Blain’s Morning Porridge, submitted by Bill Blain
It will be a short comment this morning as I play catch up and try to figure out if we should be worried that it’s the Year of the PIG. Sounds great, but I’m supposed to be on a diet.
Reason for catch up is I’ve just spent a week with 300 or so like-minded bankers, brokers, fund managers and tech-experts at Interbourse; the largest annual Ski event across the financial services sector. It’s been running for over 50 years. All the major markets were represented – and aside from great skiing in Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows, California, there were some great (liquid-fuelled) discussions on markets. The 2020 event will be in Switzerland.
Let me sum up the week with some of the strands of opinion heard in the resort:
The Europeans don’t understand why the UK is so keen on Economic Suicide via Brexit. The Brits don’t understand why the Europeans are so keen on the EU and Euro. The Hedge Fund managers reckon the real effects of Brexit are being massively overestimated and see value across markets. The Tech sector analysts think we’re on the cusp of massive upside in Tech Stocks. Everyone is worried about populism. The Canadians had more fun than anyone else. The Germans took it quite seriously. Everyone was fine and dandy with the Fed applying the brakes to policy normalisation. Everyone was looking to earnings. I still don’t understand Coin-Token Driven IPOs. No one could quite understand why Trump is so keen on the Wall – liberal doses of Tequila proved a great way of easing strained muscles.
Yep, the usual kind of conference. Lots of people happily explaining their views to people happy to listen. However, I do understand markets continued without me last week – and am still playing catch up on what I missed. Some great stuff in the papers (from Bill Gross, Deutsche Bank, Airlines, Saudi, and whatever else) and some excellent commentaries, but I think I’ll ring round clients for the real stuff.
BUT…
Turning the mood on its head – and no doubt attracting much comment for the hypocrisy of commenting about a luxury ski trip and then poverty – I have to comment on the contrast between the skiing and spending some time in San Francisco.
I hope my American hosts will forgive me for raising this, but the squalor we saw in The City was frightful. San Francisco has always been one of favourite US cities, but the degree of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse we saw on this trip was truly shocking. Walking round SF on a Sunday Morning and we saw sights we couldn’t believe. This must be one of the richest cities in the world – home to 4 of the 10 richest people on the planet according to Wiki. I asked friends about it, and they shrugged it off.. “The City has always attracted the homeless because of the mild weather,”.. “It’s a drug thing”.. “its too difficult”… “you get used to it..”
Well, I didn’t.
I found it quite shocking the number of folk sleeping rough on the sidewalks, the smell of weed and drug impedimenta everywhere, the filth, mental illness and degradation on view just a few meters from the financial centre driving Silicon Valley. It’s a city where the destitute seem to have become invisible to the Uber hailing elites. We found ourselves hopping on one of the beautiful F-Route Trolley Buses to find nearly every seat occupied by someone lugging around their worldly possessions around in a plastic bag. It was desperately sad.
I read an article from Businessweek speaking about the success of a $5mm 50-employee scheme launched last year seeking to identify and address the problems of the City. $5mm? Really. Same article says I read there are around 7500 homeless in the City – which I reckon must be a massive underestimation. It says homelessness in Los Angeles is over 60,000.
What has homelessness and urban poverty in San Francisco got to do with markets you might ask?
Everything. Absolutely everything.
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where are developers going to build in san francisco?
alcatraz?
alcatraz is federal property but wouldn’t it be cool to have a condo on the island–
I think that is a marvelous idea. The intro on this Eddie Izzard video about San Fran and Alcatraz are pretty amusing. Eddie is in drag, btw. He may have started all this gender shit.
People are not squatting on the sidewalk because the rent is too high. Or the weather is mild.
People are sleeping on the streets because complex societies produce huge surpluses of people who cannot compete; the mentally incompetent and the chemically dependent, and- Like Willie Sutton once said- that’s where the money is. The insane, the indolent and the drug addicted aren’t going to hold down a job and whatever government benefits they receive are barely enough to support their addictions, never mind cover the lease, you think they would leave the prospect of the non-taxable income they receive in terms of panhandling and free meals? And the surplus of the well healed with their massive disposable incomes provides a steady stream of subsidies via the guilt they have been taught to experience whenever they see one of these lost souls.
You can have a well ordered, high functioning society or diversity, but you cannot have both.
