Engpasskonzentrierte Strategie

It would appear that we are all now expected to find work "fun" into our seventies to fulfil our mission as state unsubsidised (and progressively less healthy) consumers - even if there is no work available outside of a supermarket check-out counter - as most people trying to get a new job at 60 might confirm. And as these jobs are now staffed by recent university graduates there's not much of that about. To what end are we working then? The vast majority do it to get into and then out of debt - a microcosm of today's financial market model. The product of Politicians and their economic advisers that have read Ayn Rand (incomparable nincompoop) as non-fiction. And we've recently seen where that leads.

Economists are now spewing forth the should have, could have, would have insights that the whole resultant catastrophe was predictable using the very same indicators that they invented to create it in the first place. The commander of the 18th Panzer Division said, after the battle for Smolensk, that they were winning themselves to death. Free market economics have succeeded in doing just that. Not very surprising then that Goldratt espoused the "weakest link" theory by following on from the German Wolfgang Mewes' "power-oriented management theory " and his later "Engpasskonzentrierte Strategie" - both of which the Wehrmacht could, would, should have borne in mind when they got into but not out of Stalingrad. And that's the Germans and the Euro for you.

There is a geo-strategic phenomenon called the "Eurasian Funnel" that illustrates the inability of a given Western force as it advances East to saturate and control terrain leading eventually to the isolation, exposure and destruction of that force. The same could be said of Economic Globalisation. Unfortunately the cheerleaders for Globalisation didn't follow the first law of military success - Never invade Russia - or, indeed, never march East.

What we have in Goldratt is a Bottleneck theory that ends up as a Funnel - most, if not all, Growth theories do this. That all of this is blindingly obvious doesn't appear to have prevented numerous repeats - the result of over-imagination rather than a limited one. Which brings us to that other financial market chestnut - Risk. Risk is always used to explain why we lost not how we won. It is a weasel word. While banks and bankers thrive and corporations sit on a pile of money a large part of the population is told to expect to spend their old age behind a checkout counter or stacking shelves. Which is the logical conclusion of a finance/retail economy when Economics relies solely on a selfish Dogma.

Work, then, is so that you can buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like. Its the best marketed product in the world, unfortunately for the majority of workers, its not the best paid. Which brings us back to the fundamental Market Economy sine qua non of Supply and Demand. If there is no demand there is no supply so there is no work and thus even less demand- no amount of Goldratt can fix that.

The modern Olympic Games have yet again demonstrated that they are simply an expensive giant monopoly advertising campaign decorated with athletes wearing product. This is best illustrated by the 100m and 200m sprinters wearing wrist watches - what for? These folk shave off their arm and leg hair to go faster. It takes less than 10 or 20 seconds but as they get into their blocks the cameras linger on their arms and hands settling behind the start line. Product gets air time and the athletes get a few more bucks.

It cost NZ an estimated $4 million a medal in London (a rounding error in what it cost London to stage the Games) - a few hip replacements there - so there is very little justification to continue this sporting nonsensical extravaganza - when slashing every other budget. The Ugandans, Kenyans and Ethiopians won a few medals while millions of their fellow Africans starved.

A load of outdated Nation State bollocks that brought us 2 world wars. Move the games to Greece permanently (they really could use the money) and select the athletes on ability not nationality. Also get rid of all this French language waffle - slows the ceremonies down and confuses the Chinese.

Barclays Boson

How appropriate it is that in a week when the particle that lends the impression of mass to elementary particles is claimed to exist there is an announcement about how Barclays, without benefit of a Hadron Collider, added previously unexplained mass to 350 trillion worth of LIBOR transactions. It involved a non-conventional mathematical construct, involving quantifying Bollinger receipts, and contacting collegial counterparties - you can’t pull off this experiment without a counterparty particle. It would appear that these particles avoid being transported, to another universe called jail, because of the complex rules and equations of international banking that result in situations where the normal rules of both finance and the criminal law are suspended. It would seem that these laws are invariably suspended when ultra high level sums exert their gravitational pull on conventional bodies.

However, finding this Boson is needed because if you give all the particles of the Standard Model original mass then the standard model explodes - whoomph - so mass has to be added later from a completely undetectable field - dreamed up by a Mr Higgs - a field as yet unfound. In the manner that bent plods will skew evidence against the accused, after charges are laid, physicists will find the particles required to support their case even if that still can't explain 75% of everything. To maintain funding for a hadron collider they have to come up with something.

