Tuesday 8 October 2024

WHAT IS A BALANCE SHEET RECESSION

9 October 2024

A balance sheet recession is a type of economic downturn that occurs when businesses, households, or even governments focus on reducing debt (deleveraging) rather than spending or investing, often after a financial crisis. This leads to reduced consumption and investment, causing a prolonged period of low growth and stagnation.

Key Characteristics:

1. Excessive debt: Before the recession, businesses or households often accumulate high levels of debt, typically during a credit boom or financial bubble.


2. Asset collapse: When asset prices fall (like in a housing or stock market crash), the value of assets held by these businesses or households drops sharply, but the debt remains.


3. Deleveraging: To repair their balance sheets (the difference between assets and liabilities), businesses and households focus on paying down debt rather than spending, investing, or taking out new loans.


4. Low demand: As many sectors of the economy focus on debt repayment, overall demand in the economy decreases, leading to slow growth or contraction.


5. Prolonged recovery: Because spending and investment are subdued for an extended period, these recessions tend to last longer than typical recessions.

Example:

The Japanese recession in the 1990s is a classic example of a balance sheet recession. After the bursting of Japan's real estate and stock market bubbles in the early 1990s, businesses and households focused on debt repayment rather than spending or investing, which caused the economy to stagnate for years.

In summary, a balance sheet recession happens when debt-heavy sectors prioritise paying off debt over consumption and investment, leading to prolonged economic stagnation.


Monday 16 September 2024

THE GREAT STOCK MARKET ROTATION



1. Introduction: Understanding Stock Market Rotation
• Global stock markets have seen little overall movement recently.
• Beneath this calm surface, significant shifts are happening within specific sectors.
• Rotation refers to some sectors rising while others fall, despite overall market stability.

2. Example of Rotation in Action
• Over the past two decades, growth stocks, especially in tech, have outperformed value stocks.
• Two ETFs (IVW for growth, IVE for value) illustrate how growth has generally led over the long term.
• Recently, this trend began to reverse, particularly after July 11th, 2023, with US inflation data publication.

3. The Shift in Sectors
• Post-inflation data, tech stocks began to falter, while value stocks, like real estate and utilities, surged.
• This was a reaction to changing interest rate expectations, favouring sectors more sensitive to interest rates and the cost of money.

4. Why Rotation is Happening Now
• US mega-cap tech stocks have been significantly overvalued.
• Investors overpaid for stocks driven by narratives like AI, while fundamentals are starting to reassert themselves.

5. The Future of Rotation and Investment Strategy
• Looking ahead, as interest rates normalise, sectors like small caps and value stocks are expected to do well.
• Long-term forecasts predict that US growth stocks may underperform compared to value stocks and international markets.

TRANSCRIPTION


THE GREAT STOCK MARKET ROTATION – WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

1. Introduction: Understanding Stock Market Rotation
• Global stock markets have seen little overall movement recently.
• Beneath this calm surface, significant shifts are happening within specific sectors.
• Rotation refers to some sectors rising while others fall, despite overall market stability.

Global stock markets have been moving sideways for several months without a convincing move up or down. That masks large movements beneath the surface as the nature of winning and losing stocks has changed quite markedly. In this piece, we look at what has changed, why and whether I think it'll continue. 

Rotation

Let's begin by what we mean by rotation. This is a situation in which the market overall doesn't move a huge amount upwards or downwards, but under the surface, what's happening is that subsections of the market are aggressively moving up and down. So that could be particular sectors, or it could be a style of investing, and in this case it's actually both of those. A visual metaphor which people often use, is current underneath the surface of some still water - the surface looks calm, but underneath there's some kind of whirlpool going on, so there's a sense of masked turbulence.

That's all very well if you've got exposure to the index as a whole, you don't really care. But if you've got exposure to any of those tilts, factors, sectors, then you can be swept away. 

2. Example of Rotation in Action
• Over the past two decades, growth stocks, especially in tech, have outperformed value stocks.
• Two ETFs (IVW for growth, IVE for value) illustrate how growth has generally led over the long term.
• Recently, this trend began to reverse, particularly after July 11th, 2023, with US inflation data publication.

So let's look at what's happening right now, and I think it pays to zoom out a little bit so that we set up to see the recent changes. The trade, which has worked incredibly well for two decades now, is simply to buy US large cap growth stocks. Let’s for example, compare 2 ETF's. The first one is IVW and that is a growth ETF, so it takes a subsection of the S&P 500. These are stocks whose earnings, their profits, are expected to grow much more rapidly than the S&P 500 as a whole. Contrast that with IVE, which gives you exposure to the value part of the S&P 500. So these are companies which are undervalued based on some valuation measure like price to earnings. Or price to book ratio. Then sandwiched in the middle of those two, the blue line is the S&P 500 and that's got a return which is somewhere between the two. 

Now if we look back much further over a century say, value is the factor which has worked very well in the past. You buy cheap stocks, you wait and they outperform. Over the last two decades, however, - much of which has been a 0 interest rate period - that's not been the case. It has been growth which has beaten value. That's not to say that value would have been a disaster. It wouldn't have been. You'd have got 6.2% annual return, which is pretty good. But if you had gone for growth over that 20 year period, you'd have beaten value by 2% per year - a huge amount compounded over that two decade period. 

