What is it about those ghastly smug corporate TV ads
that seem to guarantee pending disaster?
The Equitable Life ran a campaign with some self-
satisfied gent proclaiming "It's an equitable life,
Henry". The heavens rightly took umbrage at this
codswallop and struck it down with a mighty financial
catastrophe which cut a swathe through the savings of
Middle England.
"You can be sure of Shell" is another...until it comes
to light that when they said "sure" they weren't
actually referring to their stated reserves of oil. In
Shell's case it was more a public humiliation rather
than financial ruin. Indeed, only yesterday its
rehabilitation in the eyes of the City took another step
forward when it revealed record breaking profits of
£13bn for the year.
Better than expected but the analysts are a hard bunch
to please. Costs are going up, production targets going
down and who knows where the oil price is going...
Still Reuters reports the news on oil replacement is
looking a lot perkier now that we have "alternatives" –
ie a vast swathe of Canadian tar sands.
- The scrap for the London Stock Exchange continues. Bob
'Hitman' Greifeld of Nasdaq says £12.43/share for the
LSE is a good price and he's not budging. If he doesn't
knock out the London Stock Exchange in 12 rounds, he'll
put lead in his gloves, hire them out to someone else to
have a go and watch from the corner as he threatens to
offer Nasdaq technology to a rival exchange.
- Shanghai surprise this week as the Chinese stock
market familiarised itself with the terms "bubble" and
"stocks can plummet as well as soar". Stocks fell almost
5% on Thursday and slewed another 4% today following
remarks from Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the National
People's Congress, warned that the stock market might be
"overheating".
A better week for the UK stock market, however, as the
FTSE100 closed up over 1% at 6,308 buoyed today by talk
of a private equity bid for Sainsbury. Reassuring
economic data has helped the US notch a good week too,
with the S&P500 currently up over 1.5% at 1445.
- Some are giving it away in spades...Gates, Buffett...
Others are still busy hoarding it...Branson. Ever the
gambler, he's going into the casino business with plans
for a $3bn resort reports the FT. Monte Carlo... old
hat! Las Vegas...it's been eclipsed don't you know...
The rising punter of the East load their pockets with
what's left of their renminbi from the Shanghai stock
market and hot foot for Macao...This once sleepy
Portuguese colonial backwater is now the fatal magnet
for those entranced by the peculiarly seductive thrill
of losing their money...
Is there a day goes by that Branson isn't in the news?
What a commercial chameleon he is. Launching this,
launching that...the guy is totally out to launch.
One minute the ethical investor, with planet saving
initiatives for alternative fuel next the vice operator
gagging for a slice of the action on one of the
commercial world's most lucrative money pots...
..and he targets a 'gap' in the market, the FT
explains, the '20-34 age group'. The 18-30 Club
equivalent for the twenty-first century perhaps? Sounds
er, commercial...
Yesterday yet another launch – this one a stem cell
storage business. This will store a newborn's umbilical
cord and placental blood should it prove useful for
illnesses it may suffer in the future such as heart
disease, Alzheimer's and Parkinsons. Sounds worthy but
New Scientist points out that "cures for these diseases
are a long way off and anyway, the likelihood of a
person developing a disease which their banked cells can
cure is small."
Never mind the detail this is the perfect business.
Decades of near guaranteed income plus the aura of
providing a benefit to the world. Great PR. Great
business. Useful? Um, not sure yet...
- Seen in the FT recently a revealing chart of Europe's
overweening dependence on Russian energy. How much of
the total are Russian oil imports...
Germany 34%
Belgium 39%
Holland 27%
Italy 22%
UK 12%
France 11%
Let not the pipelines run dry comrade...
- Is the golden age for New York's global dominance in
the banking business now history? New York mayor Michael
Bloomberg is clearly worried at signs of decline, not
least loss of business to London last year.
A McKinsey study, he commissioned, reported back that if
things carry on as they are, the Big Apple could shrivel
somewhat to the tune of 7% of its business share.
Voices are stirring Stateside at the loss of
competitiveness. Some bankers are even calling for a
principles-based approach to regulation along the lines
of the UK's Financial Services Authority. And here's us
across the pond bitching about it...
- Finally, I'm indebted to Steve Edwards, my colleague
across the desk here for alerting me to the story of one
man's miraculous escape...
A little the worse for wear after an evening on the
town, Joshua Hanson, ran down a hallway on the 17 floor
of his Minnesota hotel and straight through a floor to
ceiling window. He fell 160ft but lived thanks to a
first floor roof overhang that broke his fall.
The fact he was drunk was also said to have helped his
survival...though perhaps sober he wouldn't have
careened down the corridor in the first place, eh?
Bon week-end.
Regards
Rob Mackrill
The Daily Reckoning
THE SUNDAY RECKONING: Sermon Epiphany IV 2007
The showing forth of Our Lord Jesus Christ
The Rev'd Dr Peter Mullen,
Chaplain to the stock exchange:
In the gospel readings for the Sundays in Epiphany we
have some dramatic, even startling, pictures of Jesus at
the beginning of his ministry. Let's start by thinking
of the season of Epiphany itself. Like all the seasons
of the Church's Year, it has its own character. A winter
season like Advent, but a winter season that is not
plunging ever darker but one of lengthening light.
We never entirely escape our earliest memories. I
remember January afternoons when I was six or seven
years old, going with my grandfather on his newspaper
round in Armley. When we reached the top of Hedley
Street, Granddad would pause and tell me to look out
over the jail field: See, it's a bit lighter than it was
last week. As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens.
Every New Year I find myself recollecting those early
January days and I can see granddad's hands on the
straps of his paper bag. His mittens cut off so his
fingers were free to pick the papers out of the bag.
