Footballing Wisdom

If a football team starts playing badly, the away fans sometimes begin a chant which builds in volume: “you don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

So after a truly terrible week on the markets, I would sing:

To Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson:
“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

To George W Bush and the leaders of the Western World:
“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

To any idiot politician that thinks making reassuring noises will help buck the market:
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

To the City regulator, the Financial Services Authority, who say they have no plans to crack down on bankers’ bonuses:
“You don’t know you’re doing!”

To anyone that thinks that it’s sensible to dump shares whatever the cost and hang the consequences:
“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

To all the charities, councils and hospices that invested in Icelandic bank accounts:
“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

To the whole rotten Icelandic financial system:
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

To every bank that now finds itself in terrible trouble because it believed it could sensibly manage risk:
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

To anyone who thinks they have any clue where any of this is heading or makes confident predictions:
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

And to everyone:
“We don’t know where we’re going!!”