I think you could certainly improve the situation with less monopolistic behavior, less regulation and less property tax.
And a higher inheritance tax. Yep, I said it.
11 downers,
You know you don’t have jackshit to leave your progeny. Not anything real anyway.
Also, go after all the dark $$. Big time.
Mark has an interesting article that may be coming out soon.
Mark, let’s see it.
Donkey,
Wait a minute buddy, I had to look up that five dollar word up first: mo·nop·o·lis·tic
ADJECTIVE; relating to a person or business that has exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.
EXAMPLE: “The investigation into monopolistic practices among supermarkets”
Don’t drag me into 14 down votes and counting, I’m too delicate and sensitive for that level of rejection.
Here is my two American Eagles: Rather than plundering people who want to pass on what they earned to their kids (I didn’t down vote you – didn’t want to pile on – but I should for that one) Trump set up an EO that (if he ever really pulls the trigger) could go after all the DARK $$$.
Maybe starting with the 21 trillion missing from two FED agencies for starters???
Problem is he would have to arrest half of the House and most of the Senate, before he even got to the really Big Fish. Anyway, forget taxing anybody, lets rip the hearts out of the Billary, Soros (did you see that 5 page list of his groups I posted?) K-street, the Rothschild’s and all the other inbred Demonic bankster globalists.
That’s my recommendation!
Executive Order by Donald Trump, December 20th, 2017
Here is some meat and potatoes from the EO:
(1) corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery; or (21 TRILLION!!!)
(2) The transfer or the facilitation of the transfer of the proceeds of corruption; (Can you say Clinton Foundation?)
Mark,
My bad, I wasn’t trying to drag you in as someone to defend me. I thought our conversation last night was quite interesting is all. It was something I had never thought/heard of before. Dark $$ could be a fascinating rabbit hole.
I do stand by my comment about inheritance taxation though. America wasn’t founded on aristocracy. I believe greed is what is killing this country more than anything else.
Awww…man I was just busting your Donkey Balls…laughed the whole time I was typing….
Did you get my e-mail?
No, I didn’t get it. I checked spam folder also.
Send to [email protected].
well-heeled
There goes the invite.
In other news, morons, he may have subconsciously written well-healed for a reason.
Hey, Vodka, HF is going to charge me double. Why are you getting a discount, are you a Vegan?
Lets see shit people in a shit city in a totally shit state of idiots. I would say let it be and let the shit pile up until the whole thing dies of shit coverage and suffocation.
Agreed. LET THEM FUCKING CHOKE ON IT! (TM)
It’s called San Franshitsco for a reason…
Maybe the tech sector could hire H1B visa holders to replace the homeless people?
Oh, wait . . . .
I’m sure the mental illness and the smell of weed are entirely unrelated. https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/marijuana-mental-illness-violence/?appeal_code=MK119EM1&sc=MK119EM1&utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_source=housefile&utm_medium=email&utm_content=january2019marijuana&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–EDQ2AVXH-dLiQ43ROOzxwPZ75IlQeV_Z7qPUkn3u0LDmeBrwYxKC8hq5zhlAMjjYrjAQSiJj7U7vv7gqKrmtMO-tPGg&_hsmi=69315155
iska,
most alcoholics & drug abusers of any type have mental issues ranging from the guy/gal who needs a couple of drinks to have fun at a party to the truly crazy,and their use of any type of drug including alcohol is a subconscious attempt to self-medicate.
this guy made some points but imo he is not fully telling the truth–
if weed actually made people violent. San Francisco would be a literal warzone.
but it’s not.
the majority of the truly helpless homeless in SF don’t even smoke weed. they smoke crack/meth/heroin.
This is the future of all the West Coast cities. I see it happening in Portland. Driving down the freeway through downtown Portland is like driving through a dirty national forest campground. Tents are everyone: in the medians, along the exit ramps.
What is really amazing, however, is how wealthy residents seem oblivious to the squalor all around them. Millennials will wait in line for an over-priced brunch at a Pearl District hot spot on Sunday morning and ignore the homeless guy taking a crap on the sidewalk right next to them.
The West Coast liberals don’t seem to care that their world is turning to a hell-hole right in front of them. Maybe once they get rid of Trump, everything will be unicorns and rainbows again.
