And so for the second day in succession I devote my time to Brideshead Revisited, Catholicism and the British Banking and investment system.
The 4th episode of Brideshead commenced with Sebastian admitting he had become dependent on alcohol while Charles has become a regular visitor at Brideshead during the vacations between second year terms. For the first time Sebastian turns on Charles who attempts to cover up the situation with the family explaining the son's absence from having gone down with a severe cold. Cordelia insists on calling on Sebastian returning to announce that he is drunk. Charles admitted this is so when asked by Lady Marchmain thus confirming Sebastian's accusation that Charles had become a conspirator with his mother against him. Later after the elder brother accepts that it is impossible to stop someone getting drunk, Sebastian enters the drawing room where his mother is reading a Father Brown story, considered for young Catholics and where the GK Chesterton stories were turned into a 13 part TV series in 1974.
In the morning Sebastian decided to leave the House and go to the family home in London without speaking to his mother, This results in a moving conversation between Charles and Lady Marchmain in which she confesses that once before she had the same experience with her husband, both men full of guilt at their unhappiness with the consequence that they ran away. Although Lady Marchmain is accepting of Charles as almost a family member, giving him a copy of the completed book about her brother, he is aware he is being manipulated and that his relationship with Sebastian and Brideshead is under threat.
During the term the two make plans to takes rooms together in Merton Street but the family friend and author of the book on the brother of Lady Marchmain, Samgrass Fellow of All Souls says this is in question as Lady Marchmain is considering withdrawing him for the following year and in the meantime that he should stay with a Catholic priest of her acquaintance. She visits Charles privately before a luncheon with her son, to explain her position and is about to yield to the request for them to share a flat her son breaks into the college to see Charles and falls drunk and is apprehended by the college Bulldogs (security) with the Proctors and the Master is called. Lady Marchmain advise Charles that because it is evident he is unable to exert the positive influence she had hoped Sebastian is being sent down for the rest of term and will stay with the priest.
Charles finds the rest of the term difficult and considers not returning to Oxford. He confides his intentions to his father and that he wishes to become a painter and his father encourages him to looks at Painting schools abroad, in part because he does not want his home to be turned into a studio. Charles spends the summer at a painting school in Paris where he receives a letter from Lady Marchmain advising that Samgrass is taking Sebastian to the Levant visiting orthodox Monasteries. They will return fro Christmas when she hopes he will be able to see Sebastian. Thus the episode ends and Book one of the novel ends.
(Charles has warned that by keeping close watch and control over Sebastian Lady Marchmain is making it more not less likely that he will run away from her. She sets this aside believing that her duty to protect and further his Catholicism is greater. Thus in one sense she putting her faith before the best interested of her son, but her feelings are more complicated than that and she is just as much a prisoner of the situation as is her son, and as was her husband. So much for the notion of free will.
I break off for lunch, Half a small turkey joint that was wrapped in bacon which has become enjoyably crispy with sage stuffing and some crisp roast potatoes, usually I eat them less well done, but today I have timed everything well, or at least the episode ended at the right time. It is opportunity to reflect.
Although the TV Adaptation has concentrated more on the ending of the relationship between Charles and Sebastian the work also covers the transition which all university students make from their first year when colleges and university exercise a greater sense of in loco parentis, placing students in halls of residence if there is no college structure, and often sharing rooms with another student in a similar situation. In the second and third years most will take rooms together with other students with whom they have something more in common that than going to the same university and same courses of study and where the third year marks the transition between undergraduate life and the separateness and independence that will follow unless marriage is contemplated.
I also experienced these changes having spent the first year in a tiny room in a converted stable block so that any noise was communicated between rooms separated by thin wood partitioning and where relationships were established with other especially those in the closest proximity but most contacts reduced during the second year when first I went into lodging with a retired former college scout from lady Margaret Hall across from the college where I took all my meals. I did move into the college for the last term as means of seeking greater independence and having no obligations to my former landlady who reminded too much of my birth mother. Like Charles I also evaluated what I wanted to do an do not. I also felt outside of life in college which was borne out by what happened in that final term because I was one of only a handful of students within my year taking the Public and Social Administration Course
While I remained greatly interested in political, and social and social history, which was also the interest of the other students I had struggled with my tutor in economic history, a man more insecure than myself and someone with whom there was little sympathy or engagement. I had also struggled with political theory were the tutor was an engaging and charismatic American whose lasting impression was to create a 45 E.P with Jay's Rooks, the Rookery was the name of former Stables my home for a year. However I found political theory confusing although I have many of the works to this day : Hobbes Leviathan, Tom Paine Rights of Man, Kant Critique of Reason, Descartes A Discourse of Reason, Rousseau two volume of Confessions, and his Social Contract, Locke, on Civil Government, Plato the Republic, Machiavelli, the Prince, Sabine Political Theory, Schumpter Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Benn and Peters Social Principles and Democratic State, Field Political Theory, Marx Das Capital. Ralph Miliband on Parliamentary Socialism, the father of my local MP and present Foreign Secretary
