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Mar. 2nd, 2009 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersOh Well....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7918643.stm
AIG posed ' a system risk' to the global financial system.
I suppose this is why we're bailing out the banks (or in this case the financial insurance sector); not because we approve of what the bankers have done, but because we need the system stabilised.
The forward account carpetbagging of the past two decades is catching up on us all, and sinners or saints, we're all in this together.
And we have a new class of super-rich financial types who inexplicably seem to have considerably more than they did two decades ago. However a £700,000 pension ain't quite 'super-rich'. Rich, yes, but not oligarchical. It doesn't really count until you get to 8 figures.
They're asking £2.9 Million for a house half a mile away from us which looked fairly nice though not anything really special: 5 bedrooms, some original features, driveway for a car; the size of a small brownstone but on two floors rather than three or four. I opined to SWMBO that it would take us twenty years to be able to afford something like that: she replied....no, five years. Driven is as driven does. I knew she was doing well despite the downturn, after all she's very good at the obscure bits of contract law and has the reputation for being able to tie up construction contracts so no-one ever needs to touch them again unless other conditions change: but even so.
I thank the gods for my small independent means. I'll take any sop to my dignity.
Thinking about contracts, she got my name on the dotted line too.
12 days to go.
As I may have mentioned: I had a last-minute-arranged drink at Nick's. Well I had four days to arrange it but....so many folk couldn't be there I stopped 'phoning around as it was beginning to appear rude asking; most folk I know seem to need a few weeks notice; we're all so old and set in our ways. However Stephen, Aaron, Mike (the Bro'), Toby, Fra, and Steve from TPA, turned up to watch me get plastered and try to impart to Stephen any stories that might show me in even a marginally good light. Thirty years in Rock 'n' Roll and no-one could think of a single creditable story or even one which showed me off to some advantage. I must have done something right. The list of my sins was enormous and of great invention; my good points were harder to pinpoint, alas.
Beer and whisky.
Only vomited twice, and that was the morning after. SWMBO had to spend the Sunday in bed after her Hen-night. Photophobia just one of the many unfortunate symptoms made manifest by her carousing the previous evening. All day hangovers are such a drag, my dears.
Rereading Anthony Powell's 'Dance to the music of Time'. Have gotten to the War Novels, which are quite brilliant. Recommend them to anyone really: so much more sophisticated, lighter, and better than Brideshead; though I did quite like Waugh's Catholic symbolist take on the war/class/change/adultery thing in the 'Sword of Honour' trilogy.
Must get to the quack's for Madame's prescription. Go well and do good things....even if no-one ever remembers them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7918643.stm
AIG posed ' a system risk' to the global financial system.
I suppose this is why we're bailing out the banks (or in this case the financial insurance sector); not because we approve of what the bankers have done, but because we need the system stabilised.
The forward account carpetbagging of the past two decades is catching up on us all, and sinners or saints, we're all in this together.
And we have a new class of super-rich financial types who inexplicably seem to have considerably more than they did two decades ago. However a £700,000 pension ain't quite 'super-rich'. Rich, yes, but not oligarchical. It doesn't really count until you get to 8 figures.
They're asking £2.9 Million for a house half a mile away from us which looked fairly nice though not anything really special: 5 bedrooms, some original features, driveway for a car; the size of a small brownstone but on two floors rather than three or four. I opined to SWMBO that it would take us twenty years to be able to afford something like that: she replied....no, five years. Driven is as driven does. I knew she was doing well despite the downturn, after all she's very good at the obscure bits of contract law and has the reputation for being able to tie up construction contracts so no-one ever needs to touch them again unless other conditions change: but even so.
I thank the gods for my small independent means. I'll take any sop to my dignity.
Thinking about contracts, she got my name on the dotted line too.
12 days to go.
As I may have mentioned: I had a last-minute-arranged drink at Nick's. Well I had four days to arrange it but....so many folk couldn't be there I stopped 'phoning around as it was beginning to appear rude asking; most folk I know seem to need a few weeks notice; we're all so old and set in our ways. However Stephen, Aaron, Mike (the Bro'), Toby, Fra, and Steve from TPA, turned up to watch me get plastered and try to impart to Stephen any stories that might show me in even a marginally good light. Thirty years in Rock 'n' Roll and no-one could think of a single creditable story or even one which showed me off to some advantage. I must have done something right. The list of my sins was enormous and of great invention; my good points were harder to pinpoint, alas.
Beer and whisky.
Only vomited twice, and that was the morning after. SWMBO had to spend the Sunday in bed after her Hen-night. Photophobia just one of the many unfortunate symptoms made manifest by her carousing the previous evening. All day hangovers are such a drag, my dears.
Rereading Anthony Powell's 'Dance to the music of Time'. Have gotten to the War Novels, which are quite brilliant. Recommend them to anyone really: so much more sophisticated, lighter, and better than Brideshead; though I did quite like Waugh's Catholic symbolist take on the war/class/change/adultery thing in the 'Sword of Honour' trilogy.
Must get to the quack's for Madame's prescription. Go well and do good things....even if no-one ever remembers them.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 03:20 pm (UTC)It was the vomiting that pointed you there, wasn't it?
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 05:26 pm (UTC)It would seem to be a propitious time to invest in bricks and mortar. Imagine if you had done it a year ago ... I wish you (both) luck and happiness.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-03 11:51 am (UTC)I own my flat outright. SWMBO has a mortgage and negative equity on a house in Dulwich wherein we now both reside. It's none too big for all my kit and all hers, so we'll be moving eventually. Alas she's lost 150K on her property in terms of its value....but when we move and buy a new house we'll probably keep ownership of the Dulwich house and let it out, and wait for the market to improve. Going to have to save like very thrifty folk indeed. Do her good, denying herself every now and then. Her pension has taken quite a blow: I'd prefer she were set up with property. Unless the whole country defaults property will always have some residual value, and relative to the general population, should always provide an income for her. The portfolio expands, and like most folk in my position, I stand to inherit the odd thing here and there, so though cash poor, in general I'm asset rich and can add to the pot as and when it comes. Between the two of us, we're looking at a comfortable middle age provided no bus-with-my-name-on-it mounts the pavement, or meteorite strikes from a clear blue sky.
But them's in the lap of the Gods and outside my control.