Income inequality and the foreign conundrum
There are echoes of pre-Chavez Venezuela in the UK these days. A classic example of elite capitalism and the virtually insurmountable gap between the haves and have nots. In Caracas, the elite lived in guarded mansions in the Eastern hills of the city with bodyguards accompanying them everywhere. The benefits of decades of petroleum revenues never made it into the barrios of the Western hills of the city. President Hugo Chavez was the result.
Investing in vice
Late one night, over a cigar and a 1958 Armagnac in the craftily hidden Garden Bar of the Lanesborough Hotel, I was told of a great investment opportunity. The Vice Fund, a mutual fund that had outperformed its benchmarks by “an order of magnitude.”
As a rule, investment tips exchanged in bars where billionaires lurk darkly should be ignored. But the appeal of a fund that invests in industries that are automatically excluded from corporate responsibility indices, ones that appeal to self-destruction and the destruction of others (smoking and arms manufacturers), as well as addiction (gaming and alcohol), tickled my fancy. Philip Morris is its biggest holding, along with Lockheed Martin and Carlsberg, among others.
Corporate governance: a Lent tale
Giving up chocolate for Lent proved impossible so I decided to do something more proactive, namely trying to be more patient. Note my realism: trying rather than being, else it would have been as impossible. I presume Prime Minister Gordon Brown is on a similar quest, following recent allegations of phones being flung amid volcanic rages.
Patience is all the more apropos, I realised, when a wise chairman told me it was one of the attributes I would need to make a success of my new career, as I cosseted prospective non-executive directors through the process of board level headhunting.
The Templars at War
Religion, politics and sex are not fit subjects of conversation for a dinner party, an old saying has it. To add sparkle to my blog – which today deals with PIGS, BRICS and taxes – I have ensured they are all alluded to in this post.
The imagination of financial market participants is often captured by absurdly named arbitrary groupings. PIGS is one of them. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are all very different countries, even in their debt levels, deficits and economic capacity.
BRICs is another misnomer. Coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs to stand for the high-growth emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the thesis is that by 2050 their combined economies could be larger than those of the current richest countries of the world.