Photo Minute: The Claddagh Galway in 1932

Since Antiquity, Money Men Have Been The Target Of Vitriol

                                             Quintus Antonius Balbus coin (c. 82-83 BC)

Today’s bankers are widely reviled. Bonus season – usually in February – gives rise to headlines such as: Fat cats getting fatter? Banker's bonus culture lives on as millionaires' club tops 2700 and It's a New Year for Goldman fat cats! The financial crisis has only increased the opprobrium.

It was ever thus: since antiquity moneymen have been the target of vitriol. Cato the Elder, writing in the second century BC, likened the act of lending money to that of murder and many literary works of the period portrayed the argentarii (bankers) as immoral. 

Yet the argentarii were a vital part of the Roman economy – just as they are today. Recent research reveals that the failure of Rome’s leaders to support the bankers had a devastating effect upon the economy just as it was experiencing a period of unprecedented growth.

Dr Philip Kay of Wolfson College Oxford has produced the most detailed analysis of Rome’s economic development in the late Republic period and this week speaks at the Legatum Institute about his work. Following the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC) Rome experienced a period of exceptional economic growth. Military success saw the Romans collect indemnities from the Syrians, Macedonians, Carthaginians and Seleucids amongst others. In the 50 years after the war 1,050 tonnes of silver arrived in the city. The result was an expansion of the money supply; partly in the form of an increase of Denarii in circulation, from 68 million in 150 BC to 240 million in 50 BC, but also in the form of bank deposits, as banks and wealthy individuals extended credit to those who wanted it. This fuelled investment in urban infrastructure and agriculture, increasing demand and stimulating Mediterranean trade, which is estimated to have increased by over 500% between 249 and 50 BC.

Dr Kay estimates that the result was real GDP per capita growth of around 0.54% per annum between 150 and 50 BC, meaning that real GDP per capita grew by 72% taking the century as a whole. Such gains, like with today’s economic growth, were unevenly spread. The wealth of the elite grew by around 500%, while non-elite wealth grew by only 77%. However in 88 BC Mithradates VI invaded Asia Minor and seized many Roman investments in the region, causing shockwaves to ripple through the Roman economy.

The result is reminiscent of the global economy in the period between 2001 and 2007, where a period of sustained economic growth was followed by a credit crunch and recession. Kay himself draws this parallel. In recounting a passage of Cicero’s that outlines how the Roman ‘credit and this system of monies… is linked with, those Asian monies; the loss of one inevitably undermines the other and causes its collapse’ Kay suggests substituting ‘US sub-prime’ for ‘the Asian monies’ and ‘UK banking system’ for ‘the system of monies’.

Yet there is one important difference between the two episodes. Unlike their ancient counterparts policy-makers in 2008 (by and large) responded effectively to the crisis. Central banks cut interest rates, governments enacted fiscal stimuli and organisations such as the WTO and IMF helped ensure that international trade continued. As Professor Daniel Drezner of Tufts University puts it in his recent book: The System Worked. The support of banks and the financial system was vital in this. While the profits of the financial sector took a hit, and pay and employment decreased, many top executives continued to be paid six figure bonuses. The alternative, as Rome’s experience will show, could have been much worse.

In the same year that the crisis began the consuls Sulla and Pompeius Rufus passed a law that allowed partial repayment of debts and capped interest rates. Later Sulla confiscated the properties of prominent Roman citizens, an act which drove down property values, further undermining the balance sheets of the battered banks. There were similar actions taken in response to later crises which meant that credit remained tight for the remainder of the first century. Politically, the populist response of the Republican elite, in further damaging the Roman economy, hastened the demise of the Republic. Today’s leaders would be wise to heed the dangers of pandering to populist sentiment.

In AD 33 Tiberius took one of the few prudent steps to address an economic crisis when he stimulated lending through interest free loans, something that Kay describes as ‘functionally the same as what we would call quantitative easing’. Ironically today’s quantitative easing is held responsible for inflating asset values and generating wealth for financiers and the rich alike.

The Roman Republic holds a salutary lesson: during a crisis, support for the financial system is often necessary to stave off a full-blown depression. It is likely that during the next crisis we’ll find ourselves supporting the modern-day argentarii again. 

By Stephen Clarke (a Research Analyst at the Legatum Institute, London.)

Dover Police DashCam Confessional (Shake it Off) Funny, funny !!

The Practice Of Being Happy Is The Best Workout (Part 4) An open letter to a friend

Humour displays an honesty about you, and people will know the difference. Having it and you can get a way with a lot. Self deprecating humour is a great way to lower barriers. For a start it shows that you do not take yourself serious and people by their nature worry about things like that. If you practise this type of humour, mean it. Listen rather than talking and people will actually remember what a great conversationist you were  as well even though you hardly said anything at all. Put it another way, people are more interested in what they are saying rather than what you said, and will remember strongly long afterwards on how you made them feel too. There is a lot of work to be done here but with all things, the more you practise….well you know the rest.

There is an old, and I mean old, Chinese saying for living life to the full: ‘Having something to do, having someone to love and having something to look forward to.’ If you have all three then you are away in a hat. But if you have just one of these things going on in your life this is a good thing, and by that benchmark too there is a good chance that the other one or two goals will come in time. In fewer word, get busy !!

Humour or laughter has shown conclusively that it builds the immune system against illness and disease. It has medicinal power of the best out there whether it is of the conventional or non-conventional kind, and is a legal high (and free) and better than any hash or whatever else you fancy.