Interest rate expectations

3. The Shift in Sectors
• Post-inflation data, tech stocks began to falter, while value stocks, like real estate and utilities, surged.
• This was a reaction to changing interest rate expectations, favouring sectors more sensitive to interest rates and the cost of money.

But what's notable is that the world pool - the factor change, the rotation if you like - started on July the 11th of this year. That was the publication of US inflation data. Now, this happens on a monthly basis, and it was this inflation print which pushed the market expectation about the first rate cut from the Fed from 50% to above 90%. So if I read what the FT said about that the next day, it said:

"US tech stocks fell while small caps surged, in late morning trade in New York, following cooler than expected June inflation data". 

So the NASDAQ fell 1.2% with all of the Magnificent 7 tech stocks except Tesla in negative territory and NVidia was down 3%, Meta 2.1%, Microsoft 2.5% while the overall benchmark S&P 500 only fell 0.5%. So the move under the surface was triggered by this new inflation data. 

So if we follow those two ETFs, value and growth, through this, after that tech peak, notice how Value carries on trending upwards whereas Growth very much moves in the opposite direction, while the overall S&P 500 is sandwiched in the middle and hardly moves either way. 

Let us broaden the factors that we now look at. We've got small cap growth, small cap value, large cap growth, large cap value and also the blends in between. Notice how the factors at the top of the table with the greatest returns since that peak have been the value flavours of the S&P 500. So that's large cap value, value blend, and also small cap value. The ETFs at the bottom of the table are all growth.

If we slice the US market according to sectors – “sectors” is labelled “industries” in the US - notice how Tech comes at the bottom of the table. Tech was down about 12% over this two-month period, whereas the sectors at the top of the table are interest rate sensitive sectors, things like real estate, which was badly beaten up when interest rates were very high, but also quite boring defensive sectors like utilities, consumer staples and even healthcare. 
So while the SNP hasn't been moving that much, you can see that if you look at sectors, if you look at styles of investing, things have been moving very rapidly and also changing direction compared to this two decade trend that we'd seen. 

4. Why Rotation is Happening Now
• US mega-cap tech stocks have been significantly overvalued.
• Investors overpaid for stocks driven by narratives like AI, while fundamentals are starting to reassert themselves.

Why is this rotation happening in the first place? In fact, I think the question should be turned around. And I'd say why hasn't it happened sooner? 

The reason for that is that if you look at the very large mega cap tech stocks in the US, they have been hugely overvalued relative to the rest of the index here. For example, look at the forward price to earnings multiple – this is the number of dollars investors are willing to pay for every dollar of forecast profits. In the case of the Mega Cap 8 - so that’s Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, NVideo and Tesla - strip those out of the S&P 500 and look at the remaining stocks, and you will notice how much that pushes down the overall valuation of the index. We go from about 29 times forward earnings, to about 19 times forward earnings. 

So why would people be willing to pay more for every dollar of profit from one of these tech companies, than they would from other stocks in the S&P 500? Well, it's a fashion and it's also a sense of euphoria and it is a phenomenon driven by a narrative. A lot of that narrative is to do with AI. And I think what's happened is that people have overpaid for those stocks because of that narrative. But narratives are fickle, whereas fundamentals are very reliable in the sense that markets snap back to fundamentals when some kind of shock comes along. 

In this case, I think the shock has been a macro-economic one. Which is that we've gone from a high rate environment to something which is more like normal rates. We've gone from an inverted yield curve and we're about to move to a yield curve which is upward sloping. But whatever the trigger would be, whether it's a macro shock or a scandal, eventually this was going to correct one way or another. 

Another imbalance which I think is interesting to look at comes from comparing the proportion of profits which those eight stocks account for in the S&P 500 and the proportion of revenue, and contrast that with the percentage of this market-cap weighted index they make up. So currently they make up 30% of the total market cap of the index - let's call it a third of the overall of the  S&P 500, which is very high by historic standards, its valuation is very concentrated in the Mag7 stocks. And at the same time they only make up a fifth of the profits generated by the S&P 500 and about a ninth of the overall revenue. So they are certainly punching above their weight, fundamentally, in terms of the proportion of the overall index. This is a situation which can't persist forever. 
The other point is that if you look at the S&P 500 overall, it's full of great companies. They're not necessarily anything to do with AI, but they're profitable. They've been growing their earnings, they've got good strong balance sheets and these are quite. unsexy companies. It's really hard to get worked up about a company like Walmart, or Johnson and Johnson, or Coca-Cola (one  of Warren Buffett's favourites). Whereas Alphabet, NVidia, Broadcom, all of those stocks have been very much driven by this AI narrative. 
So I think what we're seeing here is simply a recognition that those are good companies, even though they haven't been very sexy, and the rotation towards value is a nod towards those healthy companies which are simply undervalued. 

So now let's think about what could happen next. If I had to characterise 2024 - and I think this is the way people will look back on the year in future - it's the year in which the Fed started to cut interest rates after successfully battling inflation. It's not just the Fed that has been battling inflation. All other central banks have been doing the same thing at pretty much the same time. But if we look at interest rate expectations for the rest of this year and the two year yields from various countries, this give us a hint about what markets are expecting with the policy rate changes. Notice how for every country other than Japan, those two year rates are at pretty high levels because that reflects the high policy rates we've got at the moment and they're expecting cuts. Notice how they've started falling in almost all of those countries except Japan. 

