Goldman Sachs just announced results that are far worse than forecast.  And Bank of America released its quarter results which are the worst in its history.

First, Goldman.   Its share price nose-dived 3% before the opening bell in New York this afternoon.    Revenue dropped sharply,  probably because it wasn’t bailed out.   BOA says it earned $8.8bn, but these are its worst results by far for the second quarter of any year since it came into being.

Defective mortgages led to BoA’s woes,  but what of Goldman?  No mortgage problems there for the CDC-swapping micro-trading giant.  Revenue declined by 53%  !!!  Yeehaaa.   And unlike last year,  there is no bungee jump line attached to Goldman and BoA.

Bank of America is even more severe.   Its mortgage unit loss widened to $14.5 billion from $1.5 billion a year ago.

Now that’s the kind of number that would cause most investors to pull their cash out of the entity.

Speaking of tarnished entities – lets take a look at Britain.  London has always offered itself as a haven for oligarchs and despots and a place where a foreign media magnate took over local politics by stealth – and by flashing a pound or two.

The Brits have prounced around the globe,  meting out righteousness like some kind of diplomatic nemesis .. and yet …  they are being forced to assess just how that political power has been misused within their borders.

There has long been a cosy relationship between media owners, elites, and the empowered few.   So as we observe Goldman dive bomb,  and Cameron take it on the chin,   think about money-launderers.  They have used London as a central point of coin collection and management.    Along with the US states of Wyoming and Delaware… bizarrely.

Transparency International — which has traditionally focused on criticising “conventionally” corrupt states in emerging economies — are beginning to shift their attention to developed world corruption.

This  month it published a report : “Britain: more corrupt than you think”, showing that a majority of people believed corruption was worsening in the country.   So … there is a tarnished view of the UK .. and then Goldman.

The Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s second-quarter net income missed market expectations by a wide margin as the investment bank’s fixed income trading revenues dropped sharply – all around things don’t look too rosy for the so-called first world going forward.

Technology and protests,  and the right to grimly defend subsidies for the Middle Class Brit.

That’s the topic of todays blog.

While Gaddafi used everything except nerve gas to try and kill off protestors,  in the UK 250 000  marched on Saturday against government spending cuts and 149 were arrested for random acts of mob-style violence.  The only tank that got it was a nearby water tank.   The only fighter jet was a toughie’s urine on a bank staircase.

Government oppression turned out to be a couple of blows on the noggin with a tax-payer sponsored centrally controlled unionised subsidised baton.  Better than being sprayed with nerve gas or shot up with a South African sniper rifle in Bangazi, eh?

Remember the purple dye firing canon used by the Apartheid government?    So that after the students staggered home,  the gestapo could go door to door arresting students who found it difficult to remove the long-lasting dye.    Perhaps the UK conservative government may consider such technology now that PM Cameron has decided to actually trim the cost to the nanny state of a few thousand of the great unwashed.

Ooops.  Shouldn’t have said that.

Now 149 Trustafarians will rock up outside this premises and spray paint naughty slogans on our double-glazed security staff or those witless wonders on blog-face-twit-space will spew their normal frustrated and poorly thought out vitriol into the digital soup.

Take a look at a few pragmatic realities.   In 2000 the UK government spending amounted to around 30% of GDP. In 2010 that rose to 47%.  Increasing at that pace,  within a few years the Brits would replicate the German government spending patterns under Hitler during the second World War.

Centrally funded disaster as everyone wears sack cloth with a number.   Like a bag of mielie meal embossed with a barcode and bleating like sheep.  Baaaahhh baaaahhh.  Tax me now … baaaah baaaaah.  The protestors may as well be shouting “I have every right to demand a massive government to oppress me and frustrate my freedoms, don’t touch the subsidies,  I’m middle Class you know…”

The angry mob fails to notice a large irony.  For it demands upping government expenditure.    Fine, says the state.   Let me use some of the 47% of GDP value to purchase a couple of riot police to thwack you on the noggin.  And build a network of Orwellian CCTV monitors which I can use to arrest you 149 thugs.

Ironic perhaps that as the unions and students defend their right to be subsidised by the nanny state,  the nannies have turned to their state-sponsored monitoring devices in order to arrest the students and marchers.     Oppressive technology,  the state, and the mob actually in perfect harmony.

Matron would be pleased as she prepares the medicine – bend down young activist.  I have a gauge 18 needle ….

Shipping insurance companies are rubbing their hands in glee.   Somalia’s Puntland pirates are growing more aggressive and costing shipping companies billions of dollars.   Well they’re not really. They’re merely making insurance premiums grow and here and there slowing the delivery of a pile of sugar or something.   And the shipping company just passes on the higher insurance premium costs to the consumer and everyone is happy.

Except the crew.   And people like Bruno Pelizzari with his partner Deborah who were captured by pirates in a tiny little yacht. Peter,  the skipper, escaped.

Urgent update : after this blog was written  armed pirates seized a US-bound oil tanker off Oman today (Wednesday 9th Feb) carrying around $200 million worth of crude  in one of the biggest raids in the area to date.

The 333-metre very large crude carrier, the Irene SL, was carrying about 2 million barrels of crude oil, estimated to be nearly 20% of daily US crude imports, a day after an Italian tanker was snatched by Somali pirates.

Another of Puntland's favourite sons doing what he does best

London’s insurance companies in particular,  who dominate shipping insurance.   Could it be that the nefarious oafs of the infamous colonial wharf are actually FUNDING the Pirates of Puntland?  Its been known to happen that top English brands like the Queen have – over the years – given their tacit approval to rampant piracy.

If I was a broker in Britain,  I would be sending Puntland loads of skiffs carrying Rocket Propelled grenade launchers, arms,  and satellite phones and even radar and GPS systems to assist them the pirates in their task of hammering shipping.   Helps me.  As an insurance broker.

After all,  the lovely pirates are kind of cute.   Except of you’re one of the few dozen who’ve died through starvation and destruction caused by these ignominious little trolls.

But seen from a hazy distance,  they’re lovable oafs.  Close up the reality is somewhat different of course,  but obscured by historical anachronism.

Where is the joy for South African ports?  Only when the Gulf of Oman becomes too expensive  - not too dangerous – will the shipping companies decide to go south.

And what of the chattel of shipping,  the crew?  They’re all expendable.  Most come from countries like the Ukraine, Philippines, Nicaragua.   No-one – particularly the shipping company itself – really gives a jot for these folks.   The ship is insured – who cares if Jose Emannuel Philippe Costa-Civares has life insurance.  That’s his problem.    So until the pirates really become very expensive to shipping,  the curse of Puntland will continue.   Just like the West Indies in 1650-1750 era.

Political will is lacking, and pirates are still cheap.