Dammit, humour is the best medicine. So aside from all the other social taboos and no go areas that you are currently wrestling with it that is stopping humour running wild in your head, let us look at some of those in other people. You may be surprised how they apply to you. You are not that different and most of this ‘important’ stuff is really just garden variety bacon and cabbage dinners anyway. Lets set about setting you ‘free’ or at least trying.

In a study recently it was asked of men and women what bothered them the most beyond making a living. The answer that came back at number one place in that study was what other people thought of them. Of course all life being local in one way or another, this applied to family, extended relations and friends. Keeping up with the ‘Joneses’ it seemed was more than a state of mind. 

When the Celtic tiger rolled into Ireland, (and it could have been anywhere else too!!) on borrowed money and time for little over a decade, and left afterwards with a wimper and its tale between its legs, the ‘what will people think of me’ psychosis  (WWPTOM for short) practically had become a national disease with no known cure, at least then. 

Wife's bought brand new range rover jeeps just to pop down to the local shop, well, really to be seen, setting themselves back around 40,000 euros just for that kick of, ‘I’ve got one over on you feeling.’

Developers and solicitors, and other lesser known species bought ever bigger jeeps and considered it a privilege for you that they would even take time out just to take your phone call. Come to think of it, we considered it one too if they did, and if you got paid for all the work that you did for them, that would have been considered a blessing on top as well.

WWPTOM back then created all sorts of heightened secondary mental illnesses as well like arrogance, narcissism and plain downright bullying in tandem with so much corruption that to be truthful or straight was considered a mental decease in itself.

To be continued…… 

Barry Clifford

Photo Minute: Cold but beautiful England (click on photo for best results)

The Practice Of Happiness Is The Best Workout ( an open letter to a friend) (Part 3)

All the usual cliches apply that laughter is the best medicine. It is the most physical manifestation of feeling and being happy. A high that is as good as sex, well, nearly, and it shows. When Norman Cousins, a man who seemed to have it all, was diagnosed with a form of cancer and told he had but months to live, he took that message lying down and set to work to be able to stand up again. He used every trick in the book of laughter to laugh his way back to health: funny videos, movies, and happy people. Only six months later his cancer was in remission and he was back even more happy than he was before. 

In a controlled experiment over many years, doctors took a sample of two types of people and circumstance and watched what happened. One type were in bad relationships, caring for someone that had a debilitating illness alone, and who had a curmudgeon personality. Single mothers and single middle aged men were in there too, along with other negative type personalities- so on and so forth. 

The other type of course were the opposite. Under the microscope doctors found the negative situation, and people associated with it, produced increased cancer cells, while the positive type person produced less or none at all with increased anti bodies to fight any that might manifest itself. That's the science. There is more....

Laughter produces endorphins, a natural high better than any pint of Guinness in a thatched pub with an open fire and Van Morrison playing in the background. Happy people make others happy and want to be around each other. The exact opposite is also true for Mr Sad and Mrs negative. You will have more friends and a better chance of getting the girl as well. All of this increases in a social setting than an isolated one, so get out and about whether you want the girl or not. 

When you are depressed, the body, as already said, shows it in how you look, walk and talk. But by simply walking with more confidence, shoulders back, smiling more and speaking strongly and clearly, the body reverses the message to the mind. A sort of trick that enables you to get back in the groove. Keep the negative body too long and it may well stay that way. There is more good news........

Barry Clifford

To be continued.........

The Practice Of Being Happy Is The Best Workout (An open letter to a friend I know) (Part 2)

.....but before we concentrate on the physical first it is perhaps better to lighten or enlighten up the mind a bit with an inconvenient truth: Let's look at the scientific maths of what makes you and me. Not a whole lot there I'm afraid. 80% water, 20% blood, bone and gristle and the rest is opinion. It is that opinion that can be the death of you or the life blood of what it means to have fun and especially poking some of that at yourself while you are at it.

If you are still taking yourself serious at this point, let's look at a few more facts: We are, give or take a percentage or two, an ape. Of course I'm not calling you a monkey, no, it is me who is the monkey.....and all in good time perhaps that these things become self evident. 

This of course may be just one more of those vexing opinions that us humans have, and for me it is just hard to refute Charles Darwin and all the scientists that came after him that said he did not go far enough in believing that we descended from the ape. Fransde Waal, a primate scientist, said all this on National Geographic in 2005 and unless I get opposite proof, I'm sticking with him, for since then the evidence has only gotten a lot stronger. There's more........

There's also the amazing and rarified odds that you got here at all, ape or not.

A man passes on average 250,000,000 cells to his partner ever time they copulate for want of a better word. Now, if things get out of hand, pardon the pun, or whatever passes for lovemaking these days, then the chances of you being born at all would have got a whole slimmer on that night you were conceived. This does not even include the forces that your ancestors faced, and we all want them to be Vikings anyway descended from one of their Norse Gods, and not the drunk that copulated with a rough house Madam that no one else wanted ( hence the reason she became a Madam in the first place) three hundred plus years ago. 

Think of the fighting that went on, and your ancestral daddy and mammy came through it all. There is also this: That night again or day you were conceived you went up against those 250,000,000 hopefuls and won, and their chance, which was and always only going to be one, will never come again. You see, you are tougher than you think and if nothing else is a reason to be cheerful. If you still are serious about you or life there is more again........

To be continued………

Barry Clifford