My problem was with Economic Theory where my tutor was the Vice Principle, a man with a similar background to myself who had achieved some prominence both as an academic economist and a government appointed adviser but never made it to the front rank. Like me he was great on economic theory and had greater ability to express his ideas than I was then capable of. He graded my examination as exceptional and together with his combined grading for the eight essays of the term, brought me to the attention of the Principal as someone who might go on to the University under the scheme which bypassed the first public examination with its Latin Paper and which then enabled one to take three years to sit an honours degree usually covered by other undergraduates in two. However I did not really understand or approve of capitalist economics although I had bought the right books including Mathew on the Trade Cycle and Hicks on Public Finance, Harrod on International Economics and Samuelson's Basic Primers. I knew I needed statistics and to understand the workings of present day economic practice to progress to the Politics, Philosophy and Economics Tripos, so i went to the Principal and asked that if my local authority agreed I could study Psychology and Criminology during my second year. He checked the courses knowing that he had a spare place nomination at the Post Graduate Diploma Course in Public and Social Administration following the "sending down" of one who had gone berserk high on drugs in the Kitchen at Headington Hall, and fortunately for me the subjects I had studied could be taken as part of the proposed course except I had to be say I wanted to be a social worker and be accepted by the course administrators, I was, and the rest they say is history, My Social Administration Tutor became a Professor and years later she and the course Director also a Professor were conducting an investigation for the Government into the working of socials security system and came north to South Shields to visit me and for advice on the working of system on the poor. It was one of several vindications that the Principal and I had found the right solution for me at the right time, unlike Lady Marchmain and her son. I have no unfinished business regarding social work and its management but my problems with the workings of capitalist economics remain and as I will show my concerns are not just about understanding but the underlying morality.
I had forgotten that Charles remained in Paris and like Sebastian did not return to Oxford. He was then invited back to Brideshead for Christmas as Sebastian was due to return from the tour of Levant with Samgrass. However when Charles arrived at the station he found Sebastian also arriving and it soon emerged that the trip had been one of him evading his companion by various ruses in order to get himself drunk. It has taken all the ingenuity of the Fellow from All Souls to trace Sebastian when he escaped to London. Unexpectedly Sebastian decides to join the hunting party and persuades Charles to give him some money to go off to find alcohol returning drunk but putting on a brave face for the evening meal. Charles realises he has failed to reconnect and help his friend. He leaves in the following morning with Lady Marchmain making not effort to persuade him to stay. She then accuses him of betrayal and hating the family. Charles believes that this is the end of his association with the family and returns to Paris.
He receives a letter from Cordelia who is fond of Charles as an unofficial elder brother who treats her as a young woman and she admit she also helped Sebastian with drink and was caught, that Julia was becoming too friendly with Rex Mottram which she says is bad and Rex is to take Sebastian for a cure to a German Doctor
Having established himself and living according to his means he is surprised one day to find Rex Mottram arriving looking for Sebastian who he was taking/guarding on his way to Zurich to the doctor but has given the slip, running off with the winnings Rex made playing cards earlier in the evening. Rex was no proposing to continue the search but go on to Venice to try and get the approval of Lord Marchmain for a marriage to Julia. He had encountered opposition from Lady Marchmain, despite a willingness to convert to Catholicism but still planned a marriage to the most eligible young woman of the time with the Prime Minister photographed attending the ceremony. He would bring his wealth and Parliamentary connections into the marriage while he would gain from the Aristocratic linking, He did not talk of love. He did bring news that Samgrass had been given the heave ho by her Ladyship who had also expressed regret and what she had said to Charles at his departure.
This struck me as the first instance where she had been inconsistent with the teachings and beliefs of her faith and was a clue to why her husband and her second son reacted as they did towards her.,. We learn that her health is poor.
We learn of these things while Charles is taken to dinner.. by Rex, Charles having selected the restaurant and the menu commencing with caviar and followed by Sorrel soup, We are not shared the rest of the meal, so I will check the book Yes the Caviar aux Blinis but this is an addition after he had already ordered soup of Oseille (Waugh does not translate) followed by a sole cooked in a white wine sauce, and then a caneton a la presse: what is this? I wish I had not looked it up. This was a speciality dish at the Parisian restaurant Tour do Argent a century before comprising duck strangled to retain its blood and then partially roasted. Its liver is crushed and seasons and the legs and breast are removed. The rest includes bones and skin is pressed in a device similar to a wine press. The r4sulting juices are mixed with the liver butter and Cognac and combined with the breast to finish cooking .Added to the sauce is Froi gras, Madeira, Port and lemon. The breast is sliced and served with the sauce first. The legs are broil separately and eaten afterwards. There was then a lemon soufflé. (I can make a soufflé) They drank1906 Montrachet and 1904 Clos de Beze. Only the Brandy displeased Rex as it was light, and served in the wrong glass, Rex orders a Napoleon for himself.
