"Too big to fall" is sadly a word we heard too often last week as my short visit to the United States was marred by the spectacular collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the nearly collapse at AIG. While my visit to the redwoods delivered several fallen giants, I am sad, AIG is not only my insurer, but sponsors to my favourite football (soccer to Americans) clubs, and as a result, my parading around in the US in a Man U shirt caused quite a stir...not that united were well known there, but because the AIG emblazoned across my chest was well recognised by Americans who thought I was getting full use of the shirt before it became useless.Anyway, the bad word here is equitisation of loans, the root cause for all the sub-prime led disasters facing the US Banking system, worse still, the many overseas who have joined the crowd as the increasingly sheep like financial derivatives and money markets trends reveal that not many are actually in the know for what to expect.
For every loser, there must be a winner (the evil short seller in this case) and we only wonder who they are, and if any more short selling will only end up ruining the investor who takes short term profits in exchange for institutions that hold the future and hard-earned savings of many millions.
Rescue packages sadly go to fat cats and institutions and not to the ground where the suffering is acute and hence one imagines that any rescue at this stage seems only to represent a "delay" rather than a solution. Then again, this is just my humble reading of the situation.
The good news, as financial markets and equity markets overall get him, I am ever more involved in supporting agricultural products and international trade, which i would say were the few that rose on the back of a loss of confidence in the banking and investment sector as money moved back to companies with hard products, products that sustain lifem the food and agricultural sector.
On my career front, I like the people, love the concept and vision and hope that the next few months and years will see us grow into a respected group that can be trusted and relied upon for our readings of the market place. On my personal performance, so far, so good...my reports seem ok, I am always learning new skills and am happy to be closer to the people I have known over the years to offer even more!
Hope I will have time to post more updates. "Sunrise or sunset"...well all I can say is a day is not complete without both!
