baria’s blog

Draw your own conclusion China will win

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:55:04 +0000

Recently there has been a lot to get worried about.
Since the great crash of 2008 - which it will certainly be called - or stockgate perhaps? We have all tightened our belts and reigned in spending.

As you may know I predicted some of this in 2007 and once my ego became so big that I couldn't get it out of the door I forgot what I was saying and made some catastrophic errors of judgment. The ramifications of this have been a year of glum despondency intertwined with occasional bouts of despair. I know that is my burden to bear but it has also been a lot of other peoples as well. In short, we have all been beaten by those lovely bankers.

Now I know a lot of you will blame the politicians for bailing them out - I don't blame them for saving us but I do blame them for not nailing their knackers to the nearest tree. But now I have another warning for you that I hope is prescient but not too terrifying.

I want to warn you about the carry trade which will be the next big issue to rise on the agenda and this is one we certainly can blame our governments for.

The thing is the carry trade is not some dull concept. It is real and booming and becoming ever more dangerous.

Here is how it works:

Bank 1 (usually the USA) lends money at low interest rates
People borrow
They swap their debt with its low interest rates for another currency with higher rates eg Aus Dollar
They get increased interest and effectively a pot of free money

Simple so far....

The surge of money from US$ to another currency then makes the markets devalue the US$ because no one wants it.
That means that you get more and more AU$ for every US$. In other words it cheapens the value of US$'s the longer it goes on.

Now this reinforcing behaviour is very lucrative because each dollar you borrow and sell makes more interest and the more people who do it the better it gets. (Sound familiar Mr Madoff?)

Until - Until, something happens that makes borrowers panic. Simply this could be an increase in the US$ interest rate or it could be a cut in AU$ rates, or it could be a shock like a bombing, oil price hikes or any one of a thousand things.

When that happens the over valued AU$ drops and the US$ increases. Suddenly imports are cheaper but exports are ruined. People who miss the timing are left with US$ debts and AU$ assets that are devalued. (All this is like gears in a car - use them to slow down and you'll bang into the steering wheel.) It is a gamble - short and sweet.

So look now at what has happened this year. US$ are almost zero interest rated. Aus dollars are almost 8%. Five years ago one £1 sterling bought you 3 AU$ now it buys half that! HALF!!! So in effect if you had sold all your pounds or dollars and done nothing else for 5 years you would have made 100% profit plus compoiund interest at 8% per year. Now that is fantastic (its about 28% per annum).

Add in the funds from central banks and whoopee its fun time for franky on the FX floor. Can't loose this one way bet.
Trouble is you can.

Countries like China have pegged their currency to the greenback. So even though it should be rising and rising it isn't. They also buy lots of dollars. So they become America (and the Wests) bankers. What happens if they let the currency go? Wham. Chinese Yuan are worth 100% more. Dollars are worthless America is now the sweatshop of the globe and all your investments are useless.

This is a neat economic and bloodless way to achieve a coup d'etat.

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Women, know your place!!

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:51:03 +0100

There are many things that make my blood boil.

Bankers - as you know - ignorance - misuse of the hypen - sms spelling - twigs in my shoe - close exposure to flames, that kind of thing, but today has brought a new source of ire to this poor correspondent. Namely, Women.

I suppose I need to qualify that. Not all women. Just some. Just enough to make the others look like twerps. In particular I am narked by the women who write endlessly about how crap it is to be a woman these days and what a hard time they have with work / life balance and all that.

I'll tell you why they bug me so much shall I? No, shut up!" I am talking and I am important and you must respect me as a virtual being and not just as a sex object. Pig. Shut up. Shut up. This is my blog and it is about me and what I think not you so just .. oh. Ok thanks for listening. Anyway, what I was saying is.

I am narked by (some) women because it seems to me like they are hypocrits of the first, second and placental and even third water.

This weekend I have been reading the papers here in the UK and in particular the News International output and it looks like it has been writen by a bunch of hypocondriac shoe shoppers with delusions of grandeur and an inferiority complex - if that is possible.

There are acres of print wasted on the musings of some bird who think that Jimmy Choe shoes are "fabulous" closely followed by Rosie Bloody Millard who has the gall to tell us how she can save £100 000 on her latest refurbishment project on her Islington town house. In the next breath there is some other self riteous chick bleating on about how women aren't taken seriously in the work place and how women don't team up to promote each other in the corporate world. Another supplement follows which is filled with glamour smaps of another tart wrapped in a gold sheet flogging perfume conjoined to an article bemoaning how Primrose Hill just isn't the same since the wool shop closed to be replaced by ... ooooh who cares?

