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Pulling, down at the Devonport
Many years ago, I was stood at the bar of what used to be the Devonport pub, idly chatting to the two girls next to me, what followed was basically what is happening now with the stock markets.
So there we are, I'm not chatting up, just making idle conversation, periodically someone says "excuse me" and stands between us to order some drinks.
Then this guy takes the place, and starts doing the hard sell (of himself) on these two girls, and every time they look at me (we had been having a conversation, I forget about what) matey starts doing his Mr Cool.
After a few minutes it starts working, the girls are simpering and Mr Cool is feeling is oats.
Me? I could have cared less, really, until Mr Cool did something very silly, he sneered at me to my face, and the girls simpered.
Now normally I'm a pretty placid bloke, I'm street wise enough to read the signs and not be in a pub when a fight breaks out, and smart enough to say "see you later" to people who aren't. But sometimes, well sometimes we all like a bit of fun.
So instead of doing what I was going to do, which having finished my pint was leave, I call Benny (the owner) over and order another one, but I say it in a "and der uzi nine millimeeta" tone of voice.
Benny just lifts his eyebrow and smirks, he got the message, Mr Cool and the girls look at me to.
So I turn to matey and say "Turn your pockets out on the bar." and start doing the same myself.
He is acting all confused and uncertain, so I give him some attitude and ensure compliance.
OK girls, we are about to do a little experiment, and this experiment is about image and bullshit, and here I am in jeans and a shirt, and here is matey in designer jeans and a trendy tee shirt with gel in his hair.
We already know matey here is rude, he just butts in, and I don't say anything and you two don't say anything, and then he starts laying his line of bullshit down and you two start buying it.
Benny is smiling, several conversations around us have stopped.
"What bullshit?" says matey.
"Your bullshit" I tell him, everything you said was bullshit, in fact everything you are is bullshit, so lets look at what we have on the bar.
We'll start with the keys, I drove here in a morris van, what did you drive here in?
He smirks, XR3i, is it your car? I ask him, Yes he says, right I say, lets go outside and burn both of them.
WHAT!!! Why not I say, it is after all YOUR car like you said innit, no skin off my nose, I'll just use another car from home.
So it ain't actually his car, it is the banks car, and he has made 3 payments on it.
So you're going to show these two girls a good time in your bank managers car huh?
Benny is now chuckling, all other conversation has ceased, even the jukebox has been turned off.
I pick up his wallet and empty it on the bar, fifteen quid and some change, "Cheap date huh, you girls going to put out for fish and chips."
Now do the same to my wallet, I tell him.
There is a couple of hundred in there.
OK I say, since you don't want to burn the car, how about we burn this?
Nooooo
Why not, after all you're only going to be down fifteen quid and some change that won't burn anyway, where I'll be down 200 quid.
mumble
what
I need to put petrol in the car to get home
oh dear, and where is home?
home is a shared flat, so you can't actually offer these girls a private home to relax in then, is it worth rubbing salt in the wound by saying I own a 7 bedroom house (I did back then) with enough cash in the deposit account to pay the mortgage off if it wasn't for the tax breaks.
"So there you go, that's what you are, total bullshit, and as for you girls, I wasn't trying to chat you up, but you see what you got, compared to what you could have got, so the next time you have a crap date you know who to blame, yourself."
raucous cheering, I pick up my stuff, nod to benny and go home.
What the hell has this sorry tale got to do with the stock markets.
Absolutely everything.
Stock markets and money markets are, we are always being told, about CONFIDENCE, but they aren't, unless you use that word the way it is used when you say "confidence trickster", because what these things really are all about is IMAGE.
If you can maintain the right image, your stuff sells, but image is a precious thing, and once the chip and pin machines go down and disconnect all the Mr Cool's from their overdraft facilties, suddenly it is a lot harder to act like money is falling out of your ass, and the only guy who can actually buy a drink is the guy with cash money in his pocket.
Yeah Jimmy, you're really cool, but Pugsley has money.
Back in the politically incorrect days when this Devonport incident happened, we could tell jokes about "pass the parcel in an irish pub" eg the parcel was a ticking IRA bomb.
As long as the music kept playing and the bomb kept ticking the parcel moved at a frenetic pace, but despite this furious industry nothing is actually being made, and there is no confidence in it.
When the music stops and one person is left holding the parcel, nobody wants to sit next to you, and again, it isn't because of a lack of "confidence" in you.
Back in the Devonport Mr Cool had plenty of "confidence" in himself, and it worked, just as it usually worked for him, hence his arrogant self confidence, but confidence is like a balloon or virginity, one prick and it is gone.
In Mr Cool's place I was the prick, but it doesn't matter who was right and wrong, who was an asshole and who wasn't, the fact is Mr Cool could not have pulled in that pub if his life depended on it after I pricked his confidence.
Just like pass the parcel in the irish pub, once the music stops and your holding the parcel and in the silence can suddenly hear it ticking, nothing is going to induce you to want to hold that parcel again.
The image of Mr Cool took a beating, just as the image of the parcel takes a beating as soon as you hear it ticking.
Mr Cool could actually have been a decent bloke if he dropped the bullshit, and the ticking parcel could contain a very nice alarm clock and not a bomb, but none of that matters once the image is tarnished.
This is what we have now in the markets.
The fact is that you can't hand a buch of cash to Mr Cool or to the pass the parcel contestants and make them suddenly change their image of what is going down.
The fact is we are hardwired to want to see some blood on the floor, only then can we say to ourselves that that potential threat has blown up in someone's face. pat ourselves down and find no limbs missing, and say "well, we dodged that one, trebles all around!"
A few major banks here and there going to the wall, and a few Mr Cool "Masters of the Universe" in the city sloping off to the Caymans doesn't count as blood on the floor.
"confidence" in the markets isn't going to "return" until the things that called it into question have blown up in someone's (preferably someone else's) face.
The ticking parcel isn't sub-prime 125% interest only mortgages, the ticking parcel is the pub full of Mr Cools when the chip and pin tills go down, only cash money is going to buy a beer.
Being "worth" 50k doesn't mean jack shit if you don't have the cash in your pocket to buy a beer.
The "market" isn't going to recover until it sees beers being bought for cash and dancing by the jukebox, and Mr Cool isn't going to be the one to start that ball rolling.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY.
The moral is that while we all want to blame the Masters of the Universe, or quote Woody Allen (a stockbroker is someone who invests your money until it is all gone) the fact is that the pubs and streets are full of Mr Cools, the world & their dog are living it large and living a lie.
I don't do drugs, drug users should be whipped at the stake and then burnt. Lights a cigarette, drinks a beer, pops a valium.
What do you mean? These are drugs, THESE ARE LEGAL!!!!
It is this whole world of "that which I do not do" and I will redefine what I do as far as necessary to ensure that it does not conflict with that which I do not do.
Mr Cool didn't deserve what I did to him, I was an asshole, but people are quite happy to watch one person being an asshole to another person. It is often entertaining for them.
Nowadays everyone is basically Mr Cool, and the asshole is someone like JP Morgan saying "I will buy you at 5 cents a share, out of spare change I find down the back of my sofa and belly button fluff"
But it still sin't going to end until there is blood on the floor, enough blood so that those remaining standing can convince themselves that it is over and they have dodged the bullet.
And that means lots and lots of Mr Cools are going to have the blood spilled on every high street before anyone from the masters of the universe comes back from the Caymans.
It's the herd at work.
It knows the Lions are still out there, stalking.
That laughing you hear is the asshole Hyenas, like me.