I have been conservative in my drinking of spirits, being given gin mixed with orange when I was sixteen at the pre Christmas office going to the pub, This was only one of two occasions when I have been sick drunk, the second at Oxford having been invited as a guest to a private dining club. I have been merry intoxicated in a quiet way several times since then but never losing self control, being aggressive or sad and always afterwards remembering everything that happened or did not. As for brandy, the only alcohol my mother would take when in coffee in Winter during her years between 80 and 90 I have only set brandy on fire over Christmas puddings. Whisky that is different where I always have an inexpensive bottle in the house although these days I tend to take only when I have the indication of a sore throat or go out or return from excessive coldness. There is an exception pure Scottish Malt of the kind that has lain in a vat for upwards of seven year and drank on its own drop by drop, but here again I am just at the end of a bottle purchased in Scotland some eighteen months ago and will invest in another this Christmas if my mood and budget justifies.
It is at this point in the TV adaptation and book that Charles turns his attention to Lady Julia, so very different from the film. It also has to be said that while I connected with both Lord and Lady Marchmain, with their elder son and young Cordelia surprising well drawn by Evelyn Waugh capturing her catholic and general adolescent and youthfulness, fearlessness, honesty and enthusiasm. It is a good point to give attention again to the British Banking system over a cup of tea before England play their third match in the World Cup Qualifying competition for the finals.
I have been trying to understand the present crisis among banks, stock market crashes and high risk investments such as Hedge Funds . I have been trying to unravel what has happened and to understand something of the nature and extent of present system. Far from suggesting that the following is an accurate description I would welcome any confirmation, amendments and enlightenment from those circulated.
What is a bank today ? In the UK banks are still treated in law as facilities for paying in and drawing out money for cheques, although the use of cheques has declined since the use of credit cards, hole in the wall cash machines and internet banking; the provision of current accounts for individuals, organisations and businesses with standing orders and direct debit's a feature. Banks also loan money to the public, organisations and other banks offering interest and they also make loans, usually at a high rate of interest, and the difference between income from services and loans and expenditure on borrowing pays the overheads and dividends to share holders, or that is theory of it. Some of the other services should and usually are cost effective such as storage of valuables and issuing of currency
I do not know enough of the history of banking to say when this traditional and basic approach changed and there was greater emphasise on the bank engaging in investments and trading with a view to increasing profitability.
This is more than buying and selling commodities, currencies and shares in all there many forms for individual customers and the management of investment portfolios, but when they became major players in the markets on their own behalf, whether directly investing in new ventures, underwriting share issues, where my understanding this means buying any new stock which are not taken up by other individual and corporate investors. After the great stock market crash of 1929 it was decided to separate the commercial side of banking from the investment functions but this then changed as confidence re-established with the consequence that ordinary deposit money and cash holdings became vulnerable if the investment side made major mistakes.
There has been much talk of managers taking more and more risks in order to increase their personal bonuses and the precipitating cause being the offering mortgages to those who could not afford payments. I do not pretend to understand the extent and complexity of the Hedge Investment development but this to be the actual cause of the Stock market crashing and Banks in a panic, so here goes my understanding.
I am a senior manager of an investment bank with responsibility for launching and managing with others a new Hedge Fund of £1 billion and because of the standing of my bank and its track record the fund is subscribed, including funds invested by my own bank. In 2005 there were 196 of such funds with assets of more than $1 billion and a total of $1 trillion which is more than the USA and British Government have out in to rescue and make stable the whole bank sector in the two countries. A year later the assets involved in Hedge Funding in the USA had increased to $ 1.4 Trillion
The usual administrative charge top sliced from the fund for management costs ( annual salaries of the managers and support staff and staffing and premises overheads is 2%, and in this instance it is $20 million. However the management cost you would be quoted for investing your individual millions is 2 to 20%. The 2% is taken out of the fund immediately but the 20% depends on the fund making a profit. Given this incentive the fund chief executive recruit's the best in the business and they out perform everyone else making a profit of $200 million. So on top of their combined salaries which say came to 10 million they have combined individual bonuses of say 10 million with the balance going into dividends and bank asset accumulation. An investor with $10 million has seen his asset increased to $11,6 million. However Performance charges for bonuses and bank profits are known to be as high as 50% of Fund profits. The position has changed so that in order qualify for the performance charge in the second year of the fund the profit on which the fee is made is the difference between the 20% reached at year end 1 and that at end year 2. Say the profit is 250 million so fund Performance charge is not 50 million but 20% of the additional 50 million increase which is 10 million.
This means that in order to get greater bonuses the investments become more speculative In order to make the profits managers adopt an extraordinary range of approaches on a global basis taking account that this offer 24 hour trading. It also has to be understood that much is now made of sophisticated mathematical buying and selling models which are computerised and can be automatically triggered. If there is major movement in one area of activity in one time zone the computer will automatically buy or sell, rather like the auto pilot landing and take off as well as setting direction on a modern jet plane.
One activity of fund managers the purchase of distressed debt. So if it looks as if the position of an activity is going bad say loans given to people who will have difficulty paying their mortgages as in the USA or here in the UK loans to buy properties to rent where buyer was willing for just to balance the interest on the loans because the increases in value of the property would create profit when it was sold. Sometimes the loan would be given for 125% of the purchased property value to cover some adaptation and initial shortfall in rent income. Major problems arise if people are reluctant to move into better accommodation with higher rents and the lower high price and lack of sales makes it difficult to quickly sell the asset at a time when all ones other costs are going.
Another approach is to exploit pricing differences when companies merge so the proposed merger of between Lloyds and HBOS will have attracted the attention of Hedge Fund Managers. More familiar is asset stripping, taking controlling interests in individual companies and then dividing up parts to gain on the price paid for taking control.
Funds were also able to buy and sell a share at the same time making pure profits without actually putting any money up front. I used to do this over one glorious period with small priced shares. I would pick a low cost share that was priced at say 2p which went up say to 3p over the course of a day or a couple of days.. I bought say 50000 of these shares and would have had to pay £1000 if I had kept them beyond the trading period, but I sold them before this for £1500, less one dealing charge, it would have been two had I kept them beyond the trading period so that the balance was pure profit and during this period I made three profits of £1000 in three successive weeks. I even persuaded the bank manager to loan me £5000 to increase my stake showing him list of 100 trades without a loss although the lowest profit was £9. I had increased my original £1000 to £7000 if I cashed ion going shares at the same price so even if I lost all the additional £500 of loan money I was still in overall profit doubling my original stake.
Obviously you have to keep close to the market, Reading the Investors Chronicle and watching share price movement through available programmes and telephone information for current prices and I had two brokers one by telephone and one using the internet willing for to give me some leverage i.e. I could buy and sell with sum more than the value of shares bought and held from the firm as long as I closed positions within one Trading account period then of two weeks with settlement a week later.
Alas on one bad day I commenced to lose almost everything gained gone to cricket in the days when the mobile phone was huge and rare and I was away from my computer, I hope they would bounce back but they fell and fell. When years later I did the final accounting I think I had invested over £100000 and sold for £103000 on an actual real money stake. And even this profit was less was less as I had to keep some shares for sometime while paying interest on the loan and was bailed out by government selling off shares such as the BT Telephone and Electricity companies.
I mention this because Hedge fund managers also borrow money against their assets in order to make short term investments. There is one instance in the USA in 1988 where a firm which collapsed had a base of $4 billon but had borrowed 30 times this amount. If the fund is $1 billion and you borrow another $9 billion which is invested all in one class of stocks and they suddenly drop by 10% and are required to sell them within one trading period you will have lost all your original £1 billion and if they fell 20% as banking shares have done you would have lost all your $1 billion and owe another $1 billion.
Where investments are of a short term nature you do not just buy and sell shares, but also sell shares you do not have on the basis that you will be able to buy them later. Because you expect the price to fall then rise the loss or profit can be limitless. This is why the market is in free fall because Hedge and other funders have been selling shares they did not own say banks stocks at £200 dollars a share and wait and wait for them to fall as low possible to buy them back at say $50 making a profit of $150 on every share, say 1 million shares 150 million profit less dealing charges and interest on the borrowed money. Because of deregulation, Hedge funds operate in almost complete secrecy so no one outside the management knows what they are going to do, when and how until they do it.
Many of the funds are also offshore so they do not pay tax although individual investors will have to declare the profits they receive, but governments will not get their slices directly from the fund itself. While New York is the leading nation in Hedge funds totalling in the trillion of dollars, London is the European Capital with in 2007 £200 billion managed in the city. Australia is the Asia Pacific Capital involved with about a quarter of the $140 billion. It will be appreciated that all this money around $ 2 trillion in terms of actual money assets is kept in banks but the loans will also have come from banks who as has been shown have made loans significantly greater than the deposits held. With a modest leverage of 5 $2 trillion of real assets will be matched by £10 trillion of loans
This puts into perspective the suggestion that individuals who have run up credit cards bills are somehow collectively responsible, or those who have bought low price housing and then find themselves out of work, while fund managers having been giving themselves millions from trading with borrowed money.
The problem is that pension funds will have joined in buying into Hedge Funds along with Local authorities in the UK taking higher rates of Interest offered by Icelandic Banks who loaned the money to Hedge Funds managed back in London, or Banks in London buying toxic loans from American Mortgage Banks and on and on. Given the awareness of all this , it is not surprising that the banks stop lending to the likes of you and me and each other until they can work out how to prevent a situation where everyone again asked for the money they had deposited the greater part of it would be there/ This will affects some businesses who operated at the margin, trying to progress too quickly for their asset base and trading stake and cannot get loans to keep them going, and it will affect companies who sell everything from holidays to cars and financial management advice because the likes of you and me decide not to spend at what is usually the great buying time of the year in the two months before Christmas, so these firms and stores instead of taking on more staff will take less and will not be able to offer raises to meet the increased cost of energy and food, so even less will be bought and sold. Having a presidential and national election in the USA does not help., A New York London world wide affecting plan is required hence the meetings this weekend are crucial. Finding out if what I have found it does explain what happened and why will need to come later but unless the facts can be established and shared we will not be able to prevent it happening again. The role of Government needs to be looked at as well as the easy target of fund managers earning their money.
I enjoyed the last 15 minutes of England's World Cup Qualifier which was won 5.1. I also looked in on the X Factor after watching the latest episode of Merlin. However I was constantly switching channels during the talent contest because of an interesting programme on the designed building of the year which went to a 188 housing developments in Cambridge,
Although I had the roast for lunch this evening I had a light cuppa soup and a pasta dish with spicy meatballs and grapes. I drank one bottle of beer during the match.