The fact of the matter is that these issues are of relevence to a few people. Mostly the ones who wrote or appear in them and to almost no one else. It is timid, shallow, lazy and uninformed reporting by cowardly, restricted and above all boring people who are wrapped in the cozy certainty of a salary, education and good contacts that come from position rather than achievement.

"But she writes beautifully" "I love India Knight, she is so pithy" "It gets to the nub of the matter" but girls does it? Does it fuck!

Let's get this straight. Not every woman lives in metropolitan London, nor do they have executive jobs on the Sunday Times. Not everyone thinks that it is clever to save £100K when that is ten years salary for the average cleaner. As for what constitues a great community spirit I would rather listen to the girls in the sandwich shop than some fund manger from a global corporation that is designed to rape and pillage the pensioners of the world. Being able to write DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE ANYTHING WORTH SAYING.

If you want women to be respected and taken seriously there is a simple answer. Shut these imbeciles up. Cut off the talking head of this insidious hydra and give real women a chance. Don't wast any more airtime on fucking make overs, Cheryl Cole, or Rosie Bloody Millards take on the property market. This contribute precisely 0% to the sum of human knowledge and - 100% for women in the workplace.

I am surrounded by sensible, brave and creative women and they have one thing in common. They know when to give advise and when to shut up. They don't create agendas on a weekly basis. They build day by day and let the rest take care of itself. Men are the ones who always look far into the future and the combination of men and womens natural gifts is fantastic.

Women get on and do the immediate things that need doing and intuitively know which way things are going. Men have no idea about now, none, but we hope we have an idea of the future. That is why most politics is male dominated. We hope the team wins, the pension is enough, that the dribble won't splash on the seat. That's how we are, face it, love it, embrace it. Most men can't remember which drawer is for socks let alone what colours combine best but we all appreciate someone who does. By the same token men can tell you who was the general in the Vietnam war or what the camber on the track at Suzuka will do to the McLaren in next years Japanese F1 and you would be hard pushed to find many women who gives a damn. It is all about priorities. It is also the reason why women who write crap in the papers insense me.

I am a man, therefore I want to know what happened and what may happen in future. You are woman, and you want to know what happened and how it affects you.

They are half men half women and they want to know "that everyone loves them all the time and that they are great and creative and respected and good mothers and astute financial wizzzzzzzzzzzzzzards with a grip on modern politics but with an eye on the lessons of history and of their own mortality, so long as it doesn't mean they have to forego that last latte and by the way did you pay the nanny this week because I am working on a really important piece about motherhood and lesbianism in the middle ages for the style supplement. Oh and don't call me on Wednesday because I have yoga after I pick the kids up and have to get my chin waxed (those pesky hairs on my chin, I suppose it makes me more in touch with my masculine side) but call me ok, call me. Unless you have something more important to do."

"MMMMMMMMMMMWWWWWWWWWAHHHHHHHHH"

Like what? Cutting my wrists? Right now that beats reading any more of their self serving shite.

And yes, I did use those rude, sexist and descriptive anti-feminist words, perjorative as they are, deliberately. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade at other a bint a bint. This is one of those times.

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What do we want?

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:56:55 +0100

What do we want and when do we want it?

Everything. Now.

At least it seems that way.
Trouble is, you can't have anything. Ever anymore.

You may have noticed that the past few posts have been sporadic and a bit tetchy. For good reason, let me say.

Along with most of my colleagues I am spending inordinate amounts of time contemplating my navel and the one question that constantly arises is "what do we do now?"

The reason that the question arises is that almost everyone I know is terrified of imminent bankruptcy and unemployment. Obviously that is not a great state of mind to be in so we are all looking for solutions. Thus far we have come up with an inspiring concept ...."bugger all".

"Bugger all" may be an enticing concept but as an economic and career policy it leaves a lot to be desired.

I have already raged about how we got ourselves into this mess but the main issue is what do we do about it now. I have no definitive answer to that question but I can describe few nuggets that have risen to the surface of the toilet bowl that we call life.

Firstly, our world has shifted. It no longer revolves around the US and the dollar. Obama is a nice book end to the American century. Looks good, wins prizes, smiles and looks magnanimous but is in effect powerless and only a token gesture.

