Uncle Roy's Guidelines No 6

Understanding Derivatives

My friend Helen used to run a popular wine bar in Clifton, Bristol ...

She realized that virtually all of her customers were unemployed alcoholics and, as such, they could no longer afford to patronise her bar.
To overcome this problem, she came up with a new marketing plan that allowed her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Helen kept a record of the drinks they consumed, in effect granting the customers loans to be repaid at a later date.
Word got around about Helen's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flooded into her bar. Soon she had by far the largest sales volume for any bar in Clifton.
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helen got no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increased her prices for cider, wine and beer, the most popular drinks.
Consequently, Helen's gross sales volume increased massively.
A young and dynamic local bank manager recognised that these customer debts constituted valuable future assets and, to encourage her, regularly increased Helen's borrowing limit.
He saw no reason for concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figured a way to make huge commissions, and transformed these customer loans into a security called DRINKBONDS.
These securities were then bundled and sold on international securities markets.

It didn't seem to matter that investors didn't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics in Clifton, Bristol. The demand for Drinkbonds continued to rise and the securities soon became a recommended purchase for some of the nation's leading finance brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still were climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decided that the time had come to request payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helen's bar. He informed Helen.
She in turn, demanded payment from her loyal patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics, they were not able to clear their debts.

Since Helen could not fulfil her loan obligations, she was forced into bankruptcy. The bar closed and Helen's 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices dropped by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Helen's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.
They found they were now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claimed bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations. Her cider and beer supplier was taken over by a competitor, who immediately closed the local plant and laid off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives were saved by a multi-billion pound no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.
The funds required for this bailout were obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helen's premises.

Now do you understand?

2011 Valentine - Draft

==========================

You've made a fool of me, me dear,
Of I you've made a chump,
You gave your word you'd deal wi' 'im,
That gormless oafish tump,
But still, I'm told, he's in yer bed,
You promised I'd be there instead,
We'd 'ave it orf, and then we'd wed,
You lying, no good strump.

Get 'em down now. Get 'em down now,
I think you should get 'em down now,
Wayhay!

Having said that with justification,
My mind has turned to fornication,
And being well aware of the implication,
I think you should get 'em down now.

Get 'em down now. Get 'em down now,
I think you should get 'em down now,
Wayhay!

My feelings for you are of total affection,
As the Chinese say, I'd like an election,
And I promise you full personal protection,
So I think you should get 'em down now

Get 'em down now. Get 'em down now,
I think you should get 'em down now,
Wayhay!

For the autumn leaves, I use my blower,
In winter my movements get slower and slower,
In spring I search for a frolicksome goer,
I think you should get 'em down now.

Get 'em down now. Get 'em down now,
I think you should get 'em down now,
Wayhay!

(Letter to Bristol Legacy Commission after attending meeting 15th Feb 2010)


Dear Cherene,

Thanks for warm welcome at meeting on 15th February and it was good to meet you.

I attended because I am concerned with the feeble and apologetic pose BCC seems to adopt in relation to the city's past.
I was hoping to see a more positive approach to building a united community in the city. One that, perhaps, did not exhibit the guilt-ridden angst that has been promoted so much in the last few years, at least since the Macpherson Report of 1999, (I think).

I came with an open mind.

I'm afraid I left a very disappointed person.

When an organisation chooses such a laudable ambition as 'Community Cohesion' but conducts its activities in a way, it seems, directly opposed to the success of its objectives, it does cause dismay.

Community cohesion is such a wonderful phrase and something I hope all intelligent citizens would work towards. However, the obsession with BME issues is paradoxical given this aim. And even the BME focus seemed so predominantly Black and, perhaps, Caribean, in terms of activities supported that I fear we may be damaging rather than healing difficulties within our communities if the focus of the Legacy Commission is not to be changed radically.

For example, mention was made of the evil of people trafficking, something not unknown in current day Bristol, but then a curriculum development programme dealing with historic slavery was endorsed. Is there any fundamental difference between the evils of both slavery and people trafficking? And should not the current failures be of more concern than glorying in the past?

The discussion reinforced my view that Bristol concentrates too much on promoting the victim culture. Many of the observations made emphasised the importance of proportionality (eg: a White dominated football industry) but failed to concede that the captain of the England team and the proportion of players in the national and other top teams was more Black than would be under true proportionality. Not that I agree with proportionality which is arguing, at best, for a new apartheid. I was even told a few years ago by an officer in the Equalities department in an open meeting that only black councillors can truly represent black citizens. Is this still the view of the Council?

I hoped we had moved on from such an ill-informed and anti-democratic opinions. From what I saw on Monday, there seems to have been little if any progresss.