The 4th episode of Brideshead commenced with Sebastian admitting he had become dependent on alcohol while Charles has become a regular visitor at Brideshead during the vacations between second year terms. For the first time Sebastian turns on Charles who attempts to cover up the situation with the family explaining the son's absence from having gone down with a severe cold. Cordelia insists on calling on Sebastian returning to announce that he is drunk. Charles admitted this is so when asked by Lady Marchmain thus confirming Sebastian's accusation that Charles had become a conspirator with his mother against him. Later after the elder brother accepts that it is impossible to stop someone getting drunk, Sebastian enters the drawing room where his mother is reading a Father Brown story, considered for young Catholics and where the GK Chesterton stories were turned into a 13 part TV series in 1974.
In the morning Sebastian decided to leave the House and go to the family home in London without speaking to his mother, This results in a moving conversation between Charles and Lady Marchmain in which she confesses that once before she had the same experience with her husband, both men full of guilt at their unhappiness with the consequence that they ran away. Although Lady Marchmain is accepting of Charles as almost a family member, giving him a copy of the completed book about her brother, he is aware he is being manipulated and that his relationship with Sebastian and Brideshead is under threat.
During the term the two make plans to takes rooms together in Merton Street but the family friend and author of the book on the brother of Lady Marchmain, Samgrass Fellow of All Souls says this is in question as Lady Marchmain is considering withdrawing him for the following year and in the meantime that he should stay with a Catholic priest of her acquaintance. She visits Charles privately before a luncheon with her son, to explain her position and is about to yield to the request for them to share a flat her son breaks into the college to see Charles and falls drunk and is apprehended by the college Bulldogs (security) with the Proctors and the Master is called. Lady Marchmain advise Charles that because it is evident he is unable to exert the positive influence she had hoped Sebastian is being sent down for the rest of term and will stay with the priest.
Charles finds the rest of the term difficult and considers not returning to Oxford. He confides his intentions to his father and that he wishes to become a painter and his father encourages him to looks at Painting schools abroad, in part because he does not want his home to be turned into a studio. Charles spends the summer at a painting school in Paris where he receives a letter from Lady Marchmain advising that Samgrass is taking Sebastian to the Levant visiting orthodox Monasteries. They will return fro Christmas when she hopes he will be able to see Sebastian. Thus the episode ends and Book one of the novel ends.
(Charles has warned that by keeping close watch and control over Sebastian Lady Marchmain is making it more not less likely that he will run away from her. She sets this aside believing that her duty to protect and further his Catholicism is greater. Thus in one sense she putting her faith before the best interested of her son, but her feelings are more complicated than that and she is just as much a prisoner of the situation as is her son, and as was her husband. So much for the notion of free will.
I break off for lunch, Half a small turkey joint that was wrapped in bacon which has become enjoyably crispy with sage stuffing and some crisp roast potatoes, usually I eat them less well done, but today I have timed everything well, or at least the episode ended at the right time. It is opportunity to reflect.
Although the TV Adaptation has concentrated more on the ending of the relationship between Charles and Sebastian the work also covers the transition which all university students make from their first year when colleges and university exercise a greater sense of in loco parentis, placing students in halls of residence if there is no college structure, and often sharing rooms with another student in a similar situation. In the second and third years most will take rooms together with other students with whom they have something more in common that than going to the same university and same courses of study and where the third year marks the transition between undergraduate life and the separateness and independence that will follow unless marriage is contemplated.
I also experienced these changes having spent the first year in a tiny room in a converted stable block so that any noise was communicated between rooms separated by thin wood partitioning and where relationships were established with other especially those in the closest proximity but most contacts reduced during the second year when first I went into lodging with a retired former college scout from lady Margaret Hall across from the college where I took all my meals. I did move into the college for the last term as means of seeking greater independence and having no obligations to my former landlady who reminded too much of my birth mother. Like Charles I also evaluated what I wanted to do an do not. I also felt outside of life in college which was borne out by what happened in that final term because I was one of only a handful of students within my year taking the Public and Social Administration Course
While I remained greatly interested in political, and social and social history, which was also the interest of the other students I had struggled with my tutor in economic history, a man more insecure than myself and someone with whom there was little sympathy or engagement. I had also struggled with political theory were the tutor was an engaging and charismatic American whose lasting impression was to create a 45 E.P with Jay's Rooks, the Rookery was the name of former Stables my home for a year. However I found political theory confusing although I have many of the works to this day : Hobbes Leviathan, Tom Paine Rights of Man, Kant Critique of Reason, Descartes A Discourse of Reason, Rousseau two volume of Confessions, and his Social Contract, Locke, on Civil Government, Plato the Republic, Machiavelli, the Prince, Sabine Political Theory, Schumpter Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Benn and Peters Social Principles and Democratic State, Field Political Theory, Marx Das Capital. Ralph Miliband on Parliamentary Socialism, the father of my local MP and present Foreign Secretary
My problem was with Economic Theory where my tutor was the Vice Principle, a man with a similar background to myself who had achieved some prominence both as an academic economist and a government appointed adviser but never made it to the front rank. Like me he was great on economic theory and had greater ability to express his ideas than I was then capable of. He graded my examination as exceptional and together with his combined grading for the eight essays of the term, brought me to the attention of the Principal as someone who might go on to the University under the scheme which bypassed the first public examination with its Latin Paper and which then enabled one to take three years to sit an honours degree usually covered by other undergraduates in two. However I did not really understand or approve of capitalist economics although I had bought the right books including Mathew on the Trade Cycle and Hicks on Public Finance, Harrod on International Economics and Samuelson's Basic Primers. I knew I needed statistics and to understand the workings of present day economic practice to progress to the Politics, Philosophy and Economics Tripos, so i went to the Principal and asked that if my local authority agreed I could study Psychology and Criminology during my second year. He checked the courses knowing that he had a spare place nomination at the Post Graduate Diploma Course in Public and Social Administration following the "sending down" of one who had gone berserk high on drugs in the Kitchen at Headington Hall, and fortunately for me the subjects I had studied could be taken as part of the proposed course except I had to be say I wanted to be a social worker and be accepted by the course administrators, I was, and the rest they say is history, My Social Administration Tutor became a Professor and years later she and the course Director also a Professor were conducting an investigation for the Government into the working of socials security system and came north to South Shields to visit me and for advice on the working of system on the poor. It was one of several vindications that the Principal and I had found the right solution for me at the right time, unlike Lady Marchmain and her son. I have no unfinished business regarding social work and its management but my problems with the workings of capitalist economics remain and as I will show my concerns are not just about understanding but the underlying morality.
