Possibility of a (really) fast crash

tattercoats · Post by **tattercoats** » 18 Jul 2005, 18:32

Tattercoats grins a big grin at Fishertrop. Thanks for your good-natured response there.

I've spent time in a mediaeval re-enactment group, and have seen how a motivated group with the opportunity to develop a loyalty to each other and the group, can work wonders, especially under good leadership and resource/personnel management.

(Arg. Management sends all the wrong bells. I mean of course juggling the fact that Greta hates cooking but Joe loves it, only he needs someone to boss him, and Emma's good at that but don't put Sue in the same kitchen, and Claude really wants something he can just get on with by himself and then he'll keep going all day, whereas Kit wants to fizz round doing everything by turns so you load Kit up with lots of running-around errands except you don't want Kit busting in on Rick as they don't get on, so you get Phila to help Rick instead, and Simi's not as smart with the livestock as he says so you put Cath with him cos she is, and so on...)

I think we have here the concept of the New Village - not so much a handful of houses and farms set in countryside and sharing geographical and historical identity, as groupings of whatever size within a larger entity (housing estate which is part of a city, frex) which develops cohesion along with shared responsibility and (some) shared resources.

I love it! Bring it on...

Tattercoats

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 18 Jul 2005, 20:08

I love Tattercoats' description of the challenge of resourse/people management - sounds so true to life it has got to be based on experience

The new village indeed. Bring it on, count me in.

tattercoats · Post by **tattercoats** » 18 Jul 2005, 21:36

Ooooh yes.

And - sure. Bring the tea, hey?

Tattercoats

SherryMayo · Post by **SherryMayo** » 19 Jul 2005, 00:34

Following Tattercoats and FischerTrop's exchange on defending communities, I have the strongest mental image of tattercoats seeing off marauding chavs with her medieval broadsword!

tattercoats · Post by **tattercoats** » 19 Jul 2005, 22:42

I'm *deeply* flattered. You made my day!

Just so long as there's tea and chocolate waiting...

Tattercoats

GD · Post by GD » 14 Oct 2005, 11:36

Link

World's hedge funds face crisis as Refco suspends trading

? Leading global broker admits 'liquidity problem'
? Billions of pounds could be tied up in frozen deals

Jill Treanor
Friday October 14, 2005
The Guardian

A crisis in the world's hedge fund industry was in prospect last night after one of the world's largest derivatives brokers was forced to freeze trades potentially worth billions of pounds.
The move by Refco, which acts for many leading speculative investors both on Wall Street and in the City, followed the discovery of accounts irregularities at the firm earlier this week and the issue of fraud charges against its former chief executive Phillip Bennett.

The implications of the 15-day trading moratorium on the company's Refco Capital Markets subsidiary may be felt across the world financial system, depending upon the size of the funds caught up inside Refco and the types of institutions which are unable to remove their money from the operation.
?
The company has lost three quarters of its stock market value in less than a week and expectations are mounting that investors may take legal action against the investment banks which brought the company to market - Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Credit Suisse First Boston.

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 14 Oct 2005, 11:57

GD wrote:World's hedge funds face crisis as Refco suspends trading

Oh dear! Well, even if this is not The Big One, this is probably the way we would start to hear about it. Worth to have on the radar. Thanks!

JMP · Post by **JMP** » 15 Oct 2005, 10:26

Hope I'm not being too optimistic... but I think the gradual, bumpy rise of the price of oil is likely to cause analogically a gradual recession, with bankrupcies and unemployment increasing incessantly. The government will probably retain its power (in fact, it will have to assume an increasingly central role in economics and society as the market system descends further into recession), and it will probably have the means to suppress any major breakout of anarchy. After all, we're not going to suddenly run out of energy, it will just become more and more expensive. During this progress, consumer demand destruction will help the governing body to allocate remaining oil to most important needs (agriculture, vital transports).

In order to keep things from totally falling apart, the government will want a national banking institution to keep controlling the monetary system even as individual banks go out of business. Chances are that the average modern Western society will look more like a poor socialist Eastern bloc state maybe 10 or 15 years from now. Provided that the majority of the population are willing to follow the government on the road to permanent poverty, but then the lack of reasonable choices should be pretty evident, even if hard to swallow.

Maybe a better-informed doomy-gloomy pessimist could convert me about this, but as of yet I see no sufficient reason to expect an overnight collapse of the society.