Was it Worth It?

Today's P&L: 0.00 GBP

Today's Booze: 6 pints of Kronenbourg 1664

Today's Soundtrack: Music to burn flags to

Bernanke was in the news saying that more quantative easing may be the answer to the stubborn jobless situation in the US. He assured us all that providing further liquidity isn't the same as printing money - So that is a buy signal for gold then. If the US wants to employ more people it has to restart industry there is no real alternative. It should make for a boost in the DOW30 and S&P500 though. The market perception is that this money will feed through into the economy, unlike the earlier program. It is rubbish, of course. The plan is for the US to buy six hundred billion dollars of government bills from the banking sector which should encourage economic activity. This will increase stock and commodity prices. Of course it will increase inflationary pressures. So that's the solution to the US economy. Issue debt sell it to banks and then in order to protect the banks purchase the paper back from the banks and how does the US government pay for the debt it buys, by issuing more debt. The global economy is becoming more like a very dangerous game of pass the parcel.

I was looking at the pictures of the Princess on her facebook page the other day. Her wedding looks like quite the high dollar event. Made the Thai newspapers and was held at the Oriental, probably one of the most expensive places in Asia to get married. she looked fantastic of course but I can't help feeling how much better it would have been if she had married me - I would have lowered the tone somewhat. Not that I am especially low class. Just, there would be no way I would get married sober. I doubt that many of my friends would have fitted in, just a couple of them but I would have had to invite them anyway. I imagine she knew all along that we wouldn't get married, even though we were engaged. In her social group it is customary for the the man to give a dowry to the brides father, the number she indicated to me was rather daunting even though I was quite wealthy then. She told me not to worry, what would happen is that her guardian would give the money to her and that she would give it back to me - even so. The Princess was such a nice and even tempered girl, I can count the times I upset her on one hand, I made her cry a few more times but that was mainly because of injuries I started picking up. Before then I had always been in top condition. I don't think we would have been happy married though. She didn't drink and was such a girly girl whereas the women I had more intense relationships with were far more similar to me, unreasonable, jealous, angry and just a little out of control. Most of my girlfriends have been far too good for me, but the Princess was probably the one who compromised herself most by being with me.


Today's music, my top five tracks:

Rock The Casbah - One of my favourite Clash songs along with London Calling. Seventies punks dissect middle-eastern politics, well they couldn't do a worse job than Tony Blair.

Games Without Frontiers - I was just a child when this song hit the charts but it was still significant, even back then I was aware of the ebbs and flows of politics. My parents had taken me to a few third world countries.

The Lebanon - What can I say, I am an eighties boy and I have always loved The Human League, Beirut is one of those places I have never been, (I tend to avoid the middle east in general - better for them, better for me), but this is a great song about a tragic situation. I used to work with a woman who had worked for an American bank in Beirut and she told me lots of stories about the missile attacks and the bomb shelters in the basement.

Going Underground - The Jam. This band were a key part of my youth in the late seventies/early eighties. Paul Weller may be a bit of a twat and I have heard he is quite difficult to work with but he writes some damn good songs. "I turn in the news and my body froze, The braying sheep on my TV screen, Make this boy shout, make this boy scream, Going Underground, I'm going underground"

Living In This Town - "Why throw a dollar to a hungry man" Havana 3am should have been a great band but Paul Simonen is, if anything inconsistent, think he is a painter now. In Seventies UK he was one of the coolest people on the planet

In case I don't see 'ya...good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!