This big macro shift from inverted yield curves, restrictive monetary policy, going to a more normalised policy, upward sloping yield curves, is a huge shift that affects the cost of funding for companies and it affects risk appetite. Over the short term what we can expect to see is an extension of the rotation we've seen already, which is that interest rate sensitive sectors like real estate, like small caps, where there's a lot of financials which have lent money to the real estate sector, those stocks and sectors will see a boost as interest rates start to fall. 

However, interest rates won’t fall to 0. The expectation is that interest rates, the policy rates, will fall at least to around 3%. It looks like we're going to get a soft landing. In other words, no huge recession. 
So for small caps is looks pretty good. I'd expect small caps do pretty well over the medium term. And that's going to be boosted by the huge valuation disconnect between small caps in the US right now and large caps. I don't think I've ever seen such a large difference between the valuation of the two. The small cap S&P 600 index is trading at a multiple of 14.5 times, versus 20.2 times for the S&P 500. So I think we will see that differential normalise and I think rates will probably be a trigger for that. 

5. The Future of Rotation and Investment Strategy
• Looking ahead, as interest rates normalise, sectors like small caps and value stocks are expected to do well.
• Long-term forecasts predict that US growth stocks may underperform compared to value stocks and international markets.

Equities 10-year return and volatility expectations

But how about over the longer term, once rates of normalised, what then? And here I think valuations will still matter and that's because we still see US tech stocks and growth stocks as having particularly high valuations relative to the rest of the US market and the US market relative to the rest of the world. And in this respect, it's interesting that Vanguard has just published its 10 year outlook for various stock markets around the world. Notice how for US growth stocks, the outlook is particularly poor - it is between 0.1% and 2.1% growth every year for the next 10 years. Contrast that with US value which between 4.7 and 6.7% per year. Small caps between 4.8% and 6.8%. And looking outside the US, we're looking at between 6.9% and 8.9% for non-us stocks. 

The reason for those forecasts is that US growth is just overpriced. People are paying too much for growth right now. The penalty which they'll pay for that if they stick with that tilt is simply underperformance relative to those other sectors and countries which are not so overpriced. Now of course, we should always take these forecasts with a pinch of salt. They're always wrong. But there are interesting findings and I think they reflect those valuation disconnects that we're looking at right now. 

As index investors, you could look at these rotations under the surface and just be bemused. Some people continue buying more tech stocks because that's what's worked over the last two decades. They assume that that trade will carry on working. But I think that's a pretty dangerous thing to do, doubling down on this huge concentration that we already have if you own a global index, say. 
So I certainly wouldn't do that. Mind you, I wouldn't tilt away from the US - I still think it's got very good returns that it can generate in future. But I think that the benefit of being globally diversified is that you're not going to be that concentrated in one country. And if there is a correction in the US, then at least you'll have that non-US allocation as well to soften the blow, but it could be that US growth continues to outperform. So I probably wouldn't take a huge tilt one way or the other. But certainly in my personal portfolio I've taken a tilt to US small caps and also UK small cap, growth, value, quality stocks, because I think valuation long term does matter.

Friday 26 July 2024

WHY THE DONBASS BELONGS TO RUSSIA

26 July 2024

     We regret the loss of Byzantium, ha ha

I think we all regret the loss of Byzantium. It was taken by the Ottomans - it finally collapsed in 1453, victim of a fabulously powerful and innovative big gun, a thousand years after the collapse of Rome. And when we had the chance to take it back with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire After World War One, we didn't take it because we wanted to appease the Turks as a bulwark against Russian expansion. Big big mistake.

So in this piece I want to understand the origin of Russia, the Rus, how they were converted to Orthodox Christianity, the rise of the Ottomans and loss of the Eastern wing of the Roman Christian church, the Russo-Turkish wars - there were 11 of them between 1676 and 1918, and really the whole point of this piece is to explain why Catherine the Great headed South into the Donbass and built Nuvo Roßiya and why Russia wants it back today.

            Why the Donbas belongs to Russia

So it's an ambitious, dramatic and riveting sweep through the history of Russia from its beginnings to its Empire, from the Balkans through to the Caucuses.

=====

As we have observed, our elites are controlled by hedge funds etc, have very considerable investments in Ukraine and there's no way that they are letting that go to Russia... what is Russia's investment?

Remembering that the fight over Donbas today is for its industrial, mineral and agricultural wealth. Those flat lands without natural protections, from the Euros to the Atlantic and the central planes of Europe, facilitate the creation of one huge state, ever seeking to secure its flimsy borders with easy gaps for Invaders and yet the West ambitions to break Russia up into a series of smaller ethnic regions as they call it decolonized Russia that's a joke right. Originally ...

Catherine the Great (reigned 1762-1796) built that area all that time ago as a buffer against the Ottomans (there were 11 eleven turkish-russian wars from 1676 to 1914) ie to enable Russia to secure its borders, to get access to a warm-water port for an all year round all world fleet, for power projection into Europe and Asia, and importantly for trade.

Trade. This is the rhing rhat fills the govt.s coffers, that feeds the military, that makes it possible for the Elite politicians to realize their dreams.

Any economists with an idea on history will understand that today's sanctions just scrape the surface a long history of trade, trade goes back a really long way and sanctions are just flurries on the surface.

The Varangians, also known as Vikings in Eastern Europe, established trade routes between the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Middle East. These routes developed economic and cultural exchanges between Northern Europe, the Byzantine Empire, as well as the Islamic Caliphates.

