ZEDRAY

…the relentless rise in house prices in the past few years has had an appalling effect on our national character. click

Lets say I am a fund manager I have borrowed $6 billion in Yen from Japan at cost of 1.2% I use this money to buy sterling on the FX markets.

I then use this sterling to buy a $6 Billion mortgage backed security. It contains 13,000 mortgages. It yields 5.84% or $350 million. Lets say I bought it from HBOS in 2003 for example.

Every year I take the $350 million in sterling from the security and convert it to Yen on the FX markets to repay my Yen denominated debt servicing of $72 million. Pocketing an annual difference of $278 million.

Now if the interest rates in Japan rise this will eat into my profits. If people begin to default this will eat into my profits. If the pound gets weaker this will eat into my profits. If Yen gets stronger this will eat into my profits.

Lets say I constantly run complex models to try and evaluate the risk of each of these events.

I may be able to sell my security for more or less than the $6 Billion I paid for it. Depending on world markets and how they affect my profit margin.

Bearing in mind that mortgages are sold in high street banks almost purely so they can be formalised into securities and sold on to the likes of fund managers.

I can sell it whenever I like, for whatever I want, to whoever I can. It is just a contract to hold a liability in exchange for a yield.

If I decide I don’t want to hold mortgage back securities and other fund managers agree, the market value of such securities would fall, demand would wane and high street banks would have less incentive to grant such large numbers of mortgages. Because the sale of mortgage backed securities would be less lucrative.

Who has more power over the property market?

A fund manager or a BBC journalist with 3 BTL’s?

Now Citigroup has assets worth about $1.2 trillion they probably have 50 - 150 similar sized funds. Does Gordon Brown have more power than their CEO?

That’s just 1 bank.

Why do people insist the government can save the market from a crash? It’s because they don’t know s**t.

source

Nice video Richard, but how much? click

An American view on central banks, income tax (IRS) and the big scam. click

The Queen technically own all land in the UK, even if you’re sitting on a ‘freehold’ it is simply a “fee simple” version of perpetual leasehold from the Crown. A compulsory purchase order is simply a legal way of dissolving your lease hold with the Crown.

Kevin did a RSA lecture on this, in Ireland there was significant land reform and land was allocated to the people provided they could prove they were a good enough plastic paddy Note there is also no council tax or water rates in Ireland, nor any restrictions on building in the countryside. click

Just finished watching Al Gores’ movie entitled “An inconvenient truth” and needed to do some digging on the global warming ‘”debate”.

Pro issue:
http://www.read-the-truth.com/ - Connected with the film.

Anti issue:
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ - Points out that water is the major greenhouse gas.

The essential argument (as far as I can make it out):

Atmospheric CO2 Concentration == higher global temperatures
…Or that these two have a long history of being related, or proportional to each other over a long record of natural history as illustrated by the ice record:

Source

With recent Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations seemingly ‘rocketing’, as illustrated by the graph of more recent history (with the funny axis) and future human sourced CO2 emissions set to increase further with predicted population growth & industrialisation. It would suggest that global climate is about to change in such as way as to make life on Earth very difficult indeed:

Problem (as I see it) is that either:
(a) Greater atmospheric CO2 Concentration results in higher global temperatures, or…
(b) Higher global temperatures results in greater atmospheric CO2 concentration.

With (a) meaning we have to take action now to avert a major global disaster of our own making or (b) nothing much at all.

This dilemma is complex enough before you involve climatologists (with dodgy climate models), international politics (capitalism), vested interests (scientific and energy related) so as to allow real action to be delayed indefinitely. If there is a consensus on this from politicisations, expect it to come in the form of a new tax.

If this problem exists and some of the predictions turn out to be true:

• How does this overlap with current predictions on Peek oil, which appears to be inevitable and will become apparent in a similar timeframe (i.e. the next few decades)?
• What strategies can we utilise do to protect ourselves?
• Where should we live (will that house be underwater?), what professions (should I raise my children as a farmer?)
• Should we really be contemplating the potential slow or accelerated collapse of sophisticated human civilization or concentrating on issues closer to home that we can actually do something about?

Correction 14-11-2006
Apparently the UN report (which some of the above graphs are based on) are either misleading or fraudulent. The hockey stick. In the news or as a pdf. So much for scientific consensus.

EDIT 2007.03.14
Channel 4 - The Great Global Warming Swindle click

…How many times have you heard gold described as the “barbarous relic”? It is a favourite phrase of gold-bashers everywhere who are trying to make gold the object of derision…

Central banks: The real barbarous relic click

How Wall Street hovers up money from the little guys and how to get away with forgery. click

Cat in the Kettle (parody) click

A relatively concise and to the point summary of the American war on oil terror. click