Eldon-Online

The Age Of Intent

I was going to call this "The Age Of Consent Intent", but you can't mess with the titles apparently because it mucks up the "link". Anyway, being well past the age of consent it doesn't matter really because this is all about intent. Mine!

I've just had a great ten days. It included some really long flights. Hong Kong to Dubai to Washington, then to New York and straight to Beijing before heading back to Hong Kong. And it provided that most deadly sin ... thinking time. Always a dangerous pastime as you sit, bored out of your brains because you can't take in another word from the papers or the movies, and you can't sleep any more.

I must say, I do think about the future - quite a lot as it happens. Well let's face it, there's not much point contemplating the past is there - you can't do anything about it! But this last journey seemed to provide more such time than usual. Perhaps it's an "age" thing - the future - or what's left of it.

I have long considered the fact that I've never truly grown up - I've just learnt how I should behave in public. And I have tried to maintain at least mentally an "age" profile closer to my waist size (in inches!) rather than a chronological age.

All that said, and just because these last ten days were particularly good fun - if you exclude the eight hour flight delay out of Beijing on Wednesday night - doesn't mean I've gone off on an adrenalin high that will disappear as quickly as it apparently came. Although on that subject my children will probably tell you I used to be (now come on guys - used to be) subject to mood swings, but this whole "aging" thing brings a really different perspective to many things.

I acknowledge I am a fortunate individual - on too many fronts to discuss here, and I know it. I also know I'm not perfect - far from it indeed - but I am surrounded by a fascinating world that is so full I sometimes don't know where to turn next. From the growth of the Asian, Latin American and African continents to the amazing and sometime worrying advances in technology. To a world where no one knows what a bank will look like in 10 years time - other than to be darn sure it's not going to look much like it does today. Where what we eat might eventually come in packets like sweets (now that bit I'm sure I won't like!). Where people change, develop and hopefully are able to fend for themselves, given the right help and encouragement. And I want to continue to be a part of it for as long as I can. Until I am physically and mentally unable to continue.

Life is not fair, I know, so I am being selfish, but for me it is a truly exciting world out there and there are things I can do to help others. 

I know there are people who think, "Why is this old bloke hanging on - and taking a job opportunity away from a younger person?" Well, if I could teach that younger person all I know about the people I deal with, know and have experience of dealing with, and give them the grey hairs I have accumulated over 50 years of work, then fine - they can have my job! But I cannot do that in a series of 6 weekly sessions. It is just not practical. I can encourage, I can coach, I can mentor, I can support and hopefully provide them with some of the tools they will themselves need in later life, but there is no substitute for experience.

And I have friends who say - when are you going to slow down - you don't have to work at the pace you do. And that is precisely the beauty of it all. No, I don't have to - I want to. And frankly I don't fancy the alternative:

No! No! No!!

Of course, there are increasing numbers of people like me, who do want to carry on. And then there is my dear old Mother of whom I have written previously - in her 94th year according to the Western method of reckoning - who is really worried that I might one day lose my job! "And what will you do then, dear?" she asks.

I love being at home, but I also enjoy being out and about. Being an active part of the world is my hobby. It's a balance, isn't it? And I love it! Perhaps I should have called this "The Age Of Satisfaction". 

But "Intent" will do nicely, until someone knocks me on the head and says, "Enough is enough!"

Out Of The Shadows? ... Shadow Banking

Regular readers of this Blog will know that I have an ongoing concern about the media, but the concern tends to be rather general because I have to acknowledge the fact that there are some excellent, responsible well-informed members of the media out there. Others hide their actual talent behind a disappointing desire to try and belittle their “victims” – perhaps hoping to provoke some sort of response to provide fodder for future columns. This, it seems, is the style favoured by the SCMP’s Jake van der Kamp. Witness last week’s attempt to ridicule the HSBC Group CEO, Stuart Gulliver, and to a lesser extent Douglas Flint the Chairman.

A point of disclosure, both Stuart and Douglas are good friends and former colleagues, so I don't deny I rather bridled at an attack on them personally, but I am writing neither in their defence nor at their request. In fact I suspect they will more than likely be embarrassed when they find out I have written anything at all. But this is not about Stuart or Douglas anyway – despite the fact that I am disappointed in Mr. van der Kamp’s cheap shots, but more about that columnist’s general remarks in the opinion piece he wrote. Particularly, for example, when he comments on the merits or otherwise of a video he says was aired at the beginning of the HSBC AGM. A video he admits he never saw because he knew "artistic expression reigned". Clever man our columnist, commenting on things he has not seen. Just the sort of uninformed opinion that is so irritating.

After such an opening I would, perhaps rather charitably on reflection, have then expected Mr. van der Kamp's opinion piece to focus on the two issues he raised - the convertibility of the RMB and Shadow Banking. However, he rather glossed over both rather condescendingly. What a pity he appeared not to have read the double spread article in his own newspaper on May 24, just 4 days earlier, headed "Setting the stage for a convertible currency". An article in which SCMP journalist Victoria Ruan commented on Beijing's efforts to make the yuan a convertible currency "for use in international trade and investment ..." This following on from a State Council announcement that yuan convertibility would be pushed forward this year. The article appeared to me to be balanced - pointing out the pitfalls as well as the benefits, and quoting a variety of sources. None of who seem to have been ridiculed by Mr. van der Kamp. I wonder why?