*The Dnieper River Route*

 The "route from the Varangians to the Greeks," started in the Baltic Sea and followed the Daugava and Dnieper rivers southward to the Black Sea, eventually reaching Constantinople (Istanbul).

Important trade stops along the way - Novgorod, Smolensk, Kyiv, and eventually reaches the Black Sea port cities like Chersonesus and finally Constantinople.

The Varangians traded furs, slaves, honey, wax, and amber from Northern Europe for Byzantine luxury goods like silk, wine, and precious metals.

*The Volga Trade Route*

This route extended from the Baltic Sea, through the Volga River, to the Caspian Sea, facilitating trade with the Islamic Caliphates of rhe ME. Trade is trade right?

The route passed through major trading hubs Novgorod, Rostov, and Bulgar. From the Caspian, traders could access Persia (Iran) and the broader Islamic world.

Along this route, the Varangians exchanged Northern European goods for Middle Eastern products, including spices, textiles, and jewelry.

*Importance of Trade Routes*

 The flow of goods and wealth meant economic prosperity in the Kievan Rus' state as well as other regions along the trade routes.

*Cultural*

We also got technological exchanges between the Norse, Slavic, Byzantine, and Islamic civilizations, the spread of art, religion, and technology.

*Economic, cultural...and with that political Influence*

Control of these trade routes allowed the rulers of Kievan Rus' to exert influence over a vast territory, enhancing their political power and facilitating the growth of significant urban centers like Kyiv.

*Conclusion*

I just don't think you can dry up trade which goes back A Thousand Years and more with a few sanctions. 

I don't think our political leader appreciate the importance of trade in plumping up the coffers and allowing economic, military, cultural and political expansion.

Just look at what those original roofs achieved by leaving the frozen northern home and building a trade route from the Baltic to the Black Sea and onto the Islamic caliphate of the Middle East and Iran what an amazing achievement and it comes from focusing on trade and ignoring ideological differences.

To finish on a trivial point, the origin of the word Rus - it is a Nordic word meaning rod or oar and I guess just simply means the Vikings also known as the Varangians, it is them!

If you've read this for bravo I find it totally fascinating but I appreciate that for many others is completely boring

Monday 27 November 2023

LOY KRATONG

27 November 2023

The river is full of tiny "kraton" they are called, little mini boats made from a slice of banana trunk, with a candle and a couple of sticks of incense and a few flower heads. 

It's like an Armada of tiny ships floating down the river, there are hundreds and hundreds of them. 

People go to the temple opposite my block to "make merit". Temples are very often built on land by the river. The faithful say a prayer and push out their mini banana boat.

Meanwhile, the sky is filled with these "sky lanterns", a squadron of floating "kourms" they"re called, slowly floating across in bobbing formation.

All set to the non-stop crackle of fireworks.

All very lovely.

But the streets are 100% rammed with people, scooters and cars, all over the roads and pavements, no room at all.

Ron and Steward, who run my regular restau called OMG, are beside themselves - they haven't taken a salary in four years!, they live off their UK pension and feed their Thai partners and kids. But now, this will be the third day on which they take 60,000 baht - it's a lot.

Can you imagine what it's like ?!

Sunday 19 November 2023

FOR A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION TO MAKE OUR SYSTEM SANE AGAIN

20 November 2023

Do the 1st and 2nd generation immigrants in Edinburgh feel they "belong", or is there growing ethnic conflict in Edinburgh? How do native Edinburghers feel about immigration to their city?

START WITH A SURVEY

We could begin to collect some data on this question by conducting a social survey. Here roughly are some questions to kick off with.

1. Are some neighbourhoods ghettoised?

2. Is there a recent history of gang violence in Edinburgh? Is this down to immigrants?

3. Is there a pb of inequality in Edinburgh? 

4. Are the welfare services working effectively to integrate arrivals into the language and culture? 

5. If there's trouble, do police and social services have advance information? 

6. Is there a pb with resources for meeting immigrants' special needs? 

7. Has privatisation or cutbacks slowed any efforts to integrate these new arrivals?

8. Do you feel safe and free, like before mass immigration began? (Need to work on this question... )

CONCLUSIONS

Let's start at the end.

I think the authorities considered immigration a good way to increase their share of the vote and increase the power of the country (= population x wealth) and thus their ascent and their personal power; they considered helping refugees a humane act; they believed - still do - in the innate goodness of mankind and the power of the Liberal melting pot to convert and integrate all people from all over, irrespective of culture, with added value for the nation as a result.

Well that's the positives.

Soon, we'll be seeing these well organised minority groups infiltrating into the tentacles of government itself .. well they already have done in Edinburgh's Labour party....to pursue and impose their minority beliefs.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I understand the demographic arguments for the decisions of successive govt.s, but they didn't understand the limits of toleration nor the costs nor the risks of their social engineering experiments. They didn't act in the real whole interests of their existing electorates, instead they saw only economic benefits, and not just for "society at large" (ie for themselves). 

How did this happen? That's easy to answer. There is no mechanism to make politicians accountable for longer-term costs or risks that materialise. 

No thought need be given to Edinburgh's future as a people-with-a-past, and a certain integrity, and coherence, and homogeneity. Instead, authorities seem to make efforts to wipe the past clean or manipulate us by distracting attention with trivial issues. With the result that native peoples have no benchmark and become disorientated. 

