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I suspect  ' I entirely agree' is Ian in disguise, smoldering over his deleted post.[:D]

Your suggestions for investment in wine are sort of ok but I would rather think long term and invest in wonderful 2005 Samur or Chinon. Then sup the lot during the year I expire. Perfect end.[:D]

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[quote user="Logan"]

 

 I would rather think long term and invest in wonderful 2005 Samur or Chinon. Then sup the lot during the year I expire. Perfect end.[:D]

[/quote]

I would rather drink long term and digest in wonderful obscrurity and not think about the year I'm going to expire................perfect end[:-))]

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[quote user="Logan"]

I suspect  ' I entirely agree' is Ian in disguise, smoldering over his deleted post.[:D]

[/quote]

While my original post remains deleted, my posting-ban has been lifted.[:D]  (My first sin-binning since a particularly brutal water-polo match in 1996)

Now, where were we....?

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Defaulting to type and professional training;

Where does one live when drinking the wine?

And where does one store it?

Alternative investments in such as wine warehousing, specie, forests and stud farms have proven successful: as tax avoidance strategies.

They have rarely proven successful for one's major capital.

 

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Since the average UK house allegedly costs circa £167K, Alan....................

That's a lot of bottles.

How much rented accommodation comes with wine cellars?

Also current rent rolls mean that the low putative interest would be more than wiped out in the rentals.............

Unless one lives in a trailerpark!

And then, where do the bottles go?

 

[Www]

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Just about every house we looked at (and the one we bought) had a cellar. Perhaps not to chateau standard but I haven't managed to half-fill the racks yet. (And ashamed to admit that they are mostly used for storing everything but wine at present. Must be the beige in me.)

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With Pétrus '82 at about £25k a case i could fit the average UK house worth in the back of my diddy citroën C2 ... anyone evr tasted an uber-wine like that? Gluey, you mentioned you were wined and dined during corporate life - you tried a Le Pin 82 or a Latour 61?

Gertrude Stein recommended to Hemmingway he invest his money in modern artists the same age as him - he was too young and poor (at that time) to afford Gris or Picasso (which were in Steins collection).  He took her advice and did rather nicely.  Just a thought - no axe to grind.

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[quote user="Gluestick"]

Unless one lives in a trailerpark!

[/quote]

You have something there Gluey, perhaps you are a capitalist after all.[:)] Trailer parks for the retired in Spain. It's becoming a lucrative epidemic in the southern coastal regions. Relatively small outlay and huge returns from captive clients. As a bonus, currently any temporary accommodation in Spain does not require planning consent. Just a nod from the Maire. [;-)]

I once had a case of Latour 61. I drank the lot between 1979 and 1982. Such good years.

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Putting your main capital asset in your car boot wouldn't keep it too well, Ian!

Back in the late 70s, my mentor and ghuru used to refer to his wine collection as his "Liquid Investments"!

Sadly by then, he couldn't enjoy it as he was diabetic. I used to love looking at all the auction labels: Christies et al going back to the early 50s.........

Still his son and I were often treated.

Oh I'm a capitalist, Logan: excepting perhaps that my heroes are the like of  Drs Hewlett and Packard rather than amoral bankers.

 

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[quote]How much rented accommodation comes with wine cellars?[/quote][gluestick]

Quite a lot in France (even appartments above ground floor level!).

The house we rent has a vaulted stone cellar of some 20m2 (ca. 50m3!!) which I have been working at building up since we arrived (now up to about 1200 bottles and still a couple hundred more in professional storage in the uk).

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[quote user="Ian"]With Pétrus '82 at about £25k a case i could fit the average UK house worth in the back of my diddy citroën C2 ... anyone evr tasted an uber-wine like that? Gluey, you mentioned you were wined and dined during corporate life - you tried a Le Pin 82 or a Latour 61?

Gertrude Stein recommended to Hemmingway he invest his money in modern artists the same age as him - he was too young and poor (at that time) to afford Gris or Picasso (which were in Steins collection).  He took her advice and did rather nicely.  Just a thought - no axe to grind.
[/quote]

yea yea yea..............now ya talking Ian? invest in artists..............not wine;......................my prices are fairly reasonable at the moment................when I'm dead, probably in the millions[:-))]

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Per Moneyfacts:

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has warned banks that the current uncertainty in the credit markets will force them to change fundamentally the way they do business. FSA chief executive Hector Sants said that banks will never again be able to borrow money as cheaply and easily as they were able to before the collapse of the sub prime mortgage market and ensuing credit crunch. "I don't think the markets will ever return to the way they were," he said. "The new 'normal' will be different. Banks themselves need to give consideration to how their business models will need to adapt to the changed market circumstances they have seen. Secondly, we will be looking for firms to treat their customers fairly in these arguably more difficult times in prospect."
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[quote]anyone evr tasted an uber-wine like that?[/quote]

1982 was a good year for me - I remember two wines:

1945 Ch. Latour & a 1945 Nuits St Georges, Les St Georges.

Best of all the first cost me just over £50 (but they were Irish £ and at the time the punt was at a discount to Sterling; what's that, about £400 today, by inflation; two bottles I can find on sale at €2843 and €3830 respectively) and the second one was a gift from the owner of The Arbutus Lodge in Cork (where my wife and I had disposed of the Latour) after I mentioned that I didn't really know what all the fuss was about over Pinot Noir. I have been a confirmed PNophile ever since.

