On the root of financial problems according to Shel Silverstein

I was just reading Nudge by Richard Thuler and Cass Sunstein (interesting but a bit too academic) and I run into this little poem by Shel Silverstein.
Smart
My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded [...]

On human nature and making firewood from the fallen tree, the funny side of the credit crunch

I am going to try to put together the few funny bits I’ve come across with during this global human misery that we all now call credit crunch:

On pooh, Lord Vernment and the lessons to be learnt from Credit-upon-Sink. A medieval story

Once upon a time, there was a small hamlet named Credit-upon-Sink where the Lord Vernment ensured safety and security from strangers. Live was kind, and the banks of the river Sink, fertile.
Lord Govvy, as he was known in the valley, would collect taxes from villagers based on the number of seeds planted every season by [...]

On the British People’s Bank of Halifax hiking credit card rates

I have a mortgage and a credit card I pay religiously every month to the British People’s Bank of Halifax and to my surprise I received today an ugly piece of marketing literature. It didn’t even come in an envelope, so I almost discarded it, but close inspection made me realise that the content of [...]

On banks paying interest to people with mortgages or how NOT to run a banking operation: The answer

So it finally happened. This morning I received the letter from Birmingham Midshires answering the million dollar question: What happens when the Bank of England takes the base interest rate down to 0.5% or below and you are paying them 0.5% or higher below BoE base rate?
Well, since the bank’s decision back in March 5, [...]

On observations on the weirdness of human behaviour: flipping small cars

Hobbes, I am a big man, 1m87 (6’2ish on a good day) and always felt like a sardine in a tin in little urban cars (trying to get out of my friend’s 2-door Clio is a bit of a mission, and enjoying a trip on the rear seat, a utopia). However, I understand the practicality [...]

On Du-BAN-i, the new Gulf Emirate formerly known as Dubai. The party is over

Can’t stay away from the news these days, can you? A friend sends me a message forwarded to her from Dubai. She looked into moving down there as a Retail Manager for a fashion house down there, but the conditions where apocalyptic, lucky enough she had her father’s employer’s legal department have a closer look [...]

On staying away from news, good or bad. A detox therapy for the brain

I have been saying for a while that terrorist groups (or freedom Fighters, depending what side you take) would take advantage of brainless governments and hit them now, when it really hurts. ETA in Spain and now IRA (real IRA, friends of IRA, an IRA Facebook ring) in Northern Ireland have tried their chance, and [...]

On the new clothes of the Spanish economy, where’s a child to tell the truth when you need it?

Hobbes, what Spain needs now, is the child in the crowd that that the emperor is walking down the street fully naked, and tells the truth. But they do not listen.
Today, it was the turn of the FT.com (Spain’s recession: After the fiesta). Paul Preston is considered one of the top specialists in the Spanish [...]

It’s Good To Know: Economic Depression

Recession here, recession there, we already know now that a recession defines the reduction of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) for at least two quarters.
But how about a depression? There are now talks of a possible return to 1929’s depression. But what is it exactly, or how is it defined by economists? You’ve got as many flavours [...]