Protectors of Treasure Island: Border Dragons of the Offshore Financial System

Several hundred years back, the City of London was protected by a great stone wall, and access was controlled via several key gates. Aldersgate was in the north, Ludgate was to the west, Aldgate was in the east, and on the south end of London Bridge there was Bridge Gate. Later, others were added, like Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, and Newgate. Nowadays, the physical wall and gates have slipped out of popular memory. To many modern commuters into the City, the Moorgate is nothing but a station on the Northern Line of the London Underground.

Recently, a wing of the Occupy movement set up camp just up the road from Moorgate, in Finsbury Square. Another wing set up in an old building in Sun Street. Like the original St. Paul’s Camp, the new camps seem  like incongruous outposts amidst the black sheet glass and metal frames of buildings housing financial giants. The protesters have managed to take temporary control of small areas of physical space, and yet, do they really have true access to the City?

It seems to me that the walls of the City are still there, only nowadays you can’t see them. They exist in codes and institutions, cultures and hidden political forces, architectural styles and subtle symbols whispering you don't belong here. Finding ways of passing these hidden gates is a great and worthwhile challenge. Before that can be done though, it's good to get a sense of the ancient boundaries of the City. That's why I've been recently visiting the border dragons.

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

The City border dragons are sentinels on plinths, totem-like creatures lurking at the ancient entrances to the City, originally to warn travelers and act as toll-booths. They’re sometimes called griffins, but they’re actually dragons, dog-like dragons with wings and a forked tongue. Maybe they’re like small versions of Cerberus, Hade’s three-headed hound of darkness that guards the underworld across the river Styx. Indeed, you do find three of them as you cross over the river Thames – two on the south side of London Bridge, and one in the middle of the road on the south side of Blackfriars Bridge.

So where are the others found? The largest border dragon is found at the Temple Bar on Fleet Street, perched by the Royal Courts of Justice like a nazgul from the Lord of the Rings. There are two smaller ones keeping watch in the street next to Chancery Lane tube station on High Holborn. See if you can find the others. There’s one lurking somewhere on Goswell Road in the north, and one next to the Broadgate complex. There's one around Moorgate, and another guarding the area before the Tower of London, somewhere on Byward street.

My favourite border dragons though, are on the Victoria Embankment by Temple Place. They’re slightly larger than most of the dragons, and strangely enough, they used to reside above the entrance to the London Coal Exchange which was demolished in 1963. Word on the street is that they took off and flew into the night, landing on Victoria Embankment two years later.

Some have suggested that the dragons are creatures from mystical treasure islands known as offshore tax havens. Indeed, the City is at the centre of a giant web of such havens, a beating financial heart drawing in money from the opaque offshore jurisdictions and pumping it back out to them again, keeping a global system of secrecy alive. The vast majority of hedge funds and SPVs for example, are incorporated in places like the Cayman Islands, even though they’re managed from offices within London and the US. It poses something of a headache for tax authorities, and also places something of a burden on the broader society which does not have access to the offshore realms. Indeed, it's an open question as to how much of the City of London is even in London, and how much is situated within excel spreadsheets on computers in Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.

I COME IN PEACE

Certainly the City incorporates a lot more physical space than meets the eye. It’s like that scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the door to Narnia is found. Hidden doors abound in the City, and they lead to parallel universes on Caribbean Shores and Swiss Cantons. 

So where does this leave access? I'm not sure. The border dragons mark the ostensible borders of the City, but the true borders are scattered and fragmented by a world of shell companies and registered addresses. And we haven't even got into the cultural and political boundaries yet. I guess we’ll have to work on this access issue a bit more in due course. I’ve had controversial views on it before, and they need to be refined.

In the mean time, take some photos of dragons. Put a funny hat on its head, or give it some bling accessories. Please do send the photos on me. I’ll be sure to put them up.

