“All things are ready – if our minds be so.”
Henry V – William Shakespeare
Only for the sake of it here’s Kenneth Branagh giving the St Crispin’s Day speech from the film version in 1989.
Ten years after the financial crisis..
Good series of articles in the Weekend FT magazine marking 10 years since the start of the financial crisis.
The commencement is recorded as the day the chairman of Northern Rock, Lord Ridley, went to the Bank of England to beg for money from the Governor, Mervyn King. Ridley (5th Viscount Ridley & Baron Wensleydale) resigned later that year but was rewarded with a life peerage in 2013. He is a keen Brexit supporter and climate change sceptic…
Adam Applegarth was chief executive of Northern Rock also quit in 2007. He received a £785,000 “golden handshake” and a pension of £2.6m…
Northern Rock had distributed £235.8 million to charitable causes in the North East through its foundation – mostly funded from its profits. The new owners Virgin Money stopped making donations so the foundation closed…
Sub-prime mortgages which contributed to the crash worldwide are alive and well and are now called “nonprime”. There is pressure from investors who want yield, skewed incentives on Wall Street and the Trump government who want to relax the restraints introduced by President Obama.
No one has been held accountable for the crash.
My favourite story is from Alistair Darling who was Chancellor of the Exchequer. A CEO of a UK bank tied to reassure him and said, “From now on we’ll only take risks we understand.” So what was he doing before that?
A reminder – the most dangerous words anybody in finance can say are, “this time it’s different”.
The Monday Morning Quote #445
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
via Peter Thomson
More people producing less..
From the RBS Chief Economist’s Weekly Briefing.
As far as the jobs market is concerned, we’ve rarely (if ever) had it so good. Yet the link between jobs and pay remains severed. This is unlikely to reunite until productivity improves. And with that, there are few quick fixes.
Rude health. The last time the British labour market was in such good shape Tammy Wynette was standing by her man. In the three months to June employment was up by 340,000y/y taking the employment rate to a record 75.1%. Unemployment was down by 160,000y/y and the rate fell to 4.4%, its lowest level since 1975. The number of job vacancies slipped a little but there have never been fewer people chasing each job since these records began in 2001. We’ve rarely had it so good.
Tough love The only good thing to say about the UK’s productivity performance between April and June (down 0.1%) is that it was worse between January and March (down 0.5%). Without wishing to be Jeremiah-ish, while full employment provides short term support for the economy, long term prosperity relies on productive advancement. Without it, the economic cake might continue to grow but individual slices may not. The data tell a hard truth. We produce no more per hour of work than in 2008 and only slightly more than we did in 2003. Perhaps stagnant real pay growth is not so unjustified.
The Monday Morning Quote #444
“Our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be.”
H.F.Amiel – The private journal of Henry Frederic Amiel (1899)
(quoted in Strangers to Ourselves by T.D.Wilson)
The rising north–south divide in health in the UK
This doesn’t make great reading.
….in the past 20 years, age- and sex-adjusted excess mortality has increased by as much as 46 percentage points in people aged 35–44 years in the north of England compared with the south, and by 27 percentage points in people aged 25–34 years…
….One cause of this higher mortality is an increase in suicide in young people since the 2008 recession, mostly in the north of England. This has been linked to increases in unemployment, associated with poverty, inferior social welfare, educational attainment, and poorer health outcomes. Rates of drinking, smoking, and obesity are also comparatively higher in the north and are at least partly driven by more fast food shops on northern high streets….
The Monday Morning Quote #442
“The solutions are all simple – after you have arrived at them.
But they’re simple only when you know already what they are.”
– Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Monday Morning Quote #443
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
John Muir aka “Muir of the mountains”
“Intelligent Tracking Prevention.”
From John Naughton’s Memex.
What’s coming in IoS 11
Ah, at last something interesting:
In September, Apple will release new changes to Safari with iOS 11 called “Intelligent Tracking Prevention.” These changes will have large effects on the ad tech industry and create new winners and losers.
In short, the iOS 11 changes will really help the big guys, are neutral to the small guys and significantly hurt the mid-size guys.
Hmmm… Not sure that this will be a boon to the world (c.f. the stuff about helping the big guys). I’ll continue to use my own protective measures.
…me too.
Life After Dentistry Seminar at The RAF Club
A Very Special Evening at a Very Special Venue.
LIFE AFTER DENTISTRY – HOW TO PLAN AND LIVE YOUR IDEAL RETIREMENT
Join Lily Head from Lily Head Practice Sales, Matt Smith from New Life Financial Planners & Alun Rees, The Dental Business Coach at
The Royal Airforce Club, Piccadilly, London on Thursday 14th September.
If you are a Principal Dentist join us at this seminar which focused on helping dental practice owners achieve the maximum value for their practices and how to convert those funds into the most advantageous retirement plan.
Matt Smith will be discussing, ‘How to retire years early and be financially free, have more income and pay less tax.’
Lily Head will be discussing ‘Market Conditions for Sellers and an overview of the end to end sale process’.
Alun Rees will be discussing ‘Preparing your practice and yourself for transition to becoming “sale ready” and beyond’.
Tap here for details of content.
Tap here to register your interest.
The Incisal Edge 