I had forgotten that Charles remained in Paris and like Sebastian did not return to Oxford. He was then invited back to Brideshead for Christmas as Sebastian was due to return from the tour of Levant with Samgrass. However when Charles arrived at the station he found Sebastian also arriving and it soon emerged that the trip had been one of him evading his companion by various ruses in order to get himself drunk. It has taken all the ingenuity of the Fellow from All Souls to trace Sebastian when he escaped to London. Unexpectedly Sebastian decides to join the hunting party and persuades Charles to give him some money to go off to find alcohol returning drunk but putting on a brave face for the evening meal. Charles realises he has failed to reconnect and help his friend. He leaves in the following morning with Lady Marchmain making not effort to persuade him to stay. She then accuses him of betrayal and hating the family. Charles believes that this is the end of his association with the family and returns to Paris.
He receives a letter from Cordelia who is fond of Charles as an unofficial elder brother who treats her as a young woman and she admit she also helped Sebastian with drink and was caught, that Julia was becoming too friendly with Rex Mottram which she says is bad and Rex is to take Sebastian for a cure to a German Doctor
Having established himself and living according to his means he is surprised one day to find Rex Mottram arriving looking for Sebastian who he was taking/guarding on his way to Zurich to the doctor but has given the slip, running off with the winnings Rex made playing cards earlier in the evening. Rex was no proposing to continue the search but go on to Venice to try and get the approval of Lord Marchmain for a marriage to Julia. He had encountered opposition from Lady Marchmain, despite a willingness to convert to Catholicism but still planned a marriage to the most eligible young woman of the time with the Prime Minister photographed attending the ceremony. He would bring his wealth and Parliamentary connections into the marriage while he would gain from the Aristocratic linking, He did not talk of love. He did bring news that Samgrass had been given the heave ho by her Ladyship who had also expressed regret and what she had said to Charles at his departure.
This struck me as the first instance where she had been inconsistent with the teachings and beliefs of her faith and was a clue to why her husband and her second son reacted as they did towards her.,. We learn that her health is poor.
We learn of these things while Charles is taken to dinner.. by Rex, Charles having selected the restaurant and the menu commencing with caviar and followed by Sorrel soup, We are not shared the rest of the meal, so I will check the book Yes the Caviar aux Blinis but this is an addition after he had already ordered soup of Oseille (Waugh does not translate) followed by a sole cooked in a white wine sauce, and then a caneton a la presse: what is this? I wish I had not looked it up. This was a speciality dish at the Parisian restaurant Tour do Argent a century before comprising duck strangled to retain its blood and then partially roasted. Its liver is crushed and seasons and the legs and breast are removed. The rest includes bones and skin is pressed in a device similar to a wine press. The r4sulting juices are mixed with the liver butter and Cognac and combined with the breast to finish cooking .Added to the sauce is Froi gras, Madeira, Port and lemon. The breast is sliced and served with the sauce first. The legs are broil separately and eaten afterwards. There was then a lemon soufflé. (I can make a soufflé) They drank1906 Montrachet and 1904 Clos de Beze. Only the Brandy displeased Rex as it was light, and served in the wrong glass, Rex orders a Napoleon for himself.
I have been conservative in my drinking of spirits, being given gin mixed with orange when I was sixteen at the pre Christmas office going to the pub, This was only one of two occasions when I have been sick drunk, the second at Oxford having been invited as a guest to a private dining club. I have been merry intoxicated in a quiet way several times since then but never losing self control, being aggressive or sad and always afterwards remembering everything that happened or did not. As for brandy, the only alcohol my mother would take when in coffee in Winter during her years between 80 and 90 I have only set brandy on fire over Christmas puddings. Whisky that is different where I always have an inexpensive bottle in the house although these days I tend to take only when I have the indication of a sore throat or go out or return from excessive coldness. There is an exception pure Scottish Malt of the kind that has lain in a vat for upwards of seven year and drank on its own drop by drop, but here again I am just at the end of a bottle purchased in Scotland some eighteen months ago and will invest in another this Christmas if my mood and budget justifies.