That winter scene, a grimy winter scene with the
chimneys over the back-to-back houses pouring smoke, the
gas works' siren sounding for the men to end their
shift; Armley jail like a great black medieval castle;
and behind it higher and blacker the steeple of St
Bartholomew's church watching over the suburb like a
Victorian grandparent. And the Epiphany hymn-tunes,
bright as the frost: Earth hath many a noble city; O
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; Hail to the
Lord's Anointed.
And a couple of winters later, coming home from school
and sitting mesmerised staring into the coal fire
listening to the wireless serial on Children's Hour: it
was called A Box of Delights. And all through it ran the
haunting seasonal music of Hely- Huthchinson's Carol
Symphony. Ah well, as they say, nostalgia isn't what it
used to be! But this is not just an exercise in
nostalgia. We most nearly understand words when we
incarnate them in things. All explanations are banal and
a waste of time. They do not penetrate to the centre of
things because explanations demystify. Rather, what is
required is for us to enter into the mystery and be
possessed by it. That is why sounds and scents and
images and half-heard voices from the distant past are
so evocative. The words made flesh.
In the same way that we recollect those old voices and
the childhood scene in a landscape now changed beyond
recognition, we should read the gospel stories of
Christ's Epiphany, his showing forth. But not just read
them, really recollect them, imagine them; enter their
world. See them.
So on Epiphany the wise men come. Imagine the brightness
of their lights in the dark stable which is more like a
cave. Their movements as they bring out Gold,
Frankincense and Myrrh. Open your Bible and repeat aloud
to yourself those words in that rhythm: And when they
were come into the house, they saw the young child with
Mary his Mother… Repeat those words aloud and you are
near the very centre of what it means to pray.
And the next Gospel is from St Luke, the only story we
have of the childhood of Christ. Ponder that phrase for
a minute. We say briskly the childhood of Christ. But
pick the phrase up in your hands and hold it. Feel the
weight of it. What an astounding phrase it is the
childhood of Christ. Think, God not quite grown up. And
when they find him in the temple there is that exchange
between the child Christ and his Mother: Son, why hast
thou thus dealt with us? And the reply How is it that ye
sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business? One hardly dare say it, but there is something
very much like anger in Mary's words and something very
like insolence in the words of the twelve-year-old
Christ. You cannot sanitise that exchange. It is utterly
real. Because it is so daring in the emotions it
ascribes to Jesus and to his Mother, we know that it is
true. It's like the crackle of thunder and lightning.
Then St John tells us the story of the water into wine.
I recall my Methodist friends in old Leeds telling that
it wasn't really wine: They called it wine, but really
it was fruit juice. Go on, laugh. What a miracle eh?
Turning pure water into Ribena. No it was real wine – as
it says the best wine. But the wine does not appear
until Jesus has made that other sharp remark to his
Mother: Woman, what have I to do with thee. Mine hour is
not yet come. And the guests are all sitting round
drinking their way through 180 gallons of wine over the
ten days' wedding celebrations. See their faces and what
they are not seeing: that the hour of which Jesus speaks
is the hour of his death; and that the best wine saved
until the last will be his Blood. And when he sheds his
Blood, Mary will be there at the foot of the Cross. And
what is on their faces now on Calvary, this Mother and
this Son? The recollection of that wedding and the
understanding that now his hour has indeed come.
Now last week the story of the centurion at Capernaum
who comes and asks Jesus to heal his paralysed son.
Capernaum is near Magdala and near where Jesus fed the
5000. Little green hills sloping down to the Sea of
Galilee. And the centurion comes to Jesus and says, Lord
I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof.
St Matthew would have us believe that a Roman centurion,
a commissioned officer in the occupying imperial army,
actually comes and addresses this wandering preacher as
Lord. Again we may be daring and conjecture that even
Jesus himself was taken aback at this recognition. The
Gospel says as much: He marvelled. Think of that
exchange. Think of their faces. The centurion out of his
mind with anxiety about his son, imploring, but
confident to reel off his whole analogy about authority
and how his men obey him – the analogy by which this
Gentile, this enemy of Israel, understands the authority
of Christ. And Christ stunned by the soldier's
understanding and the depth of his faith.
And now today the stilling of the storm and the devils
cast out and into the pigs. It took me about a minute to
read today's Gospel. Just consider how much violence is
packed into that minute: the noise and wildness of the
storm and the noise and madness of the battle with the
evil spirits, and the deafening din when the pigs run
over the cliff. The biggest noise of the lot when behold
the whole city came out to meet Jesus. The whole city
chastising him and telling him to clear off – literally
for killing their pig. You see the events. The sea
whipped up into a violent cauldron and then, at the word
of Christ, the calm after the storm. And the sea flat
and green again. The little boats like harpsichords. The
thankfulness of the fishermen. The sky clearing and to
the west the Golan Heights visible once more and to the
north old Mount Hermon and its myriad streams full of
rain gurgling into the lake.
The writer James Joyce said of his great novel Ulysses
that in it he was trying to create epiphanies –
brilliant word pictures that would thrill and entrance
the reader with the vividness of their reality. Again
Ezra Pound said, The reader has the right to expect
that, as he reads, from time to time he will be
refreshed by shards of ecstasy. These five Gospels of
Epiphany – think of them as five ecstatic pictures. And,
as you would look at a picture in a gallery or take out
a photograph, let any one of these pictures form in your
mind. In fact, let it form your mind. Tomorrow choose
another picture. And so on. Forget about jabbering and
babbling on to God with requests for what you'd like him
to do for you. Looking at these Gospel pictures is the
life of prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment