In London for over a week now. But I've spent the last four days travelling around Scandinavia, Germany and Holland seeing clients. The economic environment is pressing down on most fund managers. Market turbulence is very high with big daily moves in indices and stocks. The human mind is not well programmed to deal with constant bad news. Every couple of days I wake up and think: enough of this! There is the temptation to look out and see ordinary people going around doing their daily bidding and think that normality must return, the chaos is not real. But it is real of course. The danger is that politicians in Eurozone and the US may just simply be unable to do the 'whatever it takes' they have promised to do. The mechanics of the political process may not allow it. On the other hand, if the threat becomes cataclysmic, big shifts in political positions could happen quite swiftly. The US is better positioned for this, being a single country. But even the Eurozone may be able to take big steps if it realises that the situation is life-threatening. In the meantime, hurricane activity in the Atlantic has picked up sharply. Irene tore up the east coast, making landfall in North Carolina. The media made an absolute meal of this one, completely exaggerating its severity. So far this season there have been a few more storms than at this time last year but far fewer hurricanes. It's not over yet but the temptation to blow up a storm is higher than ever: Tropical Storm Maria is next. The QSL is from WPTF in Raleigh, NC heard during a business trip to Florida in 1989.
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