It is at this point in the TV adaptation and book that Charles turns his attention to Lady Julia, so very different from the film. It also has to be said that while I connected with both Lord and Lady Marchmain, with their elder son and young Cordelia surprising well drawn by Evelyn Waugh capturing her catholic and general adolescent and youthfulness, fearlessness, honesty and enthusiasm. It is a good point to give attention again to the British Banking system over a cup of tea before England play their third match in the World Cup Qualifying competition for the finals.
I have been trying to understand the present crisis among banks, stock market crashes and high risk investments such as Hedge Funds . I have been trying to unravel what has happened and to understand something of the nature and extent of present system. Far from suggesting that the following is an accurate description I would welcome any confirmation, amendments and enlightenment from those circulated.
What is a bank today ? In the UK banks are still treated in law as facilities for paying in and drawing out money for cheques, although the use of cheques has declined since the use of credit cards, hole in the wall cash machines and internet banking; the provision of current accounts for individuals, organisations and businesses with standing orders and direct debit's a feature. Banks also loan money to the public, organisations and other banks offering interest and they also make loans, usually at a high rate of interest, and the difference between income from services and loans and expenditure on borrowing pays the overheads and dividends to share holders, or that is theory of it. Some of the other services should and usually are cost effective such as storage of valuables and issuing of currency
I do not know enough of the history of banking to say when this traditional and basic approach changed and there was greater emphasise on the bank engaging in investments and trading with a view to increasing profitability.
This is more than buying and selling commodities, currencies and shares in all there many forms for individual customers and the management of investment portfolios, but when they became major players in the markets on their own behalf, whether directly investing in new ventures, underwriting share issues, where my understanding this means buying any new stock which are not taken up by other individual and corporate investors. After the great stock market crash of 1929 it was decided to separate the commercial side of banking from the investment functions but this then changed as confidence re-established with the consequence that ordinary deposit money and cash holdings became vulnerable if the investment side made major mistakes.
There has been much talk of managers taking more and more risks in order to increase their personal bonuses and the precipitating cause being the offering mortgages to those who could not afford payments. I do not pretend to understand the extent and complexity of the Hedge Investment development but this to be the actual cause of the Stock market crashing and Banks in a panic, so here goes my understanding.
I am a senior manager of an investment bank with responsibility for launching and managing with others a new Hedge Fund of £1 billion and because of the standing of my bank and its track record the fund is subscribed, including funds invested by my own bank. In 2005 there were 196 of such funds with assets of more than $1 billion and a total of $1 trillion which is more than the USA and British Government have out in to rescue and make stable the whole bank sector in the two countries. A year later the assets involved in Hedge Funding in the USA had increased to $ 1.4 Trillion
The usual administrative charge top sliced from the fund for management costs ( annual salaries of the managers and support staff and staffing and premises overheads is 2%, and in this instance it is $20 million. However the management cost you would be quoted for investing your individual millions is 2 to 20%. The 2% is taken out of the fund immediately but the 20% depends on the fund making a profit. Given this incentive the fund chief executive recruit's the best in the business and they out perform everyone else making a profit of $200 million. So on top of their combined salaries which say came to 10 million they have combined individual bonuses of say 10 million with the balance going into dividends and bank asset accumulation. An investor with $10 million has seen his asset increased to $11,6 million. However Performance charges for bonuses and bank profits are known to be as high as 50% of Fund profits. The position has changed so that in order qualify for the performance charge in the second year of the fund the profit on which the fee is made is the difference between the 20% reached at year end 1 and that at end year 2. Say the profit is 250 million so fund Performance charge is not 50 million but 20% of the additional 50 million increase which is 10 million.
This means that in order to get greater bonuses the investments become more speculative In order to make the profits managers adopt an extraordinary range of approaches on a global basis taking account that this offer 24 hour trading. It also has to be understood that much is now made of sophisticated mathematical buying and selling models which are computerised and can be automatically triggered. If there is major movement in one area of activity in one time zone the computer will automatically buy or sell, rather like the auto pilot landing and take off as well as setting direction on a modern jet plane.
One activity of fund managers the purchase of distressed debt. So if it looks as if the position of an activity is going bad say loans given to people who will have difficulty paying their mortgages as in the USA or here in the UK loans to buy properties to rent where buyer was willing for just to balance the interest on the loans because the increases in value of the property would create profit when it was sold. Sometimes the loan would be given for 125% of the purchased property value to cover some adaptation and initial shortfall in rent income. Major problems arise if people are reluctant to move into better accommodation with higher rents and the lower high price and lack of sales makes it difficult to quickly sell the asset at a time when all ones other costs are going.
