Mosquito – Nature’s stealth not Posted on August 30, 2007 by John Ashcroft I mean, what is it about mosquitos. They have to move en masse because they are hardly constructed for stealth bombing. We don’t get many. Maybe one a month, or one a week during the peak season. But they are … Read More
Airing the T cups Posted on August 26, 2007 by John Ashcroft Clive Woodward trained and conditioned the England Rugby team to TCUP: Think Carefully Under Pressure. In the final moments of the World Cup 2003, they executed TCUP and implemented ZigZag, the planned move to secure the “winning” drop goal position. … Read More
Problem solving The beginning Posted on August 26, 2007 by John Ashcroft It was late at night, wet, windy and dark. No time to be driving alone through the countryside. No time to be in a car which was unreliable. But as Mark drove on, the inevitable happened, the car juddered to … Read More
Problem solving I Posted on August 26, 2007 by John Ashcroft What if it was a farmhouse but there was no-one home? What if, there was someone home but they had gone to bed? What if, they had gone to bed and would be angry to be woken up in the … Read More
Systemic survival Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Ashcroft The system will ride out the crisis but the losses will hurt. Central banks are injecting liquidity and are prepared to cut rates if necessary. I must remember to put a note in my diary for 2017. There appears to … Read More
Countrywide calls – contrarians should act Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Ashcroft Countrywide financial was obliged to call down some $11.5bn of facilities after a bad week in the office and the rest is history. Cash evaporated or as Paribas stated “there was a complete evacuation of liquidity in certain market segments … Read More
Exotic ninja parcels Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Ashcroft So what happened. It would appear that in pursuit of ever more expanding loan books, lower income Americans were seduced into mortgage payment programmes which they could not really afford. Ninjas, no income, no job nor assets were attracted into … Read More
Ninjas flap, Cramer freaks, Bernanke acts Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Ashcroft I new there was a problem when I saw Jim Cramer freaking out on CNBC, (YouTube). He called Ben Bernanke an academic. (Yes an academic, how low can it get) Cramer demanded action, rate cuts to stop thousands and thousands … Read More
Ninja borrowers flap their wings Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Ashcroft I love chaos theory, the idea that a butterfly in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas just by flapping its wings seemed cool but rather crazy. I mean all those butterflies and so many wings and flaps, come on. … Read More
Inflation Data July Posted on August 19, 2007 by John Ashcroft UK inflation data suggests markets can chill about interest rate rises as CPI inflation fall to 1.9% in July. No need for the Governor of the Bank of England to write to the Chancellor again in the near future. It … Read More