The commentary in Mr. van der Kamp's opinion piece then seemed to push hard the fact that China does things to suit its own purpose. Is there a country that doesn't? And asks the rhetorical question as to whether or not China is ready for internationalisation. The short answer of course, with a move as dramatic as this would be, is that markets will typically overreact and I do believe that China will get a shock. But I would not dismiss out of hand the fact that they have the intention to do it.

Oh yes; and then there's shadow banking. Of course if you want to get really picky, shadow banking comes in many forms, and at least one learned  financial regulatory expert has said that regulated banking organizations are the largest shadow banks. Of course, in the context of Stuart Gulliver's remarks on the subject, we all knew he was referring to that unregulated area of banking in China, which is lending money into the market place that regulated banks won't fund. Mr. van der Kamp seemed to imply that it was a major problem for China, but didn't bother to tell us why. I think he's better than that - as some of his opinion pieces display, but this was just an out and out attack for the point of scoring points in a limited space.

In writing the opinion piece, I wonder how many regulators or people in China he spoke to, who have a better grasp of the issue, before making his "judgement". It's a bit like commenting on a film or video you haven't seen and providing a rating.

Well I have spoken to Regulators on the subject in China, and bankers, and practitioners. People who are highly intelligent and plugged in to the system. Is it a worry? Yes it is but is it being ignored and left untouched - no, it's not. This type of "banking" has gone on for centuries, and yes, not always successfully. I know banks that dabbled in it on the fringes not so long ago. They would lend to people they would trust, who would themselves then on lend to borrowers the Bank wouldn't lend to. The point being that the Bank's immediate customer knew intimately who they were dealing with and they took the risks. In China's shadow banking community non-bank funds are being lent to the shadow bankers who then on lend it at their risk to people who could not otherwise borrow the money for their business needs. So the shadow bankers are helping to keep people employed and the small business community operating. Is it ideal? No, of course it's not. Should it be regulated? Most definitely a resounding yes, but if it stifles small business, beware how much regulation you impose.

In the overall scheme of things if I was asked if it was a big risk – I would have to say that in my opinion, keeping everything in perspective, it is not. 

Initially ...

I was having one of those inane debates with myself the other day about the use of cc and bcc in messages on email. Why, I thought, do we still persist in using cc (carbon copy) when we are copying a message to someone else, when so many people around today have never even seen a sheet of carbon paper let alone used one. And of course the same goes for bcc (blind carbon copy). Why don't the Microsofts and Googles of this world change message formats to "ec", for email copy or perhaps being really innovative use "copy" or "copied" on its own? It's only two more letters.

While accepting a degree of pedantry in my thinking, (I know, get a life!) but to try and make sure I wasn't being totally antediluvian, I did ask a member of the next generation down for a view on the meaning to him of "cc" in an email - to which the reply came back "What's email? Everyone's on FB and WhatsApp!" Touché. And as is the case, even those as tools of messaging seem to be evolving. But then for good measure he threw in other anomalies like candle power to denote the strength of a torch beam, knots for the speed of a ship, and horse power in cars. 

But it was too late. Clearly I was obsessed about initials.

Let's face it, the use of initials to create acronyms (An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word) as a form of shorthand, is not new. Those of us belonging to that older generation known as baby boomers grew up with things like PLUTO no, not the planet, but which were initials for the "pipeline under the ocean" - a World War II pipeline, and SWALK and BURMA written on the back of letters, which I presume are no longer in use as we don't send any letters now, but the first means Sealed With A Loving Kiss. For others particularly like SNAFU, you will have to look up yourself. I try and avoid any profanity here! And they were in use much further back than that too - think of SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus), that catchy little acronym that identified the Roman Empire.

[Just as an aside, in a rather dismaying discovery I have just realised I am two months short of being considered in the baby boomer camp! Too old, even, for that. And in trying to find out exactly which category of dinosaur is was being labeled, some market research carried out by one of my sons elicited a great response from a young girl who was asked recently how she referred to really old people, to which she replied "Mum and Dad"! Ouch!] 

But I digress. Back to the initials ... and before some pedant picks me up on the difference between acronyms and initials; I know! Acronyms are, as described above whereas initials are usually just abbreviations. But why spoil my fun?

Where do we go now? We are bombarded on the social networking sites with the latest initials, and the immediacy of the world in which we live is creating an informal and irritating manner of business communication. Some of the "newspeak"  is understood easily even if you aren't sure, but some, rather like its creators I suspect, is somewhat ambiguous. I mean how was British Prime Minister Cameron supposed to know that "lol" meant laugh out loud instead of lots of love when he sent messages to former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks? Although having said that I see "lol" has now also acquired the second meaning. But BTW, BBL, WFM and WTF are all finding their way into common usage - well maybe not the latter!

Soon will we be receiving letters from the Banks which will be short and uninformative? (Oh, they are already? Sorry!)

When I started this blog I thought perhaps we were doomed to a life of initial acronyms. Now I am certain. Especially given the one I came accros the other day that read: SSEWBA (Someday Soon Everything Will Be Acronyms)!