Other memorable ones which left less of a mark were a 1929 Vouvray consumed in Glasgow and various Ch. d'Yquem (also ca. 1980s).

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All of which, just goes to show how little the FSA actually understands about the global capital markets!

Which is not a surprise.

When loads of property companies like Lyon Group and Stern and insurance companies and smaller banks collapsed in the UK in the wearly 70s, one causal factor was big banks lending to smaller banks lending to smaller banks who were lending to end users: who were speculating in property!

I was a dealer in the then embryo money market at the time: and there was blood on the streets!

It was never going to happn again, mind! [blink]

When the rapidly expanded mainly Eurobond market for multi-banked sovereign risk debt to Third World borrowers tanked, in the late 70s and early 80s, it was never going to happen again: yeah right!

Same with the original LBOs and Junk Bonds and Mike Milken.

Same with the dramatic collapse of Chicago Illinois, which was so bad, in the 80s, Paul Volcker, then the Chairman of the Fed stepped in because he feared that if they collapsed, it would trip the ultimate - and expected - domino effect.

What were they doing? Borrowing short (from the money markets!) and lending long on such stuff as oil and gas leases.

Then, of course there was Long Term Capital Management, Jon Merriweather's disastrous fund which also collapsed from crazy arbitrage play and nearly wiped out the Western financial system.

Etc.

Give it five years or so and a new young breed of greedy "Gunslinger" traders will reinvent subprime lending and think they've discovered heaven!

Moi: cynical???

[Www]

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It's actually rich coming from the FSA, given that if they had been doing their job properly they would have intervened earlier, at least as far as Northern Rock is concerned, but it is doubtful if they understood, or cared.

Not cynical, Gluestick. Simply observant of human nature. People have short memories where the apparent ability to make money easily is concerned.

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[quote user="Alan Zoff"]

It's actually rich coming from the FSA, given that if they had been doing their job properly they would have intervened earlier, at least as far as Northern Rock is concerned, but it is doubtful if they understood, or cared.

Not cynical, Gluestick. Simply observant of human nature. People have short memories where the apparent ability to make money easily is concerned.

[/quote]

Thanks, Alan; much appreciated.

In May 1979 I travelled to Mexico to meet the government and a number of leading businessmen.

By this time, my personal activities were very much in international finance, which tended to focus on projects and sovereign risk debt.

The government of Mexico wanted to borrow $1, billion: I came back with a mandate to source it on their behalf. Needless to say if I had have succeeded, I'd now be a member, probably of Complete Bermuda Forum instead.........................

Pemex (Petroleous Mexicana) had recently proved their offshore oil and gas reserves and it was obvious to a dead and myoptic fly, that their economy was only going one way thereafter.

Could I get anyone in either New York or London to express interest?

Nada.

A very short while after, the world and his wife were throwing money at them like there was no tomorrow!

Lopez Portillio (El Presidente) and his gang were nicking cash like there was a printing press at Fort Knox: which there was, of course!

And guess what? They defaulted.

My obligors were the Ministry of Tourism.

Nuff said, really.

[Www]

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Property price inflation is a real dilemma, though, especially for the people who can least afford to lose out.

All and sundry (except property developers and estate agents) have been saying for years that prices have been rising too fast and that it would end in tears. But for as long as the banks made money available - if necessary by tearing up the rule book - to those that could afford (or couldn't afford) the risk, including the buy-to-let market, first-time buyers heeding cautious advice merely saw prices rise still further and further out of their reach.

As a result, many buyers get drawn in, not out of greed but due to a feeling that if they don't act now, they will never own a house. (We might get onto whether anyone needs to own their home but that's a whole new topic.)

It's a pity that we can have little faith in government-created regulators, whether it's the FSA or government auditors who were supposed to ensure that "low risk" with-profits funds were properly funded by insurance companies. Tighter lending restrictions - although unpopular in a "free" market - might have left fewer people exposed to negative equity risks.

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Becoming exposed to negative equity risks Alan is a part of economic life. You cannot have prosperity without risk. Restrictions and legislation in my view limits growth.

That’s a positive aspect of a capitalist market economy. Nothing remains the same for long. Change happens to the benefit and pain of us all. It creates opportunity and insolvency. It’s a roller coaster ride. Some of us, mainly the young and upwardly mobile prosper hugely by getting in and then knowing when to get out and have the natural courage to do it. The rest of us are in therory at least prudent and careful and able to maintain a financial equilibrium admit the chaos. What other economic system can provide such opportunity, hope and consistent prosperity? I know of no other. If you limit economic life with regulation you choke and strangle the economic future of generations. There are always winners and losers. If markets are not allowed to breath then the winners go elsewhere. The rest of us loose as a concequence.

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