Suitpossum's Ecologist article No.2: Four strategies of subtle financial subversion

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU

Last week I got published in The Ecologist. The article was called A four-step guide to bypassing high street banks. This is my second article for the magazine (my first was on food speculation), and this time the aim was to sketch out how people might engage in financial protest, not by waving placards, but by changing debit cards.

Many people agree in principle that major high-street banks have too much power, and that they frequently abuse that power. Nevertheless, many individuals don't necessarily have the time, or inclination, to protest about it directly in the manner of the Occupy protesters. There's been a lot of discussion about how to make financial protest more inclusive (including this piece by Kenth Gustaffson on a type of ‘virtual occupy movement’), but perhaps one of the most profound (and often overlooked) forms of protest is to distance yourself from mainstream finance by withdrawing deposits and avoiding using the services.

The article is pretty straightforward. It goes through four (UK-focused) strategies:

1. You can move your money to a more socially responsible bank like the Co-Operative Bank, or to building societies and credit unions
2. You can invest savings in socially responsible alternatives, including certain investment funds and specialist investments with environmental or social benefits
3. If you need a loan, you can bypass the mainstream loan system and engage in peer-to-peer (P2P) finance or crowdfunding
4. If you want to go bold, you can try detach from the mainstream currency system and use alternative currencies

THE ANSWER: BREAK MONOPOLY

Bypassing mainstream finance is not necessarily easy or convenient, and it's not a solution to the deeper structural problems of the financial sector. Change though, needs to come from many different angles. Regulatory and policy changes are needed, internal cultural changes are needed, and more competition is needed. Moving your money and getting involved in alternative finance is one way to boost competition, and one way to support sustainable finance innovation. It's an act of protest, but in encouraging financial diversity, it's also an act of creativity.

Please do check out the article. Any comments are most welcome, and I’d dig to hear any other suggestions for alternative strategies that I might have missed.

Heresy in the shadow of the City: Max Keiser sacrifices the sacred cows of finance

London banks were on high alert last week as Max Keiser – the dark lord of financial hellraising – arrived in London to do what he does best: Sacrifice the sacred cows of finance orthodoxy. It’s fitting that he chose to do so in a pub down an alley in London Bridge – The south bank has long been a place of covert speakeasies where villains, pirates and heretics might slag off the king and preach rebellion among the drunken rabble. The event was a fundraiser in aid of Resonance FM, London's alternative arts radio station. Needless to say, it was awesome, and yes, I was drunken rabble.

DARK LORD RAP: MAX RAGES AGAINST THE MACHINE

Max Keiser is in intriguing guy. I don’t claim to know his background in any depth, but the quoted back story says he was 1) initially a stockbroker, 2) then an entrepreneur that started the Hollywood Stock Exchange, (a platform for buying and selling film rights, later sold to the huge brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald) and 3) an entertainer that carved out a media career in fiery financial commentary. For those who haven't seen Max in action, he's one of the most outspoken critics of banking practice. He cuts a compelling figure, using a background in the financial industry as a platform from which to advance ideas that are serious no-go areas in mainstream finance chat… stuff like questioning the entire basis of modern monetary systems and advocating that senior bankers should be burnt at the stake. 

If this stuff was coming from the standard academic commentator, it would probably sound crap, but Max has made an artform out of passionate advocacy of deeply heretical points of view. Where some people would sound preachy and self-righteous, Max just sounds indignant, pissed off, and funny to boot. He has what many critical academics lack – an opportunistic flair and a talent for entertainment. It’s very seldom that someone can make stand-up comedy out of financial commentary, whilst simultaneously making you deeply question things. He’s both a joker with a mischievous flame and an underdog hyena who cares about injustice. He doesn't claim to be pure, and the fact that he’s been out and tried the system gives him clout.

Financial terrorists

MY MATE LLOYD

Max is certainly controversial. In fact, he's pure leveraged controversy. He likes to refer to senior bankers as 'financial terrorists'. He shoots political correctness in the head with disturbing stories of financial rape and epic incompetence. He told us about 'the suicide trader', a concept he's been dreaming up as the basis for a potential upcoming production: The story goes that there's this trader in the World Trade Centre, watching the planes coming and deciding to stay in his chair betting against aeroplane stocks instead of trying to escape. Methinks that could cause a stir...