The paper on Education proudly highlighted where BME performance exceeded non-BME. There can be no clearer evidence of the racist competitiveness behind such assertions and it certainly did not sound to me like an argument leading towards cohesion.

Without knowing the full background behind the proposals for funding put to the meeting, and there seemed to be little encouragement from the Chair when members asked for clarification, it did seem to me that they were pet projects from members of the committee rather than issues of wider community concern. To a certain extent I accept that this is inevitable, but I did wonder what arrangements there are for members to gather wider concerns and feed them to the Commission. Again, if I have not done my homework, please accept my apologies. If there are opportunities to influence the content of the meeting, I would be grateful if you would let me know.

If it would be of any interest for me to expand on the points made, I would welcome an opportunity to do so.

If possible, I will attend the next meeting to see give a more balanced view of the proceedings than I gathered from just this one experience.

I have copied this email to the councillors who were present and my own councillor (Cllr S. Cook) and am happy for it to be used for wider circulation if you think it appropriate.

Please ignore if of no interest to you.

Yours sincerely

Roy Tallis

(Letter to Bristol Evening Post, published 1st April)

Dear Sir,

I have attended the last two Bristol Legacy Commission meetings in order to gain a better understanding of the approach the Council is taking to improved community cohesion. I have also followed the correspondence in the EP re City of Sanctuary application, including the articles submitted by Rev. Barrett. I tried to see it from a sympathetic viewpoint but was astonished by the extent to which the debates seem to be promoting the very dependency I would hope we were trying to remove. I would urge more people to attend these meetings and see for themselves.

I do feel strongly that the conventional teaching of slavery is damaging to the self-esteem of the black community. In any case, as any well educated historian will tell you, most slaves were rounded up by Africans themselves, marched to the coast and then sold to British and other merchants at the slave ports in what is now Ghana. The reason for this is that white men could not easily survive in the interior of Africa and so needed willing black collaborators to "harvest" the slaves. Slavery was certainly not a uniquely white European crime. These forts/ports are now holiday destinations for those seeking a better understanding of their background.

I think teaching about the absurdity, ignorance and cruelty of racism might be useful, but black slavery is not as relevant to contemporary Britain or Bristol as is people trafficking, a more acceptable euphemism for slavery. More usefully, racism and bigotry prevention via education spreads the enlightenment net to cover Asians and other minority groups (including religious) as well. Another benefit of this would be to show the BME community that many other groups have faced prejudice and that they, the descendants of the African slaves, are not uniquely cursed.

Just ask the Welsh and Irish if in any doubt.

In addition, academic research in the US has shown that learning about accomplished role models from one's own group (e.g. Obama) has a more positive effect than enlarging the chips on people's shoulders. To be fair, there was some discussion of this at Monday's Legacy Commission meeting, but it seemed fairly patronising and, without using the word, was emphasising the importance of proportionality in representation and employment. Interestingly, several people were careful to point out that they were not in favour of quotas. The difference between proportionality and quotas is too subtle for my limited cranial capacity. As we know in Bristol, the Jewish/Zionist obsession with the Holocaust, which we encourage, is still being used to justify tremendous injustice against the innocent Palestinians. This is a very significant but not the only example of the harmful effects of promoting a victim culture in specific minority groups. For the good of our community, I believe we must stop this obsession with victims and martyrs.

I firmly believe that some of these politically correct behaviours to which we are so devoted in Bristol, and of which the Commission is an excellent example, are motivated by a kind of buried, latent, guilty, residual racism. By this I mean that some people promote the cruel absurdities of slavery in an attempt to prove to themselves and others that they have no racist feelings. The comments of the (white) councillors who were present at that meeting, plus the (white) council officers were in this category. They were trying too hard to be appalled. A true non racist is relaxed, logical and objective. Those representatives I've mentioned above used emotion and assertion to put over the points they were making and it was not at all convincing other than to those who were convinced already and had much to gain from their victim stance. Their jobs, careers and self-respect depend on them deceiving themselves that what is palpably false on any objective assessment, can be sufficiently convincing to justify the continuing payment of blood money in the form of grants to the alleged descendants of the alleged victims of the crimes largely perpetrated by their own countrymen.

I was left in no doubt that the work of the Legacy Commission, as currently conducted, is almost guaranteed to be dangerously counter productive to the cause of community cohesion and is likely to benefit extreme right-wing parties only.

The next meeting is on Monday, 14th June at the Council House, 6 - 8 pm. Visitors welcome.

Yours sincerely,

Roy Tallis,

7 Chantry Road, Clifton, BS8 2QF

01179731022