A return to lexicography

I notice Messrs Jekyll and Hyde have painstakingly added a few more entries to their Dictionary.

A modern lexicographer: James Murray in Oxford



Plus ca change or Apres moi...

En attendant Napoleon:

Never mind the revolution, foreign autocrats, with their nice grasp on permanence, know whom they really need to speak to!

One Whitehall official suggested [Prince] Andrew's continued role reflected the British government's need for his influence in autocratic countries where leaders are not satisfied with contact with a changing roster of ministers.

"He is particularly valuable in some parts of the world where continuity is valued over continually changing personnel."

Byron Dorgan

“And as banks get bigger, of course, we also have another doctrine. The doctrine in banking at the Federal Reserve Board is called, “too big to fail.” Remember that term, “too big to fail.” It means at a certain level, banks get too big to fail. They cannot be allowed to fail because the consequence on the economy is catastrophic and therefore these banks are too big to fail. Virtually every single merger you read about in the newspapers these days means we simply have more banks that are too big to fail. That is no-fault capitalism; too big to fail. Does anybody care about that? Does the Fed? Apparently not."

Byron Dorgan 4 November 1999

See also:

http://vimeo.com/35736514

Complicated

Distracted chief executive

The non-executive chairman of RBS has 'declined' a £1.4 million share bonus which, apparently, he was not going to qualify for anyway. The chief executive has been awarded a £1 million bonus, which was necessary to retain and incentivise him, but has decided to decline it because it would have been a distraction to him in his continuing work at the bank. The bank's shares, 80 per cent of which are owned by the state following its rescue from collapse, have halved in value over the past twelve months. The chief executive, it is reported, could still receive other share awards bringing his total remuneration package this year to about £8 million. He is probably too busy to have noticed that. His 'basic' salary is £1.2 million per year.

This may be thought a foolishly facetious observation, but my point is that senior people's pay may be set by a market (though it is clear that it is not currently an efficient market), but any market is always a cultural, and sometimes a quite deliberate, construct. The market within which senior executives operate is now quite separate from that within which more lowly people find themselves, but not only are the two part of the same functioning body, the former, at least as it applies to banks, is now completely underwritten by public support and guarantee. Such a state of affairs cannot flourish.

See also:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/30/stephen-hester-rbs-pay-deals



Before the gilded icon

and:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15487866

Sauve qui peut - or captains and bankers first



Bail out: the global economy sinks

 http://londonbanker.blogspot.com/2012/01/survivor-bias-and-tbtf-tyranny.html

And, changing the headline to something altogether more sombre, 'The protection of the law' perhaps:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/subordination-101-walkthru-sovereign-bond-markets-post-greek-default-world#comments

There is much convolution before one gets to this rather wipe-out possibility:

Before we proceed we would like to also point out one very curious Catch 22, in that if indeed Greece succeeds with its own exchange offer with the world not imploding, the natural next step would be for the other PIIGS to proceed with just such an exercise in order to cut their own debt load by up to 70%. Because while Greece may have the advantage, the question now become who will be second. Paradoxically, the more success this global strategy has, the deeper it sows the seeds of Europe's destruction, as more and more bondholders will actively shy away from all weak bonds first in the PIIGS, then in Europe, then in the world. Until at the end, there is no end-market demand, and the only buyer remains the central bank.

The New Socialist

Perhaps we should start reading The Daily Telegraph more - and more.

An afflictive phenomenon

It was in this year also that the Hogarth Club was started - 'that afflictive phenomenon' as Carlyle called it: 'a club not small enough to be friendly and not large enough to be important, a room to which nobody sends things and Friday night meetings to which nobody cares to go. Funerals are performed in the shop below through which one passes.

Edward Lear: Landscape Painter and Nonsense Poet 1812-1888 by Angus Davidson, 1938