At the End of the Day

The lunatics are running something far bigger than the asylum. But the sane people don’t seem to have noticed their escape.

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This what I wrote about Metro Bank two years ago:

Fast forward to 30th September 2019. This at Zero Hedge:

The share price has collapsed by 95%, and the FT is speculating that there will be a fire sale in the immediate future.

My pension trustees ring-fenced half my fund with Metro. I sent them a recorded delivery letter in 2017 expressing extreme doubts about the bank’s business model. We had a somewhat tense conversation about the matter this afternoon. The case continues.

However, this post is not about trying to garner the sympathy vote  – although if you want to send me cheques, please make them out to Slog Charities (2019) Bermuda plc, Incorporated in Tennessee by the Lendlease Miller-Time Share Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sway Marketing.

No, my point is far more macro than that. The “success” of Metro was based on two things:

• The glitter of Profits Tomorrow from $2billion black tulips grown in yet to be discovered South Sea bubbles emerging from Teapot Domes
• Sheer ‘yes-there-really-is-a-free-lunch’ purple helmet tumescent dick-size greed.

Metro offered B2B institutional clients ludicrously high interest rates. It was Northern Rock II, but in a different place.

Finance for business from largely bourse-derived “services” is what has allowed genuine  creative capitalism to morph into Big is Good process which, as often as not, dilutes shareholder value.

Without a rapid diversification of funds-for-business sources away from the stock markets, the planet is doomed to more and more of this. And without regulation with teeth, there will be multiple Metros until there are no buyers left….and the entire edifice implodes.

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Hands up all those who think the Labour Party, the US Democrats, Momentum, the 48%, the PS in France, the Great German Coalition or the Brussels ballooning neo-colonialist eunatics get any of this?

Have to hurry you.

I doubt very much now if we are going to get anything like the Sovereign Brexit for which we voted in June 2016. The Revokers in Sheep’s Clothing keep saying we didn’t know what we were voting for; but their own “OMG-we’ll-be-alone” agitprop at the time shows that we did know what we wanted – viz, independence.

The Referendum losers are terrified of independence (because they don’t believe in Britain, or freedom to make ethical choices, or any risk at all) but equally they don’t want a clean break with the European Union, because that would dilute their own personal finances and objectionable ideological objectives. Grieve, the Supine Court, Blair, Mandelson, May’s husband, NATO, the US Alt State, MI6, Whitehall, Miller and Soros all fall into this eclectic camp.

They may be too powerful for us in this one Brexit issue, but I do believe that awareness of being turned into serfs is growing among The Thinkers.

Such citizens could be skilled artisans, young neets, ageing pensioners, cheated Waspi/2020 Women, squeezed middles, ethical entrepreneurs, or simply those who have lost faith in the Party bigwigs who demand faith from us….but exempt themselves. Those ‘Leaders’ who cry, “We’re all in the same boat” will be the first to storm the lifeboats when the iceberg hits.

However, the emerging lessons still apply: the issue dividing Britain is no longer about non-negotiations with Brussels, BoJo trying to sell us a slightly warmer Brino, or indeed freedom to make our own laws.

It is a philosophical civil war on various dimensions: the Citizen vs the State, the citizen focused State vs the bloc Systemicists, peaceful self sufficiency vs globalist mercantilism, and – perhaps above all – the pragmatic empiricists vs the ruinous ideologues.

In turn, it is a social war between who see their naivety as reality, and those who prefer to turn reality into individual opportunity. It is an economic war between those who put material greed and centralised power before personal potential. And it is a fight to the death between those who believe the end justifies the means, and the rest of us who would rather tolerate others on the journey, and see where the end leads.

It is a struggle between open-minded evidential progress, and the catechismic stubborness of the mule.

The victory of the former could yet make Homo sapiens something important. The latter will inevitably lead to the self-destruction of the human race.

That’s how much bigger than Brexit Britain’s divisive struggle is.