Karma-banking

OUTLAWS: STACY HERBERT & MAX

I met a hedge fund manager a few months ago who knows and loves Max. This probably supports my point, made in a recent Guardian article, that some of the best hedge fund managers are those that do not give a flying f**k about what they’re supposed to think. Max himself has dabbled in some interesting hedge fund ideas. Back in the early 2000s he started Karmabanque. Although it’s suggested that Karmabanque was a  hedge-fund in and of itself, Max has characterised it as a ‘broker of dissent’ – a middleman between hedge funds looking to bet against companies, and activists looking to target companies with campaigns. I haven't been able to drill down into the exact structure of Karmabanque and how effective it was, but it's a thought-provoking idea: Betting against companies with poor social and environmental records and then making them targets of activism to drive down their share prices. Some would call that idea 'market-manipulation'. Others would call it sweet justice, a scheme in the spirit of Robin Hood and other underdog rogues (see Greenpeace article). Theoretically speaking, money made in the process could be steered back into doing something positive, like investing in renewable energy, but in the end it seems Karmabanque was shelved. It now provides an interesting model to consider when designing any future activist hedge funds.

Calling the emperor's new clothes: Buy silver, crash JP Morgan

More recently Max has become known for his 'Buy silver, crash JP Morgan' campaign. Max believes that JP Morgan is deeply exposed to a huge naked short position in silver. If it is true, it means JP Morgan is seriously vulnerable to the price of silver going up too much. He reckons that if enough people try buy silver to force the price up, JP Morgan would be forced to try cover its short position (i.e. reverse it's bet against silver), leading to a runaway 'short-squeeze' (in which they scramble to buy silver to get out of their trading position and in so doing cause the price to skyrocket even more) causing JP Morgan to go bankrupt. Here is the dramatised version:

It’s an interesting theory, and not one that I know enough about to have any particular view on it. Max seems pretty sure of himself though, and the campaign goes on. In any case, he advocates the possession of precious metals as a much better alternative to fiat currencies, which he thinks are all going to shit. 

Time will tell if Max is right or wrong, but regardless of what you think of his ideas, it’s great to a have an original voice of dissent challenging orthodoxy. I'm always a supporter of muckrakers that keep the system on its toes, and after an hour or so of standing there listening to him I was cheering like a maniac and thinking ‘ah shit Max, you’re cool, can I come talk to you?’ Then he was swamped with fans and I decided against doing that. Maybe I'll meet him one day and we can compare notes.

Financial Psychogeography: Suitpossum joins forces with CurioCity London

It’s a pleasure to announce that I will be syndicating out blog-posts to the website of the great new London-focused magazine CurioCity. CurioCity was started by Matthew Lloyd and Henry Elliot in early 2010, originally as an informal handmade pamphlet to distribute to friends and family. Back then, a group of us wrote articles and put together the first issue in Henry’s lounge in Kennington. It’s come a long way since then, and the first professionally printed version is now being stocked in iconic London outlets such as Foyles and Rough Trade. The website has now been set up to provide a regular flow of high quality pieces centered on London, suggesting ideas for experiences that are fun, educational, and that encourage a deeper engagement with the city.

Urban adventures in financial landscapes

My main focus is going to be ‘Financial Psychogeography’. ‘Psychogeography’ is a word that means different things to different people, but I’m taking it to refer to:

1. the exploration of cityscapes with the deliberate intent to break down oppressive or hegemonic ideas embodied in, or implied by, the physical space
2. and in the process seeking to reinvent or replace those ideas with unorthodox visions and alternative viewpoints… or something like that

Psycho-geography is about trying to identify the subconscious mental programmes that get installed in us by our physical environment. It’s also about creativity. It’s about trying to hack those programmes and reconfiguring the codes of mental DNA that condition how you perceive something. A greater awareness of physical space allows one to take mental control of it, and to re-enchant the cityscape with new perceptions. So basically it's an excuse for me to wonder around financial landscapes and reflect on them, considering what they might teach me about the world, how they might affect the way I think, and then maybe how the dominant ideas they impart can be challenged. This might be an epic waste of time, but if nothing else, it should provide a couple of fun outings and opportunities to embarrass myself.