Second, Asia owns everything and will be the leader for at least the next 100 years. Their capacity for innovation is increasing and they now compete as the more powerful partner in global trade. If you look at the exploited African continent you will have noticed that China has pretty much replaced the entire western presence in many countries. eg Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Nigeria and so on. This is because they are sucking up all the resources that can manage.

Thirdly, despite the best efforts of government as the lender of last resort the conduits they are using are populated by greedy people who have not adapted to the modern reality of austerity. How can we tackle the issue of userous interest rates being charged to "real" economic activities when they paper money they lend is charged at infinitesimally small rates? The arbitrage on bank lending is obsene. Imagine Bank of England base rates are 0.5% and yet they lend to property developers and builders at 20%! Thus rendeing the largest sector of the economy lifeless and leaving many more people on the dole whilst asset prices crash and the ony people with any cash - banks - in the fortunate position of being able to buy back the assets they foreclosed on for a song whilst ensuring the actual creators of the asset are bankrupted.

In effect the golden goose has not only laid the eggs, she has hatched them and eaten the young whilst the farmer watches on from afar. This is madness!

If we want anything at all. Not just everything and if we want it anytime within the next 50 years we need to address this problem and the Bugger All option is not really viable.

What we need is for collective action to create new lending and finance resources that do not rely on corporations and government but rather that are funded by the people that are direcly involved in the hands on, real world economy.

In short we need to create new building societies. Without them we face a very uncertain future in the short term and a disaster in the longer term.

What goes around comes around.

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All Bankers have an STD

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:56:24 +0100

Let's play a game.
Replace one letter of the word Banker with another and reveal their true identity.

That's right. You got it. Replace the B with a W and you have the measure of the people we are talking about.

I know I know, I sound like a broken record but guess what?
I HATE BANKS!

Sincerely, with passion and total commitment I loathe the bastard things.
Not the guy on the counter or the people in the branch but the institutions and their boards of directors and gullible, greedy shareholders.

How can it be right that decade after decade we allow these thieving, greedy sanctimonious bastards to get away with robbing us?

I just want to know why Dick Fuld and all the rest of the worlds' top bankers aren't in jail right now.

It beggars belief when you look around you and see how decimated industry, services and above all peoples lives are. Entire cities are in financial ruins and all because some twat in a 50th floor office was a crook or played silly buggers with an algorhythm. Bernie Madoff was not the only shyster in town these past 15 years. We have all been Ponzi'd!

In the old days rhythm was something confined to the dance floor. Then the catholic church got into the swing and we used rhythm to prevent babies popping out all over the cardinals bath mat. (That's really would be a cardinal sin!) But it seems that with the advent of computers it is now something we all do every time we log in. The rhythm method is the cyber-spheres pornographic alternative to a vicar in a tutu . Well, like all sexual desires that are repressed, the algo rhythm method has now led to a form of VD that has infected every single person who engages in any kind of economic activity.

SMS texts, Phone calls, letters, emails and christ knows what other clever devices are used with gay abandon by the banks to entice us to deposit our money with them. Interest rate incentives, and free gifts are all the rage if you have a few quid but then it all turns nasty.

"Can you tell me when you will pay this charge?"
"How often do you check your account?"
"Am I talking to Mr .......?"

and on and on the conversations go. Winging their way from Bombay to the back street on Bendigo and Beirut.

"Would you like a credit card with 1200% interest and a $3 credit limit?
What is your pin number?"

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

These people call up from somewhere in Nepal and have all your info at their fingertips and yet you have no idea who they are or what they can do to you! For all you know it could be the guy in the chip shop asking you all these questions and when he puts the phone down his next question might be "Do you want fries with that?" It might equally be how fast can we spend this money. Either way you have no way of knowing who or where they are. Great idea that. Inspires confidence. Let's all do it shall we? Lets all call up a random number and ask loads of impertinent questions. Come on! It's a career move.

These automated human tape recorders input data that bounce across the globe and wrecks credit ratings or makes decisions about peoples real lives based on another fucking algorhythm created by another maths genius with a Ferrari and an apartment in Zurich.

Lets take some examples. Say you are a woman in the middle of a messy divorce and the ex has failed to pay your alimony this week which has sent your credit card to the limit. Say your pay doesn't clear until Friday and today is Monday and although it has left your employers account it hasn't arrived in yours yet leaving you $50 in debt. Say you have enough money in your account but a charge made for cheques has been debited and you forgot. Say you plain forgot that the annual insurance bill is due this week. Where do you think it gets noticed first?