No thought is given to the ability of native populations to absorb change. No pedal for braking or dosing or buffering change, no chance to take account of the unpredictable side effects of change, manage the risks, the potential spinoffs and downsides.... it's the usual story I'm afraid of unaccountable elites who don't have to live in the buildings they design.

There are no constitutional legal levers on policy. No founding-father brakes. No controls. Nothing to contain or limit excess. This looks like wild hubris leading to our nemesis as a civilisation.

AN EXAMPLE OF A CONSTITUTIONAL BRAKE

The EU, as an example of what a brake looks like, has the 60-3 rule. This rule stops gov.t spending from exceeding tax income by more than 3%. The shortfall comes from borrowing. Public debt is limited by this rule to 60% of GDP. 60-3 - well it's true it is remembered to be forgotten. 

Those numbers are not just arbitrary, they are the results of extensive detailed studies by historians and economists. Beyond 60% the excess money borrowed and injected into the economy does not return the investment in full. Go beyond those limits and you are in trouble, benefits will be dwarfed by costs, interest costs may crowd out running expenses in the competition for tax money. We are in trouble today as a result of "profligacy", but cannot take austerity. 

Point being that uncontrolled immigration is a destabiliser just as is uncontrolled spending.

ROOT CAUSES

It is always necessary to get beyond the rhetoric, to understanding the underlying deep-down ground-in root causes. 

Just like there is no fiscal control brake on politicians spending, so there is no cultural brake on immigration policy. There are simply no brakes on the half-baked ideas and ambitions of these mediocre and self-interested politicians. No brakes means nothing to control lunatic policy. 

Even the very idea of a brake doesn't exist in the UK, still less a mechanism to control the behaviour of elected officials outside the urns. 

The UK doesn't have a Constution or any way to enact controls on the policies of future govt.s, other than through the ballot box. Instead we have cutbacks and deregulation at home, leaving - in the case of unmanaged immigration - the way open for gangs and networks to take over and to recruit a membership from the very institutions like schools and welfare that are supposed to deliver care to the community. 

And we have a focus on foreign wars that divert our resources and our attention from private-sector to public-sector projects. Public-sector projects that, other than infrastructure, bring no benefit, instead that stifle common sense and private initiative.

RESULTS

So in short we believe in innate goodness and democracy (the powet of the people) and we use these tools to control people who work against our interests by using threats and violence and money. 

Under-resourced, the authorities cannot keep up with the pace of change and are left running an ambulance service of police action and legal punishment, rather than taking hold of the problem with policy controls and preventive measures. Measures especially for getting the children of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants through to finishing their sixth-form in schools and going on to quality universities, of which Edinburgh once had many.

DESIRED OUTCOMES

To continue the survey...The main thing is do you feel safe, happy and free and are you confident in Edinburgh's future? 

We would like immigrant communities to contribute to the economy and welfare of native residents of Edinburgh. After all, mmigrant groups might bring diverse skills, traditions, and an ability to empathise with and care for local communities, fostering a rich and supportive environment for all, including those residents with a memory of how things were. (Frankly speaking, this forlorn hope is an oblique way of saying we, as a civilisation, are f'ed.)

PERSPECTIVE

We seek to keep a perspective on this problem and not feel intimidated by all the foreign faces in the local cafe! 

Because immigration is only one of the problems facing the country, alas: internal unrest from excessive immigration and unrest between the cultures is one problem. There are also threats of extinction of our civilization from outside ie from foreign wars. And there is also the paralysis of our whole system and the risk of economic collapse from the debt mountain. 

(I'll have to rewrite the end of this article on note of encouragement.)

Tuesday 2 August 2022

THE UNITED SELF

2 Aug 2022



1. Introduction

- The video "Personality, Modernity, and the Storied Self" explores the evolution of self and identity in modern times.
- Modernity, especially in the West, includes capitalism, markets, democracy, nation-states, and the dominance of science and technology.

2. Characteristics of Modern Western Peoples

- Scepticism Towards Tradition: Preference for data-driven approaches over traditional religious or authoritative beliefs.
- Coherent Self: Challenges in maintaining a consistent sense of self across different times and contexts, particularly in diverse societies.
- Emphasis on Uniqueness: Balancing the desire to be unique with the need for connection.

3. Six Characteristics of the Modern Self

- Work in Progress: The self is viewed as an ongoing project, continually improving and adapting.
- Agency: Individuals now have the responsibility to define their own identities and roles, unlike pre-modern times.
- Multi-layered and Deep: Modern individuals juggle multiple, overlapping roles, leading to a complex self-discovery process.
- Self-Development: Lifelong process involving various phases and evolving roles, requiring continual self-adaptation.
- Coherence: Maintaining a coherent narrative across different life phases to construct a unified identity.
- Connection and Pure Relationship: Striving for authentic, self-actualising relationships that fulfill personal needs and desires.

4. Conclusion

- The modern self is a project of self-discovery, adaptation, and improvement.
- It involves seeking uniqueness, connectedness, and authenticity through various life stages and relationships.

Glossary of Terms:

- Modernity: The quality or condition of being modern, characterized by changes brought about by the industrial revolution and beyond.
- Self-actualisation: The realisation or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities, considered as a drive or need present in everyone.

References:

1. "Personality, Modernity, and the Storied Self," YouTube, August 2022.
2. "Impact of Modernity on Identity," Sociological Review.

