed with tawdry, repugnant, easy and non-finicky issues. We DON'T want to sit and watch or listen to serious debate. Otherwise BBCRadio4 would be the most popular downloaded App and not SnapChat. You can blame the Kardashians, so-called "reality-stars" and a race to the bottom in media coverage as much as you like, yet the finger ultimately must be pointed at the youth and supposed not-so-youthful that lap this stuff up like a hungry kitten (yes, p£$$y pun totally intended). 

Truth is, Trump hasn't grabbed any random pretty-star-struck-little young thing, he's grabbed Americans by the P£$$Y!

In doing so, he has exposed their flaws for the world to see. China and Russia can't believe how lucky they are in seeing an apparent exporter of the great system of democratic capitalism self-destruct amidst a watching public. Most of Asia do not even understand what is going on. Sure, they are used to failings of their own political elite (think corrupt politicians in India etc) but they ultimately are able to choose between relatively sober leadership contenders. 

What we are witnessing is dangerous. It is dangerous that the myth of strength and superiority the US has enjoyed since the Second World War has been decimated in so base a fashion. Is this really what the culmination of the great system of Capitalism promises for all? A choice between two characters as shady and flawed as Trump and Hillary? Wow, what a wonderful thing to aspire to, isn't it?

This near-destruction of the "Capitalism Cloud" has almost happened numerous times before but the US system always recovered with some elegance and order - think Nixon post-Watergate and the coming together of the Senate and the Congress to fix it. Now though, even if Trump is defeated with a healthy majority by the less than wholesome (or believable) Hillary - the mess that is left will echo long into the future as the balance of power continues to shift away from US democracy and US capitalism, to whatever form MUST come in its place.

Although we say we would rather not, nor admit we always do, we continue to watch with fascination, only once in a while pausing to understand how worrying the real conclusion to this "show" will be.