Fractional Summit
I went to the Fractional Summit last week, and it's the first event I've been to in a while that has exceeded my expectations.
I noticed many new faces, both developers and suppliers coming into the industry. In a time when most markets are looking inwards, it was great to see people actually making plans to enter or expand their operations in the fractional market.
Very excited also to see Barclays Wealth give a talk - an indication that some pretty big names have fractional in their radar.
All in all a very positive couple of days. I am really looking forward to growth in the fractional market, and hope next year will be even more successful.
The penny drops
Reading this post will cost you about 10 pence.
According to figures that have been described as optimistic, the UK government is set to borrow an extra £700 billion over the next five years.
There are countless figures and articles trying to put this in perspective using various techniques, including writing the full £700,000,000,000 number, or saying that interest payments for this amount will be more than the UK budget for defence.
There are then of course those who recall those bankers were deemed evil for borrowing too much with no real plan for repaying.
I decided instead to do this to understand the concept of time:
60 minutes x 24 hours = 1,440 minutes in a day.
x 365 = 525,600 minutes in a year
x 5 = 2,628,000 minutes in 5 years
And this to break down the numbers:
£700,000 million is the new debt (note the word new, this is to be added to existing debt)
26 million income tax payers in the UK
i.e. £26,923 new debt for each tax payer.
And then worked out that
£26923/2,628,000 minutes= £0.01 per minute
Equals 1p a minute
Every UK tax payer (me including) will borrow 1p a minute every minute, even when they sleep for five years.
And paying it back will also cost interest.
And that's also optimistic.
It's like picking up the phone and leaving it connected for five years.
Did the penny drop?
Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world
Came across this article in the FT recently.
Interesting to see that people have started providing some feedback on what needs to change. I wonder if our politicians will turn any of this into policy.
Less worse
Apparently, there are some "signs of recovery" in the world economy in recent days.
Well, economists and the US President have re-defined "recovery". Yes, unemployment is rising and bankruptcies are rising sharply. Yes, the housing market is still dead. And yes, car manufacturers and others are joining the banks and going to the government for help.
The governments themselves are not too rich either and are slowly creating a debt crisis of their own right.
But, things are getting "less worse" (a new term). That is to say, the stock markets are not falling as much as people thought, housing transactions and values are on a downward trend but not as sharp a trend as people thought, and so on.
In other words, the decline continues, but at a rate slower than some analysts were predicting.
Which could either mean stabilisation is on the way, or that those analysts panicked so much with "sell sell sell" as they did with "buy buy buy" in 2008.
My advice to everyone is not to listen to analysts, or at least to choose your analysts wisely.