Reading

self and identity - a biography of our self - who we are - our identity

https://youtu.be/ZD52aZ5Jh7A

"personality modernity and the storied self"

modern

modernity means modern times. Especially in the West ("The West" by this time in the 21st century includes many non Western countries like South Korea or Japan, according to the following framework...).

we have to make a difference between pre modern or pre-industrial times and times since the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries.

what makes our time "modern" is: capitalism, markets, democracy, the nation-state, the dominance of Science and Technology.

drivers

and we should look at social, political and economic changes as causing, driving, the changes to our idea of self, of who we are.

characteristics of peoples living in modern Western times

1. a scepticism towards religion and other traditional sources of authority and a preference instead for a data-driven approach based on science, reasoning, objectivity, evidence, positivism etc ... a belief that if we take an evidence-based approach this will lead to improvement in our world

2. difficulty in keeping a coherent sense of one's modern self across the past, present and future and across even yesterday compared to today or tomorrow. Sense of self -read "who we are", "identity".

also keeping up that coherence or integrity across the different roles and contexts and situations that we operate in. Transactional view of who we are - we are what we do.

it's especially challenging for people living in societies with a lot of diversity or to put it another way, a low homogeneity.

For example, societies with different ethnic and religious mixes.

3. there's also more emphasis on our uniqueness rather than on conformity with the tribe or group and this is challenging because at the same time as we seek to be different we also seek to remain connected.

Six characteristics of the modern self

1. work in progress. we are all a work in progress, we are a project we are working on, the "I" is forever improving a "Me". it can be thought of as a reflexive project reflexive because we are turned towards our self we are changing our self.

this is modern because compare with pre modern times where a person was given a role or a position or a post and told to get on with it. they were not responsible for creating a unique self or innovating and updating a persona.

2. Agency. in pre-modern times it was the king, or the church or mosque, or the tribe that assigned us a role; but today, we have to work out our own identity and roles in a more day-to-day context of family and work and friends.

3. multi-layered and deep. compare the simple role that Hindu people in Bali have and live by, compare that with the situation in which modern man or woman find themselves. A modern person has multiple roles and overlapping roles all depending on the context and the person and so on and this complexity creates a challenge to know who we are and is why many people are forever on a voyage of self-discovery and why self-help groups are so popular

so before it was the church or mosque that was a moral authority, but these days, in the absence of that moral authority, it is us, we ourselves, who decide our own beliefs and values and and finally are our own identity and it is the search for this authentic identity that drives the projects to modernise ourselves

4. self development. we saw in the points above that the self is a project, for which we are responsible, and this project of ours is a voyage of self-discovery, adaption and improvement - a work in progress. now consider this as a series of projects, over the longer life that we live.

At the start of the 20th century, the average lifespan was maybe 50 years, but by the end it had reached 75 years and splits into different phases.

We go through different phases in that time span and so we have evolving roles and contexts and thus projects with different objectives for our self, as we mature and develop.

5. Coherence. we go from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood to middle age to old age or maybe more phases than that ("the seven ages of man") and we have different roles and contexts to adapt to that we also look for a coherence across all those phases so that we have a story to tell, a narrative, which stitches everything together and brings us one coherent picture of who we are.

this coherent narrative is our auto-biography and it's really important, this sense of coherence across the different phases of our life, because it's how we construct our idea of who we are, in other words our identity, our sense of self

6 connection and the "pure relationship". the 6th and final characteristic of modern selves is that two separate selves can connect to each other to form what we all look for, which is a pure or perfect relationship, in terms of connectedness, love and intimacy.

Modern love is not something dictated to us by our parents or arranged by the group or determined by the church or mosque, it is something we choose for ourselves in order to fulfil our deepest needs and desires, needs and desires that we have defined and which are part of our uniqueness.

the two persons, each true and authentic to themself, have a relationship which is honest and open and flexible and negotiable between the two of them. The focus is on both parties achieving what you might call self-actualisation or self-transcendence. Of course, anyone who's been in a modern romantic relationship knows that this is a pure fiction! ... but nonetheless it is an ideal and a vision that we can aim for.

Summary. we saw in the points above that the self is a project about constructing our sense of identity, who we are. We are responsible for this project. It is a voyage of self-discovery, adaption and improvement - a work in progress seeking uniqueness, connectedness and authenticity. It is a series of projects, over the longer life that we live. Like ying and yang, we seek union with another like-minded soul.



Tuesday 30 November 2021

THE FRANCE ZEMMOUR SEEKS TO SAVE (RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES)

30 November 2021
Zemmour: journalist, polemics, presidential candudate...His candidacy speech embraces you, oppresses you, haunts you, rallies you. It's a masterpiece.

https://youtu.be/k8IGBDK1BH8

He appears speaking behind a huge mike and in front of ancient books stacked on shelves, reminding us of De Gaulle's wartime calls for resistance (Appeal of June 18 by General de Gaulle).

He begins by telling us his mission, which is to save France from decline "so that our daughters don't have to wear headscarves and our sons don't have to be submissive".

"I understood that no politician would have the courage to save the country from the tragic fate that awaited it. I understood that all these supposedly competent people were mostly helpless [...] That in all parties, they were content with reforms while time is running out. It is no longer time to reform France, but to save it.

I therefore decided to stand for the presidential election."

If you want to know more about how he uses repetition (1), insistence (2), the transfer of allegiance from "you" to "we" (3), mirroring (4), tirades of accumulation (5), assonance (a rhythm of similar sounds) (6) dramatic background music (7):

1. Repetition
Do you remember the country you knew in your childhood? Do you remember the country your parents described to you? Do you remember the country you find in the movies?