Thus far, I've got two pieces up:

• Financial Landscapes: Fusing Canary Wharf with the real economy
• How to get good coffee in Berkeley Square

A brief history of psycho-geography

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

If you look up the Wikipedia article about psycho-geography, you get some background history which says that psycho-geography was something developed by the Lettrist International, who broke away from some other group (also called the Lettrists) in France. It was spearheaded by a guy called Guy Debord, coming out with classic quotes like ‘the most urgent exercise of liberty is the destruction of idols’. Guy later wrote ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, a classic piece of ‘fuck-you authorities’ literature. By all accounts he and his mates were something like the French equivalent of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, promoting a type of avant garde Marxism-meets-art sensibility, getting involved in the May 1968 wildcat strikes, and inspiring a generation of Gaulloises adverts and films like The Dreamers. Certainly, psycho-geography does bring to mind intense French students sitting around in cafes chain-smoking and fiercely debating the nature of the world. At its worst, it’s a load of pretentious bullshit, but if it’s done right with a bit of tongue in cheek, it can be a lot of fun. If it’s done really right, it can be transformational. Later generations of psycho-geographers like Iain Sinclair and Will Self have done a lot to bring to life the hidden codes of landscapes, and hopefully I can do the same in CurioCity.

Here is some footage of the launch party. I’m playing guitar in that.

Fun things to do in London's Financial Heartlands: Fusing Canary Wharf with the Real Economy

The financial sector is frequently contrasted to the ‘real economy’. The ‘real economy’ is seen to involve the production of goods and (non-financial) services, while the financial sector is seen to act as a facilitator of, and gatekeeper to, investment flows into those industries. Banks and funds are in the business of predicting which businesses to back, steering debt and equity based on future perceptions of the real economy. The financial sector runs ahead of, or parallel to, the real economy. In some conceptions, it isn't connected to the real economy at all.

The usefulness and accuracy of the traditional distinction can certainly be questioned, but if ever there was a place in the world where the distinction made visual sense at least, it would be London. London is one of the few cities where the financial sector can literally be seen from a distance, most notably in the stark concrete and glass of Canary Wharf. London is also home to many decaying remnants of the old manufacturing economy, with monuments such as the Battersea Power Station a testament to both abandonment by the financial sector, but also attempts to re-connect to financial flows through regeneration proposals.

Visual mediums often tell stories a lot more effectively than words and pundits do. That’s why I'm an enthusiastic supporter of financial visualisations and infographics. A walk along the South Bank of the Thames though, offers some interesting opportunities to experience the visual divide between the financial sector and real economy directly, especially as one approaches Canary Wharf. Arranging the views to tell a story, and then capturing those stories on camera is a worthwhile way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The abandoned pub

Here’s a simple scene that I found quite poignant. The pub was abandoned and boarded up, with the towers of finance looming behind. I don’t know exactly what one would want to read into it, but to me it could highlight the stark divide between an old English working-class docklands culture, and a new international financial culture gradually pushing it out.

The construction yard

This was one of my favourities: A construction yard just past Greenwich on the Thames Path. If you find it on a Sunday you can climb over the broken fence and play in the rubble. Again, there are a number of stories to be told. The construction site could be seen as a product of the financial sector - only existing through the provision of capital - or as the real underlying activity that the financial sector relies on to survive. Perhaps this rubble is a future financial centre. I personally just liked the visual contrast.