Another approach is to exploit pricing differences when companies merge so the proposed merger of between Lloyds and HBOS will have attracted the attention of Hedge Fund Managers. More familiar is asset stripping, taking controlling interests in individual companies and then dividing up parts to gain on the price paid for taking control.
Funds were also able to buy and sell a share at the same time making pure profits without actually putting any money up front. I used to do this over one glorious period with small priced shares. I would pick a low cost share that was priced at say 2p which went up say to 3p over the course of a day or a couple of days.. I bought say 50000 of these shares and would have had to pay £1000 if I had kept them beyond the trading period, but I sold them before this for £1500, less one dealing charge, it would have been two had I kept them beyond the trading period so that the balance was pure profit and during this period I made three profits of £1000 in three successive weeks. I even persuaded the bank manager to loan me £5000 to increase my stake showing him list of 100 trades without a loss although the lowest profit was £9. I had increased my original £1000 to £7000 if I cashed ion going shares at the same price so even if I lost all the additional £500 of loan money I was still in overall profit doubling my original stake.
Obviously you have to keep close to the market, Reading the Investors Chronicle and watching share price movement through available programmes and telephone information for current prices and I had two brokers one by telephone and one using the internet willing for to give me some leverage i.e. I could buy and sell with sum more than the value of shares bought and held from the firm as long as I closed positions within one Trading account period then of two weeks with settlement a week later.
Alas on one bad day I commenced to lose almost everything gained gone to cricket in the days when the mobile phone was huge and rare and I was away from my computer, I hope they would bounce back but they fell and fell. When years later I did the final accounting I think I had invested over £100000 and sold for £103000 on an actual real money stake. And even this profit was less was less as I had to keep some shares for sometime while paying interest on the loan and was bailed out by government selling off shares such as the BT Telephone and Electricity companies.
I mention this because Hedge fund managers also borrow money against their assets in order to make short term investments. There is one instance in the USA in 1988 where a firm which collapsed had a base of $4 billon but had borrowed 30 times this amount. If the fund is $1 billion and you borrow another $9 billion which is invested all in one class of stocks and they suddenly drop by 10% and are required to sell them within one trading period you will have lost all your original £1 billion and if they fell 20% as banking shares have done you would have lost all your $1 billion and owe another $1 billion.
Where investments are of a short term nature you do not just buy and sell shares, but also sell shares you do not have on the basis that you will be able to buy them later. Because you expect the price to fall then rise the loss or profit can be limitless. This is why the market is in free fall because Hedge and other funders have been selling shares they did not own say banks stocks at £200 dollars a share and wait and wait for them to fall as low possible to buy them back at say $50 making a profit of $150 on every share, say 1 million shares 150 million profit less dealing charges and interest on the borrowed money. Because of deregulation, Hedge funds operate in almost complete secrecy so no one outside the management knows what they are going to do, when and how until they do it.
Many of the funds are also offshore so they do not pay tax although individual investors will have to declare the profits they receive, but governments will not get their slices directly from the fund itself. While New York is the leading nation in Hedge funds totalling in the trillion of dollars, London is the European Capital with in 2007 £200 billion managed in the city. Australia is the Asia Pacific Capital involved with about a quarter of the $140 billion. It will be appreciated that all this money around $ 2 trillion in terms of actual money assets is kept in banks but the loans will also have come from banks who as has been shown have made loans significantly greater than the deposits held. With a modest leverage of 5 $2 trillion of real assets will be matched by £10 trillion of loans
This puts into perspective the suggestion that individuals who have run up credit cards bills are somehow collectively responsible, or those who have bought low price housing and then find themselves out of work, while fund managers having been giving themselves millions from trading with borrowed money.
The problem is that pension funds will have joined in buying into Hedge Funds along with Local authorities in the UK taking higher rates of Interest offered by Icelandic Banks who loaned the money to Hedge Funds managed back in London, or Banks in London buying toxic loans from American Mortgage Banks and on and on. Given the awareness of all this , it is not surprising that the banks stop lending to the likes of you and me and each other until they can work out how to prevent a situation where everyone again asked for the money they had deposited the greater part of it would be there/ This will affects some businesses who operated at the margin, trying to progress too quickly for their asset base and trading stake and cannot get loans to keep them going, and it will affect companies who sell everything from holidays to cars and financial management advice because the likes of you and me decide not to spend at what is usually the great buying time of the year in the two months before Christmas, so these firms and stores instead of taking on more staff will take less and will not be able to offer raises to meet the increased cost of energy and food, so even less will be bought and sold. Having a presidential and national election in the USA does not help., A New York London world wide affecting plan is required hence the meetings this weekend are crucial. Finding out if what I have found it does explain what happened and why will need to come later but unless the facts can be established and shared we will not be able to prevent it happening again. The role of Government needs to be looked at as well as the easy target of fund managers earning their money.
I enjoyed the last 15 minutes of England's World Cup Qualifier which was won 5.1. I also looked in on the X Factor after watching the latest episode of Merlin. However I was constantly switching channels during the talent contest because of an interesting programme on the designed building of the year which went to a 188 housing developments in Cambridge,
Although I had the roast for lunch this evening I had a light cuppa soup and a pasta dish with spicy meatballs and grapes. I drank one bottle of beer during the match.
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