I like dictionaries. Call me old fashioned but I still use my “Collins English Gem Dictionary” (1960 reprint). I know that with two clicks of a mouse you can find anything online but the tactile joy of thumbing through a dog-eared dictionary and discovering words like sphagnum and megatherdum by accident and learning 1 myriagram equals 1.5747 stone is not to be underestimated. If we wait long enough all words come back into fashion and maybe, we can stop our over reliance on jargon.
The doom and gloom media are in full flow looking for problems and reasons to bitch and moan. We have rising commodity prices, supply chain failures, panic buying of petrol, insulate Britain driving up the price of glue, the excessive worshipping of the new green religion, “containergeddon” and most importantly, the risk that there could be a shortage of toys at Christmas and that’s before we even mention C*V*D-1*.
A lot has been written about the failure of supply chains and how the Government needs to intervene to make sure supply chains are “robust and fit for purpose”. And yet, many of these same people will still complain about the Governments interference in the minutiae of their normal lives. Maybe it’s convenient to have someone to blame in this angry twitter world but problems tend to be met with solutions, eventually, and the world moves on.
In any event, the supply chain issues we’re seeing now will invariably only be temporary but create an opportunity for fast moving financiers to support their clients through the storm and maybe add some value for both parties. Every crisis is an opportunity and all that.
Nice bit of volatility in commodity prices creating some perfect scenarios for the bigger traders with lots of lines. But, as usual cash is king, and the smaller guys will be running around ensuring they have sufficient cash to meet those nasty margin calls. Checking those monthly cash flow forecasts is more important than ever.
Some random thoughts that have occurred to me recently
- Documents don’t commit fraud – people do
- Build Back Better is only a triple B rating…… can’t we do better than that?
- I think all public speakers should be reminded of Mark Twain’s quote “if you tell the truth you don’t need to remember anything”
- Spellcheck can be dangerous
- Credit lines are like relationships – they are not always forever
- If commodity prices didn’t go up and down wouldn’t it be boring out there?
I’ll leave you with the thoughts of the Goo Goo Dolls –
“What’s the point in all this screaming, No one’s listening anyway”