The spontaneous garden

Here’s a fun one. If you pay attention along the way, you can find fresh wild tomatoes growing in the industrial zone approaching the O2 arena on the Thames Path. The interpretations are endless. The financial sector connection to the farming industry? Small scale organics vs. large scale synthetics? The ancient agricultural roots of society holding out like a renegade against the ultra-modern world of derivatives and virtual food speculation?

The barbed-wire fence

A visual arrangement need not be literal. This just looked really cool to me, but maybe it could be seen as a play on entry into the financial sector. Is the financial sector guarded by barbed wire and a giant river moat? Not if I have my way about it.

The reclaimed pier

This old pier has been transformed into a mini ecological sanctuary to be used by nesting river birds: We arrived here as the sun was setting, but I’d like to read into it a message of future sustainability in finance and  the creative use of the old to make a new dawn. Damn, I got to get out my notebook now and write poetry...

Just do it

It’s going to take a lot more than arranging images to build financial sustainability, but it’s an interesting exercise in the mean time, and a potentially thought-provoking one. There are hundreds of opportunities for this. How about starting at Stave Hill in the Rotherhithe Eco-Park, a great place to juxtapose the green with the blue-grey of global finance. I’m sure there’s a photographer out there who can do this a bit better than my HTC mobile phone camera can. Anyone want to collaborate? Please do send photos of your docklands journeys, along with possible interpretations, and I can put them up.

The Thames Path area between Deptford and North Greenwich and is also a hotbed for graffiti artists. It would be great to use the site for the development of financial graffiti - a living exhibition reflecting on the huge skyscrapers across the river. I’d personally like to stencil a QR code on one of the walls (p.s. these codes require a  smartphone barcode-scanner app to read). I kind of had this one in mind...

READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE

Suitpossum in the Guardian: On Financial Activism and the Occupy Movement

Winter is approaching and it’s looking like one of discontent. St. Paul’s cathedral has become home to a couple hundred protesters freezing in colourful tents, railing against the global financial sector. It's the Occupy London movement.

On Tuesday night I attended the general assembly outside St. Paul's. It was mostly to go through certain housekeeping protocols, like why it’s a bad idea to piss in bottles and throw them into public bins. Other items on the agenda were issues of security and maintaining good relationships with the St Paul’s clergy. It’s calmed down a lot since the first Saturday, when the cops were doing their tacky psychological warfare techniques, whispering sweet nothings like “Sir, if you enter the protest, you may not be able to leave again.” There’s a few cops left now, but they’re mostly blending into the scenery.

I was impressed by the camp food system that has sprung up, driven by kind donations, some from local chains like Pret (which incidentally are making shedloads of cash from cold protesters buying coffee from them). We even managed to get some sushi to go with our homemade vegetable soup. I was slightly less impressed by the public talks that have been occurring, a lot of (what I perceive to be) clichéd stuff about neoliberalism and bankers, and in general nothing particularly interesting or new. Indeed, it still seems to be much the same crowd that does all the protests. I suggested during the general assembly discussion group that much more needs to be done to translate the message to a wider audience, lest it fizzle out into a cliquey back-patting exercise.

KETTLE-FRIED LOVE

These issues weigh on my mind a lot, and yesterday I got an article published in the Guardian entitled 'Has the Occupy movement considered subverting global finance from within'. It was pointing out that while occupying a physical space is a worthwhile exercise, I think it’s time activists started pushing the  conceptual boundaries of protest. I want progressive movements to try gain some control of the creative potential of the financial sector.

Needless to say, when you put yourself out there in a public forum (such as the Guardian), you get all sorts of ideologues that try throw knives at you. It was fun defending my ideas, but the ad hominem attacks are pretty disturbing at first. One suggested I wasn’t worthy of being in the human race. A couple attacked my professional credentials. A few attacked my grasp of socialist theory, under the somewhat presumptuous assumption that having read the great Marxian works was a prerequisite to commenting on activist techniques.