Unfortunately, this discovery further closes off the standard model from explaining gravity - unless there is a bit of Higgs Boson left hanging out of the Standard Model. Nor does it help reconcile Quantum Mechanics with Relativity. For that they'll need the scientific equivalent of the Barclays Boson or Graviton. Remember these are folk that rely on a theory that allows the distance between zero and one to be infinite - while not having explained why there is a need for such a thing as infinity or where is zero? This is what is called fiddling the books to suit yourself. There is a Standard Model industry supporting tens of thousands of jobs. Scientists are perfectly capable of sending the "Look Jimmy can you adjust your outcomes to make sure we get this years money or we'll end up like NASA" email.

But what if the Standard Model is the same as LIBOR - an illicit mechanism - a complicity? The Barclays Boson has shown sufficient mass/gravity to suck all money towards it - leading to the conclusion that the Barclays Boson is a main particle ingredient of the Banking Black Hole. All money in the universe is sucked towards this black hole and after reaching the Event Horizon appears to stop moving before disappearing entirely. Which is the situation in the Euro Zone right now.

According to the little guy in the wheelchair with the funny voice there is enough leakage from this Banking Black Hole to fill bankers' pockets  - while everything else in the money universe is stretched to destruction before being compressed to the size of a Bollinger cork.

At this point, a reminder that most of the clever mathematics that went into the financial universe came from the same source as the Standard Model. 

And according to it there is no possible way of getting the Bollinger cork to re-expand - this having happened during the accelerated expansion era between the Big Bang in London and 2007. Unless, of course, we can find another dimension full of money. Seems unlikely unless discovered by the world's central banks in the form of a faster than light Money Particle, not subject to the Standard Model, that finds it's way out of the Banking Black Hole. So given this, it is probably time to hand over the fiscal responsibilities of the ECB, Bank of England, The Fed, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to CERN in the hope that 75% of the money is still out there and can be found. Otherwise we'll need to be invaded by aliens awash in cash.
So what other particles will we find in the Banking Black Hole - well, given the standard banking model, you'd expect to find all the banking Bosons in it. Unless the recent discovery is reversed and the Barclays Boson reverts to being invisible, undetectable and massless. Every attempt will be made to reverse this finding. No counterparty will ever be found to admit to trading in anti-money - the ability to make money where no money exists. 

The banks have turned out to be Hos caught faking a financial orgasm.

Criminal Complicity

Finance, it is claimed by its practitioners, is the equivalent of 4 dimensional Chess and can only be played by the gifted few. It is far too complex for run-of-the-mill human beings to get their minds around. We are the spectators, if not fans, of the thrill of money even if someone else has most, if not all, of it. And, as with all spectators, we are overcharged - in this case not for seats, hotdogs and chips but for homes, mortgages and credit cards. And who knows what else?

I’ve met bankers. More than a few of them, or I’d choose to. They were the ones drinking splits of Champagne when we were drinking pints – you didn’t particularly want them in your round. I’ve met brokers and traders, economists and regulators. I’ve engaged them all in conversation and I have to say that I didn’t find any of them spectacularly smart – especially given their level of hubris. Their choice of idiom made them sound more like real estate agents or used-car salesmen than responsible managers of untold quantities of other people’s money. The term that came to mind to encompass most of them was “lightweight”. I’d long before concluded, from the rich folk I’ve met, that you obviously didn’t need to be a member of Mensa to make a lot of money so I put it down to luck.

More the fool me it turns out. That 4 dimensional financial Chess game was a chimera if not criminal complicity. It may not have started out that way but it certainly seems to have ended up as one. Except, as is now exposed, it isn’t 4 dimensional it is 5. This additional dimension is inhabited by politicians, civil servants and the press - another zone where the term “lightweight” must be applied.

We are expected to accept that the same people can be permitted, without external interference, to investigate a possible criminal case of their own making. How? Why? They can’t be relied upon to prosecute themselves. The Prosecution is already briefed to lead for the Defence. Even though most, if not all of them, were aware of, and thus complicit in, interest rate rigging since at least 2007 they are now rushing to the front of the queue of the innocent claiming false outrage in an equal quantity to total ignorance. Do you expect the pickpocket who stole your wallet to return it to you and face charges of theft? Then why expect these guys to give you your money back.

Maybe the term “criminal heavyweight” is more appropriate.

So what else are they capable of being complicit in - fixing Oil prices, raising Food costs, ramping-up Power charges? How about crime? Where will the trail lead – “follow the money” straight offshore. To the land of NOD – No Oversight Desired. This land can be found instantly by a banker at the mention of the word “Tax”.  Bankers in NOD appear to have assisted in the transfer of $billions worth of laundered money into the USA for the likes of, in one instance among tens of thousands, Russian used–car dealers. The Banks excuse; “our controls could and should have been stronger and more effective”. This sounds a bit less than sufficient given that the bank ignored $60tn worth of wire transfers and account activity and had a backlog of 17,000 account alerts regarding suspicious funds. All of which was known to the appropriate regulators but about which nothing was done.

It’s been a bad week for banking. does anyone care?