2. Accumulation, insistence

our lifestyles, our traditions, our language, our conversations, our controversies on history or fashion, our taste for literature and gastronomy

Joan of Arc, Pasteur, de Gaulle, Molière or even Notre Dame and village churches: all these figures are associated with the word "country". This word is repeated 24 times in two minutes.

The powerful, the elites, the well-meaning, journalists, politicians, academics , sociologists, trade unionists, the well-meaning religious authorities as well.

The country of Joan of Arc and Louis XIV [..] of knights and gentes dames [..] fables of La Fontaine, characters of Molière and verses of Racine

3. From "you" to "we" - pushing you to side with him

You walk [..] you look at your screens [...] you take subways [...] you wait for your daughter or your son at the end of school ...

We must give back the power to the people, take it back from minorities that oppress the majority.

4. Mirroring

You have not left your country, but it is as if your country has left you. You are exiles from within.

You were despised [...] but you understood that it was they who were baiting you, it was they who were harming you

5. Tirade

The French people have been intimidated, paralyzed, indoctrinated, made to feel guilty

For a thousand years, we have been one of the powers that have written the history of the world. We will be worthy of our ancestors. We will not allow ourselves to be dominated, vassalized, conquered, colonized. We will not let ourselves be replaced

6. Assonance

"S" and "P"

7. Dramatic music background

Rather ironic this as the music is not from French culture, it is the adagio of the 7th Symphony of the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, also used in The speech of a king, a British made film.

is.gd/mMZ3Wz

8. Black n white photos

He contrasts a past glorious France, using black and white images of black and white of Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Brigitte Bardot, Johnny Halliday, Charles Aznavour, Georges Brassens, Barbara; with scenes of violence and social unrest from today.



Friday 26 November 2021

THE WINNER FROM THE 7-YEAR RETAIL ENERGY WARS

Thursday 25 November 2021

WHY IS THE UK SO ATTRACTIVE TO MIGRANTS, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL?

To question the assumptions in the question: is the UK that attractive? Turkey has three million Syrians, Australia is 10% non-White, France has over a quarter of live births to plenty both born outside the country, the States is overrun with Mexicans. So ask instead why are so many people on the hoof. It isn't, then, our wonderful culture of tolerance and welcome, nor our lax border patrols, is more the desperate push factors of I.possi ility to survive in the Sahel or Iraq and the pull of paid work and a future in the developed world 

It's not just the African continental shelf pushi g into Europe, itsall the people aboard to. At least China and S E Asia isn't trying to move in..

"We're over here because you were over there". Our colonial past, language that they'll have learnt in school, family and community ties.

Then there's availability of work. Not welfare benefits except for legit. migrants, I wouldn't think. These young men want to work. France is a very racist country, UK locals welcome in the illegals - there's no movement opposing them, which I find strange as I'd be out there with my rifle. 

And the hard left political elite genuinely want to break society apart and admit the migration wave whole, I cannot understand why ... what has happened to those who believe in nation, culture and family? Even though massive and unplanned immigration puts us all into third world lifestyles (housing, welfare, education, infrastructure).

Maybe decent people have given up and frankly the Woke have so confused most people and glued their mouths shut lest they be labelled white racist supremacist.
As you say intl liberal capitalists are complicit, but so is the political class (govts) as population is just what you need to increase GDP of a country's economy (not that individuals benefit of course) and reduce debt. 

And remember that the power of a nation is the multiple of the population number times the wealth, putting it simply.

Who wants to take up cudgels and lose their job and be mocked and for nothing as you'll never make headway, the Indians have the wagons completely surrounded, IT'S TOO LATE MATE. Just get on with it, replace our culture, allah wakbah humbug.

Not sure either that the UK has such a generous asylum regime, to judge by UK well down the intl list. But that's for legals. The trouble is the coven of lawyers that stop the illegals being flown back, and the cost.

I said many years ago we would mine the Caucuses and send out fighter jets to Harry and strafe retreating illegals. There is no other answer to flows caused by poverty and climate change and brutal regimes.

Wednesday 24 November 2021

LASTING CHANGE RESULTING FROM THE PANDEMIC

  1. The competition between China and the United States, specifically over technology and trade. The economies of China and the US will begin recovering in earnest in 2022, and this growth will spur new innovation and competition between these two powers. 
  2. The integration of new, highly advanced technology into industry. New tech like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, virtual reality and drones have the potential to totally upend the global economy.
  3. The digitalisation of companies. The pandemic encouraged many businesses to transition to work from home or develop some other way of going contactless.
  4. The growth of digital assets, like cryptocurrency.
  5. The environmental movement, which will transform global industries and production by changing them to fit into more eco-friendly models. Decarbonisation and green energy will play an increasingly large role in the post-pandemic energy sector.
  6. The growing demand for socially conscious business practices by consumers and investors.
  7. The ageing global population. Global industries will have to stay innovative while also catering to an increasingly older consumer base.
  8. The economic and political consequences of an expanding wealth gap – such as growing welfare programmes, a rise in Socialist political policies.

Tuesday 23 November 2021

IS IT JOHNSON OR IS IT THE GREAT RESET?

 If there is a problem, is it Boris? Or is it his in-tray?

 This is supposedly the age of the great reset, the end of the modern world as we knew it. The issues Johnson must manage are not in the manifesto because the manifesto is hardly relevent. Instead, far more sinister existential issues have emerged.