Such is the nature of public commentary though, and, on the plus side, some great people have got hold of me to discuss the ideas further. It's really rewarding to hear opinions on how the concept of financial activism could be refined, so please do read the article and post any comments on the Guardian site, or here. I'll be  sure to respond.

The Finance Innovation Lab: Escape to the Country

A few weeks ago a group of wayward individuals met at Waterloo station. We hitched a ride on a train going north into the English wilderness. Bertrand was forward-thinking enough to have brought beers for the journey, a skill he learnt in his 10 years working for Deutsche Bank as a structured equity derivatives trader. Next to him was Ingo. Ingo does things that make my mind hurt, which involves channelling and managing innovation and systems design, in Sweden. Behind me was Neil. He works for the Young Foundation, helping to design things called Social Impact Bonds, ways of allowing private investors to get involved in financing early interventions that might reduce social malladies. He was chatting to David, who specialises in design, and in particular, new means of mapping and visualising the financial sector. Bertrand started talking about social CDOs, and that's when people on the train started to look at us funny. A girl sitting next to me asked me who we were. Um, how do you explain that? We kind of work in finance, but at the same time are trying to disrupt it, alter it, play with it. I gave her my card. "Come to the dark side", I said, "there are cool things going on". Enter the Finance Innovation Lab.


This is me, trying to talk on camera after three days of mind-disruption. We were talking financial reform and innovation, but most of all, the group of 21 of us were all together to discuss and map the potential future strategy and vision for the Finance Lab. The Lab was originally set up to bring people together under the common goal of finding out what a 'financial system that served people and planet looked like'. I'm a comparative newcomer to the group, but in the year or so that I've been hanging around I've seen the fantastic potential the Lab has to connect people, and to promote learning and collaboration. The next challenge though, is how to scale it up to the next level, to bring in new streams of funding, target more people, and incubate more projects. Jen Morgan, Charlotte Millar, Richard Spencer, Rachel Sinha, Tina Santiago, Maria Scordialos, Vanessa Reid and Hendrik Tiesinga set up the frameworks to help us to think about these questions, and then let it run. A particular discussion point concerned the extent to which the Lab should shift from its current role as a facilitating and connecting organisation, to an organisation with a more explicit focus on advocating specific policies. The process of shifting to a more political stance isn't likely to be easy, but that why Chris Hewett has come in to explore the possibilities for 'finance policy for a green economy', with support from the Gulbenkian Foundation, represented at the weekend by Louisa Hooper.

SPOT THE EX-GOLD TRADER

Note the beautiful setting, on the grounds of West Lexham, a fantastic enterprise on an old converted farm. Manager Edmund wants it to be a hub for community empowerment, permaculture, renewable energy and creative solutions for sustainability, so that suited us pretty well. In our crew was Niahm, a whirlwind helping to drive WWF's sustainable food initiative, Tasting the Future - concerned with issues around sustainable food systems. We had Bruce, one of the guys behind peer-to-peer lending site Zopa, and now launching Abundance, a means for retail investors to put their money directly into financing wind farms and solar energy. We had the guys interested in unorthodox monetary systems - including Ben, pushing the boundaries of the monetary reform debate, and Leander, working on nurturing the complementary currency ecosystem. I shared a room in an old piggery with Maxime, representing both France and the socially responsible investment community.

PURE INNOVATION

The Fellowship of the Ning

BERTRAND SHARES HIS FEELINGS

The Finance Innovation Lab is a great space for those looking to get involved in designing a sustainable financial system. The first point of contact for those who are interested in getting involved is the online network hosted by Ning, but the core team is working on setting up a new website with enhanced capabilities. The plans are grand. By 2013, I expect we should own a large part of Canary Wharf. Until then, we get our strength from diversity. It's certainly not just for financialismos. It's for anyone with an interest in sustainability, creative design, systemic thinking, chaos theory, food systems, climate change, social justice, and last but not least, all those who just like causing a little bit of havoc.

THE MAIN REASON TO JOIN THE LAB: HOT GIRLS