Or try another tack how about your Granny dies and leaves you a wedge. Or you get divorced and suddenly have a lump sum. Or you win the lottery or you get a bonus where do you think it gets noticed first?

You got it.

The sick thing is that all these things happen to all of us all the time and yet these parasitic monoliths have so much clout that they can literally make or break you by the press of a button, regardless of the true facts.

Power that is just as deadly and lasting as a nuclear weapon that never gets fired is now in the hands of someone who does not know you or your situation. As if that isn't enough the boss of the bank is only interested in his "bonus" and the guy who actually has the job of calling you up is most likely worse off than you are and is jealous of your perceived wealth. What a toxic combination that is.

That is the combination we trust our lives to.

Am I the only one that thinks we are all insane?
Am I the only one who thinks that perhaps we all have tertiary financial syphilis and that it has screwed up our brains?

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The things we do for money

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:59:39 +0100

You know I told you I had just driven across Europe in a minibus?
Well, I did.

The thing I didn't know at the time was that it was going to end up hospitalising me!
Seriously.

All that sitting in one position for days on end led to a rather embarrasing and let me tell you excruciatingly painful condition. No, it wasn't pile...much worse than that.

I suppose I shouldn't mention it on my blog. Far too revealing isn't it? But bugger it. No one reads it and if they do I don't care. It is not like I got a dose from a hooker or anything - although at least that would have been fun for a while at least. Nope, I got clobbered by the modern fixation with deadlines and profit.

Anyhow, without going into details this "condition" lead to a night in hospital, a morning being prodded and poked by various doctors - mostly students as far as I can tell (or idiots which are much the same) - and then a course of high voltage anti-biotics and what I can only describe as horse tranquilsers.

The result of which is that I have spent the best part of a week feeling like George Bushes brain and looking like Keith Richards. This, I can tell you, is a major downgrade on my regular social status as I actually look like George Clooney and feel like Brad Pitt.

So fellow men my advise to you is this.
Wiggle on the way or you will pay.

I mean it.

It is like being kicked in the balls but without the benefit of onlookers.

They never mentioned this on Dr Finlays casebook!

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Who are you?

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:11:24 +0100

Every bone in my body aches right now.

25 hours driving a minibus across Europe from the Belgian Grand Prix will do that to you I suppose.

It has been an interesting week. Mostly because I have learned a bit more about how people think and act when they are away from home.

Running trips to sports events is hard yakka (that's Aussie for work by the way - see if you can use it in conversations yourself dear reader.) What with the ticketing, accommodation and service you need to provide it makes each trip an impression of a swan. Swimming serenely on the surface but paddling like mad underneath. But the one thing that you rarely get to do is to see first hand how people change when they are relaxed.

This week we had a decent group of folk, all intent on making the most of the Grand Prix experience. Now, to me F1 is interesting but it isn't the centre of my existence. Apparently for some people it is though and I would say almost all of my guests were F1 nuts. They knew about timings and balance, down force and tyres. All in all they were a knowledgeable bunch and I rather liked them. But there were a couple of exceptions.

Two older guys, retired from a life of toil had decided to come out to Belgium with us and they had booked our most expensive package. Great! We like that sort of passenger but these two had something about them that made almost everything I did open to complaint. Or at least I thought they did.

They moaned about the transfers from the Airport, they moaned about the city we were staying in, they moaned about the weather, the food, the rooms, the seats, the time, the coach and just about everything else. And all the time I had to grin and bear it because they were the guests and the guests get to do whatever they want.

As the days went by I felt less and less inclined to spend time with them. I had planned a few trips to local bars and restaurants but frankly I just couldn't be bothered. So I left them to it and did my own thing. By the end of the trip the moans had faded away and they seemed content with their lot.

On the final day I decided to make a bit of an effort and try to re-connect with them. We sat and had a beer. Maybe it was the fact that the end was in sight, or maybe it was just that I wasn't so anxious anymore, maybe I just didn't care but suddenly I saw them in a whole new light.

The bluff and bluster hidden under the motif of rugby shirts and golfing stories that they constantly told were just a smoke screen. All that bluster and whining was really just hot air and underneath it all they were actually pretty decent blokes who had worked their whole lives and who now found themselves in a pit of emptiness that they were filling by ticking the boxes on their "must do" lists before the end inevitably arrived.

As we spoke it became more and more obvious that the complaining was the default setting for their regular lives. Lives where no one listened or cared; lives where their achievements were reduced to history and their value was diminished with each passing day; lives where the only way to get noticed was to make complaints; lives where they suddenly realised that all those years of being moderately powerful, potent men was over.