Look at what won Johnson his 80 seat majority on and ask how relevent or priority are these commitments today, has he really broken his promises or have they been submerged,  overtaken, in The Great Reset?


THE MANIFESTO

*Health - up NHS spending from £181b (£50 a week for every one of us) to £215b (£60), build 40 hospitals over 10 years, recruit 50,000 nurses and enough GPS to offer 50m more appointments, sort out Social Care once and for all.


*Environment - insulate the built environment £9b, build offshore wind farms, end plastic waste, I don't recall any  controversies around COP or Greta.


*Brexit - leave the EU and get new Trade Agreement with EU,  legislate for workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer rights, replace CAP with a system based on “public money for public goods”, new office for environmental protection.I  don't recall any  controversies around fishing or NIP trade and customs.


*Immigration - Australian-style points-based immigration system,  immigrants must contribute to the NHS and must pay in first to receive their benefits, NHS Visa to fast track entry for qualified  who speak good English, seek out“leaders in their field” to come  and work in the UK.


*Education and early years - Increase spending on schools to level up, support school heads and teachers on discipline,  more “alternative provision” schools for  excluded children, “arts premium” funding, raise teachers’ starting salaries to £30,000., better child care system and affordable childcare.


*Economy and Skills - fund operations from taxation, but borrow to invest in infrastructure, public debt to be lower than last parliament, public sector net investment not to exceed 3% of GDP and  adjust change programs if debt interest  exceeds 6% of revenue, priority to the environment in the next budget,  £3bn skills fund for education and training.


*Tax, pay and benefits - raise  NI threshold to £9,500 and ultimately to £12,500, respect the triple lock”, no increase in income tax, NI or VAT, a new deal for regenerating towns, continue the rollout of universal credit itwh psecial attention for the most vulnerable.

THE RESET


The great warming of our planet (COP26_V.2).


The great replacement of our civilisation, from without (how to defend our borders from survival migrations, from cyber attack, from The Virus Wars) and within (from Woke inclusivity, the Sharia takeover).


The great and global UK comeback (to redirect our trade flows, to link the anglo-saxon world in defence against the Middle Kingdom).


CONCLUSION

These must be the most complex threats this country, the world, has ever faced imo. They arrive like hand grenades and Boris is expected to find all the pins by Christmas. 
These are the very dark cloud banks through which must shine a PM's usual manifesto commitments - are Johnson's promises (above) broken? Or are they out of date?

No wonder there are calls for World Government, a USSWorld of 200 states. Seems unlikely to work.

Monday 22 November 2021

MICRO AGGRESSIONS

Already a pb in English, in the French language - which is more heavily gendered - this Woke recognition of identity is a real pb.

Example

In Fr, you have il or elle and there isn't a neutral "it".

To not hurt feelings of the sensitive, you say "iel". This recognises that the person is not just a biological unit, but also has many other dimensions of which gender, not sex, is one.

But now what ... do you say "iel est belle", or "iel est beau"? Or do you need new forms for all adjectives?

When you consider that 22% of youth 18-24 do not identify as il or elle, according to survets, that's a problem (that maybe they'll grow out of?).

But is this the real concern? Or are people, especially younger voters, more concerned with the great warming up of our planet and, possibly older voters, the great replacement of our civilisation by another?

There is so much fundamentally structuring items in our lives that are changing, that perhaps we can say, with data and without drama, in agreement with SAGE and scientists more widely, that this epoch, call it the modern world, is now finished and we must find something else. 

Now, it is not just about daunting changes in the grammaire, not just about respecting individuals whatever their background, now we have to find ways to deal with end of the modern world and help the planet and our species to survive, find ways to secure our borders and deal with migratory flows, find ways to identify unambiguously who we are and protect our civilisation, while keeping good relations with neighbours and others, on whom we depend, in an interlinked world, without breaking social cohesion at home.

Friday 26 March 2021

TOP PICK IN THE FRONTIER MARKETS

Top Pick in the Frontier Markets
HSBC bank says Vietnam is its “most preferred” frontier market. A frontier market is one that is more developed than least developed countries, but too small, risky, or illiquid to be classified as an “emerging market” economy.
HSBC says the Southeast Asian nation is “more investable than many think.” Its positive factors including an accelerating inflow of foreign investment, a government focus on infrastructure development, structurally increasing purchasing power, and strengthening banks.
“Profitability, attractive valuations, strong balance sheets and market reforms point to the likelihood of a multi-year bull run.” Inflation is low, the currency is stable and corporate earnings are healthy.
HSBC disagrees with the common perception that Vietnam’s equity market is too small, pointing out that it now has 11 stocks with a market cap of more than $5 billion. It had only two in 2015. Trading now runs close to $1 billion a day.
The government has passed new laws that should reduce restrictions on foreign investors and put Vietnam in line for upgrading to emerging-market status. Covered warrants and other developments are helping overseas investors gain exposure to companies at their foreign ownership limits.
The potential for elevation from frontier to emerging-market class will make Vietnam much more of an investment play for international funds. Saudi Arabia was so reclassified early in 2018. Investors began pricing in that upgrade well ahead of the announcement.
Vietnam’s stockmarket is on the cusp of breaking out to new all-time highs. It has been consolidating below its 2018 and 2007 peaks for the last couple of months and retested the highs a few days ago.
Investing in Euro