TRAWLING through that mountain of conventional wisdom and modish 'solutions' that is the report of the Parliamentary banking commission it occurred to me that, somewhere, someone is putting together a major piece of work that declares that everything we think we know about the causes of the Great Recession is, in fact, wrong.
I would guess this sage is a young-ish academic based in a British, American or Commonwealth university (I rule out continental European economists - their apparent view of economics as a mere branch of public administration is what gave Europe the euro).
Here are the rough outlines of what will be a hugely influential argument. One, the crisis was not caused by bankers, and especially not by allegedly 'inappropriate incentive structures'. Two, nor was it caused by easy money from central banks or the folly of 'light-touch regulation'.
Three, the credit rating agencies did nothing wrong and ought not to face heavy-handed legislation. Four, sub-prime lending was not really to blame for the crisis. Five, the over-mighty financial sector supposedly at the heart of the crisis was more mythical than real.
I don't say I agree with all or necessarily any of these arguments, but you can bet that the revisionist view of the crisis is already under construction. One day it will gain its author the Nobel Prize for economics.
You read it here first.
1) Metal man in memoriam
IN the summer of 1989, I was on Guernsey, covering a financial conference and facing the prospect of dining alone for the first evening, my mate Larry Elliott not flying in until the following day. On the hotel book rack I found and purchased what looked like a decent read for the evening, Metal Men by A. Craig Copetas (Futura; 1987), the story of then fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich, whose death was reported a few days ago.
Rich was wanted by the American authorities with regard to both tax and to charges of trading with Iran in defiance of sanctions. Sensibly he holed up in Zug, a Swiss canton that appeared to have no extradition arrangements with anyone, perhaps not even with the rest of Switzerland.
One tale of Rich's sanctions-busting exploits falls firmly into the category of 'ought not to be funny, but is'. The time is 1978, and Rich is buying oil from the Nigerians on the understanding that it is being sold on to Spain.
The author relates a Rich trader recalling: '[O]ne day they followed our ship 25 miles out of port and saw it hang a left instead of a right.' Yes, indeed, the 'Spanish oil' was actually bound for South Africa.
'[W]hen the Nigerians found out they cancelled the contract. It cost us a million chocolates to get the contract back.' This last is a reference to a $1 million bribe.
Rich was eventually pardoned by President Clinton on his last day in office, an action that has never been satisfactorily explained.
2) You know my methods, Watson
A somewhat alarming notice has appeared in the booking hall of our local small-town railway station. It seems there was an assault last Friday at about midnight. Mm. British Transport Police is asking for witnesses. OK dokey. The appeal has been issued by something called the 'area intelligence bureau', a title redolent of J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men.
Now given the day and the time, I would suggest you don't need Holmesian feats of perception to guess that said assault may in some way have been connected with the earlier consumption of alcohol. Not so much a three-pipe problem, more a ten-pint solution.
3) Those were the days
SOME years ago, my nephew and niece gave me the first two series of Lead Balloon on DVD, and I have only just got round properly to watching them. In a fine tradition stretching back at least to Tony Hancock, Jack Dee (a real-life successful comedian) plays a fictional not-very-successful comedian, Rick Spleen. His other half Mel (Raquel Cassidy) works for a talent agency whose clients seem a little short of, er, talent. Their daughter Sam (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) is a waste of space sixth-former surpassed in the lethargy stakes only by her useless boyfriend Ben (Rasmus Hardiker).
Thus I have become possibly the last person in the country to discover what is an hilarious show. Yet watching the first series, something niggled away and it was not for some time that I figured out what it was.
Consider: the family home is a spacious North London house, well-appointed and comfortable. The couple enjoys good food and wine, and is forever supplying the daughter with cash handouts. There is even an East European servant, played by Anna Crilly - not a nanny, but a proper traditional housekeeper.
Spleen wastes money in all directions, and he and his joke writer (Sean Power) eat out every lunchtime. Yet money is never mentioned as a problem at all.
But then, the copyright slug on the packaging gives the game away: the first series was broadcast in 2006, pre-Great Recession.
Thanks again for reading and enjoy the weekend.
dan.atkinson@live.co.uk
Going South: Why Britain Will Have A Third World Economy By 2014, by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson is published by Palgrave Macmillan