the tale of the hound! a bestiary of our times

outside it is rainy and grey and unhopeful looking (ok it's picking up).

the hound of hounslow (as with the london whale - what is the bestiary?) has been using his parents personal computer to wipe billions off the 'value' of 'markets' (allegedly). as even the evening standard notes once upon a time a decent bond villain would have needed a converted supertanker or volcano with rogue nuclear submarines or spaceships and minions, thousands of minions. but the hound, merely by pretending to make stock market trades and then cancelling them, the stock market equivalent of innuendo, can so totally befuddle the gatekeepers of value (and their electronic trading algorithm assistants/ masters) that they completely lose faith in the underlying commodity/ industry... and stock market carnage results - but carnage with real results for peoples jobs and wellbeing.

however many persian cats/ sharks/ henchmen with metal teeth the hound owns or has on a retainer, he's a pretty poor villain (him, his PC, his parent's semi in the suburbs, his mere millions in swag) but the wider question needs to be asked - if the hound can do this what's to stop any other muppet following suit. it's a pretty poor way to run a planet that is so unstable that mutley here can push it over.

the london whale (un)worked at JP Morgan Chase (and Co.) - he lost $6.2 billion in 2012 but then co-operated and ratted up his supervisors who 3 years later are still fighting extradition from their home countries. just as with my comments with mayor bimmer yesterday it is the fact that the hound of hounslow is an independent that means he's probably toast.

but is not the tale of the hound (pause - no, oh well) merely the tale of our age writ exceeding small? a growth in the area of speculation in the economy that (accidentally?) crashes (because it is essentially unstable) wiping billions off the 'value' of capitalism all over the world that is then followed by a campaign of austerity to beat that lost value out of the workers. the money of the rich (hungry for return) floods into commodities driving up the price of rice and taking it out of the mouths of the poor man's children.

 'deliver the poor and needy from the hands of the wicked' sang misty in roots. 

over on mute some postulate a zombie apocalypse - it is no good hoping they say, no good hoping that things will get so bad that people will rise up (for example), no good hoping that things can only get better. we should embrace despair, keep moving anyway and become zombies). horsemouth is pleased to see these ambiguous beasts shuffling round the mall again (so much better mannered than the rage zombies).

horsemouth has been multiply distracted in his reading - currently he's with j.q.merquior and his western marxism. surveying the 20th century merquior seems to have liked every variety of marxism excepting western marxism (oh and stalinism). horsemouth has the founding document of the movement - lukac's history and class consciousness - he should give that a read next (he's ashamed to say he's never read it).

this evening horsemouth goes to babysit his brother's kids (well only the youngest one realy - the eldest can entertain himself with grand theft auto or slaughterhouse 5 or whatever it's called). at least they're not playing the stock markets yet.