Month: January 2017

Tuesday 31st January 2017

In this issue of Money Truths….

• Nobody knows. Not really….
• When forecasts go wappy….
• We can get it wrong as well as the next man….
• Events – often diametrically opposed to expectation….
• The consensus view – a fine contrarian indicator….

Nobody knows. Not really….

Nobody knows anything. Not really. Nobody knows what will turn out good, bad or ugly….

Nobody knows for sure which market, stock, commodity, bond or currency will rise or fall. By how much, at what rate or when….

Nobody can predict tomorrow’s financial climate – let alone the climate 3-months, 12-months or 5-years hence….

Of course, there’s a multi-billion-dollar financial services industry – populated with all manner of expert – which is dependent on convincing you otherwise….

Economists, bankers, analysts, money-managers, traders, financial advisors, politicians, press pundits and talking heads all make a living peddling the same deceit – that they know what’s going on and what will happen.

But they don’t know. They have mere beliefs and opinions. They make speculative forecasts.

But the thing with a forecast is that it represents an estimation or prediction made in the absence of any certain knowledge….

It amounts to guesswork. Some guesswork will be better-informed than other examples.… Click here to read more

Tuesday 24th January 2017

In this issue of Money Truths….

• Powerful enemies are bent on revenge….
• Wrong time & wrong place, Mr. President….
• The life support system will be switched off….
• Trump’s comeuppance….

Powerful enemies are bent on revenge….

What happened in America with Donald Trump and the presidency is like going to bed in Britain one night and waking the next morning to find foul-mouthed chef Gordon Ramsey calling the shots in 10 Downing Street.

Trump and Ramsey are both successful businessmen. Both have used reality TV to carve out a constituency. Both have personas deeply rooted in unadulterated and unmitigated boorishness. Neither man lacks for self-confidence. Neither takes prisoners nor spares feelings.

Life under either man would be nothing if not interesting. You don’t know where the journey with either man would take you, but you know there’s going to be plenty of effing and blinding along the way….

Trump is an establishment outsider with no experience of politics or high-office. That’s precisely what the American electorate liked about him.

He’s not soiled by the mucky Washington ‘swamp’ of insiders, power-brokers and vested interests. He casts himself as a man of the people – reclaiming America for the ordinary man-on-the-street American.… Click here to read more

Tuesday 17th January 2017

In this issue of Money Truths….

• Election-winning ideas….
• A money tree for everybody….
• The EU throws its weight into the job….
• Numbers – all the bigger to scare you with….
• This dream has poison at its center….

Election-winning ideas….

Any politician who wants to build a ground-swell of support should consider advocating a 4-day working week for all.

I call it the ‘long-weekend’ manifesto. It’s a real vote-winner of a policy.

Any politician who stands on that platform will win huge support from the man-on-the-street.

More time away from work and more time to themselves is something most people want. And they’d vote for any politician promising it.

I’m not sure how a 4-day working week would work in practice – economically or logistically. Or even if it could. But the idea has popular appeal….

A flat and fair rate of income tax – say 15% – would be another big vote winner.

Every individual and business would pay that simple non-negotiable rate on every single pound earned from whatever source and not a penny more – no deductions, no concessions, no accounting gymnastics and no elaborate tax-avoiding wheezes allowed….

The man-on-the-street would respond to that policy.… Click here to read more