A long gap since last post. This is partly due to lack of inspiration but also down to being plain busy.

The book is coming along OK and I think I'm on target to hit the deadline. Like a lot of things, it's interesting being close up to a subject but difficult to gauge the subject's 'read-me' appeal. It feels a bit strange having my head so full of a subject that's not a normal topic of conversation.

I've not had any significant walks since I last posted but pleasant saunters at Waverley Abbey and Winkworth Arboretum. In this neck of the woods the autumn colours have been fantastic but the arboretum didn't seem in a different league to the ordinary roadsides.

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Last week we watched the stock markets take a big swing downwards even though the fundamentals for a lot of quoted companies look good. The trouble is that the superficials don't look at all good with most of the big New York banks taking hits and (I read in today's paper) Barclays having problems, too. These big declines in bank share prices have some effect on the rest of the stock market but presumably a much bigger factor is the calculation that, with the investment banks losing billions in dodgy investment vehicles, there is going to be a slowdown in takeover deals so a lot of share prices are going to lose the sheen that the possibility of a takeover gives them.

Money Observer has a new columnist, Ken Fisher, who seems to have taken over the space vacated by the excellent Barry Riley. However, whereas Riley was primarily a (financial) journalist and seemed to be just sharing the wisdom of decades of experience, Ken Fisher is an asset manager and one, moreover, with an axe to grind. The burden of his spiel is that the credit crunch isn't real and that the markets are going to do well in the near future. His article in the latest issue even has a table proving that the 4th year of presidential terms tends to avoid negative returns better than the 1st and 2nd years.

After last week the credit crunch is looking more real . As well as the likely dropping off in takeovers, the western world's business elite seem to be going through a bad patch and although super-rich bankers and private equity investors may have exhibited hubris, things don't necessarily get better when foolish elites come a cropper.

In a sense what happens to bankers or even to share prices is beside the point; the important facts are homes re-possessed or jobs lost. It looks as if the financial system is going to lose some of its usefulness as a lever to influence what goes on in the real economy for a while. Credit problems in the financial system may have power to do harm but lowering interest rates may not be enough to stop the damage.

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US commentators say that the temperature of the Iranian nuclear weapons crisis in the making has gone up since the middle of October and point out that all of the presidential hopefuls except Barack Obama are prepared to contemplate threatening military action. However, some of the Europeans and the Russians and the Chinese don't seem to see it that way.

The problem seems to be the way US intentions play in other countries. People want to know if there is any way to tell the difference between 'we want to threaten to destroy you' (if you persist with nuclear armaments) and 'we want to destroy you' as in (conquer Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein).

In fact Iran isn't the only country which poses a nuclear threat; Pakistan should be in the frame, too. Also, if the US wanted to indicate that they were really serious about a non-proliferation consensus they could do more to reassure the Russians that their systems in Eastern Europe aren't designed with Russia in their sights. Having the US AND Russia as joint prefects might bring other problems in its wake but at least those in year 9, so to speak, would take notice.

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It's too soon to predict what the new spell of martial law in Pakistan will lead to but it does seem ominous that President Musharraf seems to have ruled out any swapping of roles with colleagues (or spouses) as has happened in Argentina and is due to happen in Russia before long. It looks as if he really thinks he's indispensable.