Better Days

Todays P&L: GBP 210.00

Todays Booze: Nothing at all

Todays Soundtrack: Too many to mention but lots of 80's pop


I received some comments on yesterdays post which surprised me, I thought any readers would be more inclined to argue the merits of my taste in soul music. I was asked about the stalker so I thought I should clarify the nature of our association. If I have given the impression I dislike the stalker that is simply not true, she is a wonderful woman. She is called the stalker purely because of the depth of her interest in me and the certainty with which she involved herself in me. It isn't that she was an unknown quantity, I had been in a serious relationship with her a long, long time ago, but we had gone our separate ways at her decision. I just use the stalker label to identify here, she has a very active life and I am certainly not the center of it although she does seem unable to give me up despite knowing my character flaws.

The Lunatic is also unable to completely let go despite it being ten years since we last spoke. For geographic reasons she communicates with me via email. Due to events that happened when we were together, I haven't provided her with my phone number, she wasn't given the lunatic moniker for nothing. Although she seems quite rational nowadays. Lunatic is just a convenient reference. The same with the Princess, who wasn't really a princess but lived near the palace and was from quite a high society family. There are other long-term relationships I have been in and I will probably refer to them in some off-hand way if they should come up in my blog. Most of my relationships have been very short-term for a number of reasons but mostly due to my unwillingness to commit.

I suppose I still have commitment issues and despite knowing full-well that most of my girlfriends have had far better options than a washed up, alcoholic gambler with a dubious past, still find a way to pull away from people. The stalker got her nickname for the way that she just bypassed my defense and re-inserted herself into my life. Take for example my recent birthday when she invited herself along to an impromptu dinner with my parents, who she is now on excellent terms with. Something that I don't necessarily think is a good thing.

Anyway I still wasn't trading properly today and missed another big sell-off in the equity markets, concentration issues due to no grog I imagine. The markets so not seem to like the Obama bank plan and with good reason. The banking system may be flawed but what he is proposing will not make things better. By banning proprietary trading from the banks and limiting their size he is insuring that retail customers will receive a bad deal. The banks may have allowed their risk taking activities to spiral out of control but leaving them with customer only orientated business will squeeze their revenues and reduce the ability of them to offer competitive lending to customers. In addition a new breed of less regulated financial services companies will spring up to offer the services that grease the capital markets of the world and will either cater only for the rich or will be tremendously risky for other investors.His proposals will affect every part of the sophisticated financial services that Europe and America have developed. I assume that his plans will also include the finance divisions of corporates as well, at least those that have received state aid. So General Motors will have to close GMAC and without the financing available you will have to either obtain a loan from a traditional bank or pay in cash for a new car. I imagine there will also be difficulty with deciding on the role of corporate treasury departments as well. After all how much of the currency and commodity trading done by Delta and United is pure hedging and how much is prop trading? In fact all commodity trading wouldn't be easily justified by the banks which would impact the exchanges. Of course if any country didn't have the same approach to bank regulation, they would have a major advantage over the US banks. All in all it is a poorly thought out plan which smacks of a man who has just received a lot of criticism for failing to do anything in his first year in office.