Welcome to Lagos
Nothing a good old 7.5 Richter scale earthquake wouldn’t solve. Just the collapse of the Millennium Tower would take out a bunch of human debris. Entropy always wins in the end.
Nothing the occasional -28F wouldn’t solve – or at least minimize. Last summer I noticed small homeless tent encampments hidden behind the bushes alongside one of our urban bike trails here in Minneapolis. There was even a big tent village (that was mostly heroin-addicted Native Americans) that made all the local news shows and lasted into December. -28F will put an end to that sleeping outside crap real quick. They find some shelter or church to sleep in – until they can find a way to move to Portland or San Fran.
I’m waiting for the plague.
Funny, seems like every 6 months LA has a new outbreak of some third-world disease from the distant past.
Sorry to break this Dutch but aren’t you in Twin Cities? They may not be SF/LA tier bad, but Somaliland on the frozen prairie isn’t going to avoid this issue forever.
Heh. Typhus epidemic in LA **worsens**.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/Typhus-Epidemic-Worsens-in-Los-Angeles-505166301.html
The jet set aren’t so bright on economics and the Deplorables either; the Elite’s “day in the sun” is almost over.
Here in Washington State, governor Inslee , who plans to run for prez, wants to spend tens of millions on saving the 75 Orcas in the Puget Sound. Each orca needs 300-400 pounds of salmon per day. One idea is to shoot the sea lions who also love salmon. Another idea is to release more hatchery fish, but that encourages the sea lions even more. Meanwhile the Indians by treaty are allowed to net salmon by the truckload. Regular licensed fishermen want their cut, but are in danger of many fewer days allowing them access. Most of the fishermen are white, so it’s okay.
The homeless make out like bandits here. The bounty dropped off at the various tent cities is so abundant it piles up in storage areas where it rots and decays. The Seattle city council is all over it, though, with Citiwide Mandatory Housing Affordability being a fave topic, along with the Sustainability & Transportation Committee goings on. Six of nine members are ladies, but the prez is Asian and male. Coupla clean-cut white guys, too. One of the womens wears a hoodie. That would be Kshama Sawant. I wonder if she knows how much an orca can eat?
By the way, the Canadian orcas a couple hundred miles north of here are thriving. Maybe the Mounties shot all the sea lions? The local Costco sells tons of farmed salmon from the waters off Norway. Supposed to be cleaner water than that in our ocean here.
Anybody checked lately to see if Pacific Salmon glow in the dark?
you would actually need to eat about 10,000 kilograms of salmon in one sitting in order to receive the LD50 of Mercury
You don’t want to eat that Norweigan farmed salmon. They are growing them with too many pesticides and other toxic stuff.
All these agencies in Seattle that help the homeless are big business. One article recently called them the Homeless Industrial Complex. Lots of money flowing to them so what incentive is there to ever solve homelessness? It is a perpetual war to be fought just like our never ending foreign invasions.
We can only hope that one day these street folk show up the wealthy elites homes and pitch a tent.
And use the fine front entryway- driveway gate as the perfect place to take a shit.
Forget the AIDS, we have a SHIT crisis. Trump didn’t mention that in the SOTU.
Wait til TSHTF. Then you ‘ll see some exciting times…
Expanding paid parent leave so that white moms can bond with their newborns while brown and black kids are executed before they cross the vaginal wall. KaD must be so proud.
Coming to every major city ,soon.
Well, Nancy Pelosi likes it just the way it is.
Every year for 30+ years. Crime skyrockets in the area. Hookers and druggies are everywhere. Make a complete mess everywhere they go. Total douchebags.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-02-16/news/os-rainbow-people-encampment-ocala-forest-20130213_1_ocala-national-forest-rainbow-gatherings-forest-service
So San Francisco is a shithole created by liberal bags of shit like Fienstien and now president wanna be Kamila Harris former Wille Brown fuck thing want what they created for the rest of our country . They are probably going to get it too ! The wealthy extreme in control of everything has created the climate for socialism . Sadly far to many will run to the appeal of all the tax the rich free shit for me socialists .
Wait till they see the real cost of socialism !
The people that managed the greatest transfer of wealth in history better start looking in the mirror because the natives are restless and will literally eat your ass . They will do it with the leftist politicians consent many wear wearing white at the state of the union last night !