Change of host

I've decided to move my blog, I've been told Wordpress is superior to Blogger, so let's give it a go!

My link to my new blog is akenny02.wordpress.com , change your blogrolls to my new site!

Champions!

Let's All Go to Moscow

I've written a song to honour the occasion. The tune isn't original, but the lyrics are copyright Alastair Kenny 2008.

Let's all go to Moscow
Let's all go to Moscow
Na na na na (hey)
Na na na na

(to the tune of "Let's All Do the Bouncy")

An Insider's View

Until Sam Moore reminded me with this post, I had forgotten about my plans to write an article entitled "The Credit Crunch: Who is to Blame?". I squashed those plans, I'm a little scared of the Man, because he pays my rent.

There has been a lot of discussion around the involvement of Ben Bernanke and the Fed in financial markets. When things are good, banks hate Fed intervention: "Free market economy", they say. "Regulations? Have you read 1984?". But now, after the years of excess had so far inflated the bubble, the results of the POP have been catastrophic, and the same voices are crying out for Bernanke to wield his power to save the skins of the financial institutions; it's hypocritical at a level I've never encountered. Fed intervention is the order of the day, in times when short positions and fearmongering can sink a huge bank in one solitary week. A bank that survived the Great Depression, no less.

The blame lies with many.
The money-grabbing banks and institutions, lapping up the profits from "triple A" rated CDOs, instruments deliberately complex to disguise the rotting smell of looming failure; mortgage brokers, who lowered their standards of underwriting so that I could buy Beckingham Palace if I had a tenner in my pocket; the Central Banks (the Fed, the BoE and the ECB), whose high interest rates only drove brokers to drive their criteria lower, and when the turmoil came, made a series of errors, the severity of each depends on your economic views; the Rating Agencies, "yes men" all too happy to tag AAA ratings onto subprime debt bound to fail as soon as the property markets fell (it's called a cycle for a reason); the Financial Guarantors, or Monolines, the AAA rated insurance companies who insured those bonds which would never have reached AAA status on their own (in effect, one insurance company guaranteed the entire state of California, the 6th largest economy in the world); greedy real estate speculators, who bought all they could to make a quick buck, forced first-time buyers into the rental markets, and abandoned their debts when residential property began to fall in value.

Now we are reaping what we have sown. The first victims were the homeowners, who suddenly couldn't pay their mortgages. In some areas of California, 1 in 20 houses were being repossessed; entire streets were deserted. It was during this time that I felt sick reading newspaper articles and financial reports, crying for Fed intervention. Young couples, working class families and pensioners were being kicked from their homes, and all the CEOs could do was complain about their profits from the previous year being wiped out.

Now, the situation is beginning to show full effect. Northern Rock and Bear Stearns disappeared; most of the monolines defaulted on their debt and lost their AAA status; banks recorded huge writedowns; investment banks sank, unable to access the emergency funding provided for the commercial banks. The result? Culls in financial institutions, thousands of job losses; John McCain unveiling his incredible lack of understanding of the economy, for a presidential candidate (though I'd throw that in there - go Obama); the Fed practically establishing a fourth branch of American government; interest rate cuts guaranteeing inflation rises when food prices are already rising, thanks to the "solution" to fossil fuel burning.

This is not behind us. We can expect foreclosures on mortgages until mid 2009, as teaser rates end and homeowners cannot afford to refinance. LIBOR is at a record high above the base rate, counteracting the actions of the BoE, and banks are still hoarding money, refusing to lend to each other, causing further delays to any progress in the markets. In recent news, student loan lenders in the US are backing out, leaving the supply of funding short of demand - so some students could miss out on a college education because noone would lend them the entrance fee.

And who said banking is boring? Well maybe it is a little. But the Great Depression's got nothing on us.

St Patrick's Day

Check out this St. Patrick's Day website, looks like it's gonna be awesome all weekend!

Come on down and hang out!

Juno

Go see this.


Then go buy this.



Official Juno site

Juno myspace

Suspension of Disbelief

(Following on from my previous post...)

I think that part of my problem with the Bible begins with teaching, not dissimilar to our the remarks of our preacher friend here. I've never doubted the authority of the Bible, I have always believed that it is God's way of communicating with us. But recently, I've begun to realise more and more that God speaks to us very powerfully through other mediums. I've always known this, but in the tradition I was brought up in, I never felt free enough to let myself believe that I could hear God through films, music, sport, and literature, amongst other things.

My musings caused to me write this post, about how it is arrogant to take Scriptures, bend it in a certain way, and call it "truth". When Scripture is explained, immediately it can be interpreted incorrectly. So sorry, preacher friend, I don't buy it.

I think I have begun to believe that we are putting too much emphasis on the Scriptures. Or, to rephrase, maybe we're putting the wrong emphasis on the Scriptures. We're taking this Almighty God, who created us, sustains us and spoke to us (partly) through his word, and trapping him in some leafs of paper.

So, in light of both misinterpretation of the Bible, closing God into the Bible, and my new-found discovery of God in my DVD collection, it stings to have a book (Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson) say this:

"We are in danger of succumbing to the widespread setting-aside of the Holy Scriptures and the replacing of them with the text of our own experience - our needs and wants and feelings - for authoritative direction in our day-to-day living".

I don't think I have disagreed with anything Eugene Peterson has said in the opening chapters, it just feels very Protestant to me - Father, Son and Holy Scriptures. On some level I'm not quite sure what bothers me so much, when I know that my relationship with God suffers if I don't read his word every day. I think it just brings up all the old issues I've had with the Bible, which to some degree I have glossed over with my experience of God, such as reading about him in fantastic redemption stories like that of the Simple Way.

There is one feeling that, if it were up to me, I would never feel again: the feeling that praying and reading my Bible and telling people about God is just a willing suspension of disbelief. Like I have to switch off my brain to sing in church. The feeling I get when someone looks at me incredulously when I refuse to accept "Biblical truths" without thinking about them. We can't understand God; so stop trying. Predestination exists, the Bible says so; stop arguing. Abortion is wrong, the Bible says so; stop showing me pregnant rape victims.

The Bible says so; have some faith, Alastair.