Complaining was the only way to gain some semblance of control over their lives and they used it as a mechanism to make contact with people.

As it dawned on me what I had seen I began to look at the rest of the group and it all made sense.
There was a family that kept to themselves - looking after the kids took priority
There were the mother and son who loved each other and who persevered with each other just to be together.
There were the brothers who wanted to get drunk and re-live their youth but who were already tired and "not really in the mood".
There were the ex-racing drivers looking for memories they had lost.

Then there was me.
Fighting financial battles every day, dropping in prestige and profile and grasping at every opportunity that came my way like a drowning man. Sulking in my room because someone wasn't happy and taking it like an personal insult.

The dawning of reality came like a shaft of light on a cloudy day.

We were exactly the same! I have taken a step down the ladder and I am finding it hard to adjust. I had seen myself reflected in the mirror and I really didn't fancy that sort of future. Who would?

From that moment on my entire mood changed. I got it. I understood. As a result these two men, that I had avoided like the plague for the first few days, became less of a burden and more of an example. Don't get me wrong, they were never anything but honest and frank from the outset, it was just my interpretation that was awry. They are decent chaps and once they relaxed and realised that they had a voice they became a lot more human. Stuffed shirts had been replaced by T-shirts. I actually like them quite a lot now.

After the race was over I drove them back to Brussels to their hotel and on the way one of them said " These bespoke trips must be a real pain in the arse for you." I laughed like a man released from gaol. "Sometimes" I replied but what I actually thought was that this one in particular had been worth it. I had learned something about human nature and that alone was worth all the effort.

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Conspiracy of Bankers 3 / spreadshits

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:53:48 +0100

So here is how it works in practise guys,
the real deal.

This is what credit scoring, assessment and the bloody idiocy of computerised banking has led to today!

We got new credit card machines this week - 3 of them despite the fact we only asked for 2 but that is fine.

So all going well and then a call from our friendly bank manager. The very man who called the day before to make sure we received our machines.
It went like this:

"Do you do tour operations?
"duh, well yes, we are a tour operator"
So... uh,,,, we thought you sold beer.
We do.
But you sell other things
Yes
like what?
Like tours.

OK.

One hectic d ay later and £X000 banked into our account and the bank calls back

You banked £X000.
I know
What for?
Duh,.... sales.

Of what?
Tickets.
Oh......

Any travel.
No. F1 tickets to the Grand Prix.

Right then we are withdrawing your facility.
WHAT!
We are refunding the sale.
WHAT!!!

Why?

We didn't know you sold tickets?
We are a travel operator and we do events. Of course we sell tickets! What fucking difference does that make?

Lots. You have 2 choices. We can keep the funds for 180 days or pay them back to your clients.

180 days!!
What business can survive 6 months without getting paid?
If I am one fucking day late your guy in Mumbai is on the phone asking when I will be able to "bring my balance back in order" so now you want me to wait 6 fucking months for goods we have paid for and delivered?

Fucking great.

So, we sell goods and you stop us after they have been dispatched AND refund the customer... is that the deal?

Yes

"Fuck you and your mother.
And I am not paying for the damn machines either."

"You have to send them back to the issuer."
Who is that then?
It is on your agreement.
Don't you know?
No
So you know exactly how much I owe, who my Mother is, the name of my dog and the address of all of my friends, relatives, aquaintances, the size of my dick and my sexual pecadillos but you don't know where to send your own machines to?

No.

What the fuck are you people on?

Talk about making life impossible.

I detest banks now. Totally, utterly and incontroveribly hate them.
DO NOT TRUST THEM!
Keep your wonga in cash and let them bleed to death.

The reason we are in recession is because of them.

They are the poison we all breathe and we need to do something about it!

Do you seriously think we will get out of this mess with them in charge.

Not a hope in hell my friends. It is up to us now and let them drown in their own spreadshits.

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Fucking Banking Conspiracy 2

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:40:28 +0100

Want to know how we got to this state?

Let me elicidate:

A nice man in China offers to make nice TV sets for half the price of anywhere else.
BARGAIN!

Everyone follows the Milton Friedman / Reagan / Thatcher / Bush doctrine and buys them. A few years later when we have spent all our money on chinese TV's that are now out dated we find that we have no jobs, no money and the TV is bust.

It is at that point we decide to change it only to find that we can't afford a new one because only Mr Peking makes them now and his monopoly means TV's are now uber expensive.

