Friday, October 24, 2008

Life, there’s really nothing quite like it.

As the whole world’s attention draws to the aftermath of the financial tsunami….now why do they coined such a buzzword??? A tsunami, as I know it, has only one wave, after which you are left to pick up the pieces. I don't think this appropriately describes what we are facing now. Afterall, it is said that US$7 trillion has been wiped off the account books in a matter of ….days, months, years? That figure, and I am not about to start counting, is a number 7 followed by 12 zeroes and no matter how you look at it, it looks grotesquely large. How’s that nobody actually found out until the zeroes get to 12? And then hastily pressed the panic button and screwed the entire world. Yes, people like you and me, for Christ sake!

I was in Singapore 2 weeks ago to attend a not-so-important meeting attended by a group of old-but-looking young dinosaurs. The organizer, quite aptly named, Russellaurus, started with a rather cruncher opening statements “we shouldn't rest on our laurels in the wake of this credit crunch”. Now I don't know about you lot but I have friends who have taken measures to go into 2 to 3 years of hibernation in the wake of this financial tsunami. They are resting on their laurels now and following the good old Cantonese saying “you shouldn't lose a factory for a sweet”. Anyway, Russellaurus invited a lunch time speaker, hmmm by the name of Swifty (I think…if not, Swift) from a firm named Callamander. And guess what, Swifty thinks he knows all about the finance market……..yeah in hindsight who doesn't?


In all fairness he cracked my shallow understanding of the world market. He came up with the theory that the money US$7 trillion never existed, it is on the books only. Get it? So why the whole world is worried stiff with G8, G20 or probably United Nations, urging its members to attend summits after summits. What’s the catch then? Well, as he explained it is a bubble, a make belief that the $ actually existed……..or so much of the investment sharks and ancient institutions are led to believe. The bubble burst and the sharks and banks ended up in debts……..and then that’s how the problem gets onto you. Those idiots from the US are greedier than anybody. They used up their monies, and your monies and the whole problem then spiraled around the globe faster than the internet!

Time and again, we tell ourselves that the bubble is going to burst; it is only a matter of time. That, as it happens, is my brother’s famous way of looking at things, when it gets artificially inflated or alarming. Incidentally, it makes perfect sense when you look at things, in hindsight! You know the saying “… as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.” So many knows, known, unknown…..kind of makes you feel you wished you had known the knowns and unknowns, and more importantly don't get off-guards and left in the trails of unknowns.


And so, with the on-slaughter of the financial ‘tsunami’ not coming to a halt, myself like any ordinary blokes, gits, nerds, jerks will suffer the same fate. I lost all my financial investment (it hasn't reached rock bottom yet but is pursuing along that direction) along with my stocks and other forms of investment which I should say didn't look as though it will ever recover. I am not sage when it comes to things that can twist and turn in a matter of hours, and hence I don't want to predict but I do want to leave something to amuse myself while the whole financial world goes berserk. “When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales and storms and fog and the like but, in all my experience, I have never been in an accident ... of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.” These were the words of Captain Edward John Smith in 1907, 5 years before he became captain of the RMS Titanic.

Yes..... life, there is really nothing quite like it!

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