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This is the annual letter sent out by my friend Richard Poulden. This year – as every year – we wil hold a 10 minute debate at the UKInvestor Show – I am not sure of the subject matter yet but it is always sparky. I am not sure that I agree 100% on China but on Europe we are at one. No debate there. Over to Richard:
“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation” – Alan Greenspan, 1966
“Keep a clear head and always carry a light bulb” – Bob Dylan, 1965
Yesterday morning in Dubai was foggy: thick, gooey, 12-metre visibility stuff. As I drove my daughter to school , I said: “Let’s see how many cars we can find driving without lights”.
“Come on”, she said, “no one could be THAT stupid”
“Oh yes they could”, I said, “I’m going for a starter of three”.
Well we found three cars in the space of a few blocks. As we hit Sheik Zayed Road where the traffic in the fast lane was still doing 120km, she said: “OK, this is crazy, let’s go for 8 or 12”.
“That’s fine”, I said, “but I want to go for the big one: I want to find the European Union…. I want to find a bus..or a large sewage tanker”……and we did.
The gurus at Deutsche Bank published a study1 in July of last year suggesting that the politicians guiding the world economy were behaving exactly like those sewage tankers and buses in the fog. They propose this because their hypothesis is that none of the old economic philosophies actually apply to the current world economy and thus the levers being pulled by the politicians are not actually connected to anything.
