Why Am I Late?

I do not always understand the world about me. All too often i find myself wandering about bemused by the insanity around me. For some reason, this blog is running 9 hours slow. The time given for my postings is that many hours behind GMT. My simple mind asks "Why?" Is there something I have set wrongly that has apparently moved me to California? I have never been to California. Perhaps I should go there to see if I can find myself.

Time To Buy a Jaguar?

Today, the UK government has agreed to a sort of bail-out package for the car industry. Of course, we have no details of how it will work and who will decide who gets what. Fundamentally, we will guarantee loans. Who is going to provide the loans - banks, I suppose? I hope Jaguar Land Rover [JLR] can get through the coming months. As a company they have suffered for some years from the consequences of a number of half-hearted owners. I think Ford wanted to make JLR a success but became so weighed down by problems in the USA that JLR had to be sold off to release some cash. Jaguar is starting to look like a serious car company again. The XJ may have been around for donkey's years but it is still a bloody good car. It will be replaced by a new model next year - all environmentally friendly, it is said. It is going to have to be something special to match the current model. The XF is a terrific car and new high performance versions will be on sale this year. The XK is still good and is there going to be an XJ220 fantasy car? I own a more modest X-Type - slagged off by Jaguar purists, but still there are a lot of X-Types on the roads. Diesel versions have been selling quite well recently and probably contributed greatly to Jaguar only losing 7% of sales in 2008. Ultimately, Jaguar will have to build a new small car to generate high sales to keep the business going. You cannot run a company selling a hand-full of cars at £40,000 or £50,000 each. You can do it at the £250,000 level; that's another planet.

That's it! End of advert. Good luck to all UK manufacturers. It's up to you. We can never again rely on spivs in the City to keep us going. We have to make things that people in the world want to buy.

Buying A Suit

The Credit Crunch is not yet getting to everyone. Today, I read that Brioni have launched a design of suit that will cost punters $45,000. What's special that can cost that much? Who will buy one? Who are Brioni? I admit that my suit buying is more likely to be ASDA that Saville Row but that still doesn't explain why I have never even heard of Brioni - until now. Apparently they are Italian, have been around since 1945 and can knock-out an average suit for about $6,000. Still plenty but a lot less than $45,000. Customers from the past include Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson. Here we have clues. These suits are bought by Hollywood, Arab sheiks and, as a spin off, New York bankers. Brioni have, according to their website, 25,000 customers who, typically [of course], buy three suits per season. Making a suit involves periods of rest - not for the tailor but for the suit - and the final garments have to be pressed 184 times to be finished. As long as bonuses hold up - and employers being bankrupt doesn't make any difference - somebody, somewhere will be buying a Brioni suit.

Need A Pay Rise

It's a dull day today weatherwise, but the sun us shining on Barclays Bank. The CEO has reassured the world - again - that all is fine and dandy in his bank and that their annual financial statements in February will show wonderous figures that will exceed all expectations. The share value has gone up by 66% so far [at 11.30 am]. Is this real good news or more spin? We will see.

Over the week-end I saw a report that in 2008, bankers Merrill Lynch paid their 60,000 employees an average of $250,000 each. Did this include the bonuses? Bonuses pushed through by the CEO before his fantastic bank announced losses of $42,200,000,000 for the year - a figure that, apparently, exceeds its total profits in the last 25 years? And there was I, thinking that bankers were starting to find it tough going - unless, of course, the pay is a substantial drop on previous years. Who knows? Somebody will, I suppose.

I wonder if HMG can be persuaded to set state pensions at 10% of the average pay [including Christmas bonuses] of an investment banker?

Opening Thoughts

Hi There,

To anyone who finds this blog let me start just by saying "Hello."

Not for the first time I have decided to let my thoughts float into the worldwide wiring system in the hope that perhaps someone, somewhere, might be interested. I have a history of bombarding friends around the world with rambling e-mails but here I want to try to create posts that are shorter and more frequent. I do not intend to write about my life day-to-day; it will be just too boring — even for me to write it, let alone anyone else to read it. I may comment on my experiences as I battle the bureaucrats and the call centres and the politcically correct and, of course, the credit crunch.

I am now semi-retired doing a little work with my old company to create a bit of extra cash to top up my declining income. Otherwise, I spend time looking after my gym - more about that later - and investigating my family history. I intend to write a book about the family and already have put together a few hundred pages. Once I have finished, the structure will need some serious editing if it is to avoid the length and gripping excitement of a telephone directory in several volumes.

Being a geriatric involves looking after pensions and things. When I decided to retire in 2007, I needed to set up a private pension using funds lying in a defunct company pension scheme. To do this I had to go via a financial adviser. He gave me lots of advice and did get the best deal on my pension. Since then I have been trying to look after my income via pensions funds, ISAs, PEPs, shares, and savings. It is complicated. I could never have done it if I had still been working full-time. I am trying to put my cash in a safe bank that will give me good interest. As I recover cash from Icelandic banks, Irish banks and UK banks that chop their interest payments, I see my Barclays shares become valueless. Confidence in this bank is now so high that the market values the company at about 9 months profits. Or is it just that nobody believes the directors anymore.

Eric's mum says that she keeps her money in a biscuit tin. The interest rate is low but at least she knows that her money will not be invested in a 125% loan to a sub-prime borrower who cannot pay it back and who needs it to buy a house falling in value at the rate of 20% per annum. She may not be a Master of the Universe or even a highly paid banker but her business model makes more sense than theirs.