I can do better than that you think and being the entrepreneur you are you look for "niches" to exploit and make a killing.
The trouble is everyone else is already looking for a niche and the few that there are are now so stuffed with Chinamen that there is no room for anyone else.

The smart guy who bought the lease on the niche and has been renting it out for years but he has now sold it to the first Chinese TV manufacturer for an insane profit and has set up home in Luxembourg. Meanwhile the Chinaman has sold a stake in his niche to an American Merchant bank for 3000% more than he paid for it because they want a piece of the action.

The tenants of the niche are now so far in debt that they can't get out of the corners for bills and so they can't get to work so they default on the loan and Mr Chinaman is now in trouble. So he punts his stake to another greedy banker and legs it for the hills.

The new banker gets busy, but whilst he is screwing his first customer the rest of the tenants skeedadle over the paper mountain of debt, never to be seen again.

Suddenly the bankers are fucked.

All they have left is an empty niche and the poor bloke who stuck around and has already been royally screwed.

So what can they do but screw him again?

And again.

Until finally...... he dies. And that's it. No happy ending.
Sorry but ... well, that's how it is.

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Goddam Banking Conspiracy 1

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:35:18 +0100

It has been a fuck fest since Silverstone Formula 1 guys.
The shows went really well and the crowd loved it all.
6000 folks in total but what a manic week that turned out to be.
Tons of folk but no one was spending enough which really hurts the bottom line.

I have been trying to figure out why that is and I have some juicy theories.

Since the race we have fought to pay all the bills and keep the new ideas coming in and thankfully we are 90% through it all now. Not easy but we are almost there.

Anyhow, this new business stuff has me thinking and learning lessons that I thought I knew from my past 20 years as a self employed maverick. But apparently the rules are totally changed.

It seems that it is no longer enough to make, create, sell and move on any more. Apparently we all need to have our anal sphincter muscles extended, manipulated and then forcibly re-engineered just so we can stay in exactly the same state we were in previously.

Here is how it works. It is a fantastically complex process called Banking.

What you do is this:

Give all your money to a faceless organisation with nice logo and very expensive shops
Then they keep your money forever.

That's it.

Sometime you get a small piece of plastic and a cheque book but mostly you just get a bill every month for their services!

They won't give your money back unless you are able to offer things you don't have in exchange for things you don't want like insurance that doesn't pay or credit cards that are refused every time you use them for "security checks".

These "security checks" make you look like a criminal and often lead to you being stuck in a que with a bag load of groceries and no way to get to fix it without wasting 3 hours and eighty thousand key strokes on your mobile to an automated operator who cuts you off before you have reached the "Press 21891721979 for security option."

The reason they need security checks is because a 10 year old kid with a Nintendo can break their systems and they are scared you may actually be spending some of their money somewhere else. Remember it is theirs now, not yours!

If they do give your money to anyone it goes to the worst possible, drug dealing, unemployed lazy shit for brains criminal to buy a crap house in a foreign country (ie America) at an extortionate rate of interest and when he doesn't pay them back they ask you for your money again so they don't have to feel poor or go out of business and the shyster in downtown Miami walks off into the sunset Scott free.

No keys, No fees.

In the rest of the world we have to pay our debts but apparently the USA is once again a special case. Hand in the keys and it is all over. No wonder every poverty stricken crack head in the third world wants to live there.

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Petrolhead

nobody@vox.com(Baria) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:24:33 +0100

So my chums,
this is what I have been doing all these months. Setting up the Legends of Formula 1 Festival at Silverstone next week.

It has taken a year to get the licences and acts in place and longer than that to funds it all and I haven't bored you with it because, as ever with these things, it cold all have gone belly up at any time.
BUT NOW IT IS ON!

4 days of frivolity and mayhem at the British Grand Prix.

My God there is a fortune invested in it and not just in time. Effort, worry, resources of all kinds. My reserves are depleted. It has been like waging a war.

Please do me a favour and spread the word to all petrolheads over the globe.

The line up includes, THE STIG, Murray Walker, Vicki Butler Henderson, Bobby Davro, 20 bands, DJ's, Comedians and 3 of the biggest bars the world (or me anyway) has ever seen. I've laid on Grid Girls and raffles and god knows what else and all of it is for you my friends.

If anyone is coming over on June 18 - 21st come and find me and mention the word "tweenie" and they'll win a free drink.

So hurry up, get up to Silverstone and join me in the mother of all hangovers!

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