Kristine Lowe

A Conspiracy of Paper and the Spiderweb of Credit

"A system of credit is like a great spiderweb - you cannot see it until you are trapped within it, and you cannot see the spider until she dangles above you, poised to devour."

Now here's a description that fits like hand in glove for the many personal accounts I've heard on people who've found themselves trapped in the credit snare, and I wonder if the description doesn't feel familiar to all those (media) company owners currently struggling to restructure the mountain of debts they've accumulated in happier times. The memory of Mecom-boss David Montgomery telling a group of journalists, myself included, that the company didn't have enough debt back in April 2007 springs to mind, but I'm digressing.

The quote is from a book I was reading last week, called "A Conspiracy of Papers", and, even though it is set in eighteenth-centry London and deals with the origins of today's financial markets, I was struck by the parallels to today's financial realities. The book is historical crime of the kind I must admit I have penchant for, Neal Stephenson's triology "The Baroque Cycle" is another good example, and, amid all the action, the characters find time to discuss things like the soundness, or lack thereof, of shifting from coin to banknotes e.g in paragraphs such as this:

"But silver is silver. Coins are clipped because you can take them to Spain or India or China and exchange it for something that you desire. You cannot do that with a banknote, because there is nothing to support the promise outside its point of origin... these financial institutions are committed to divesting our money of value and replacing it with promises of value. For when they control the promise of value, they control all wealth itself."

Now, it gets rather philosophical, most things do if you look deep enough, but this currency-debate has not gone away: you still find those who advocate that currency should be based on real or objective values, like gold, today. More to the point, imagine how we've gone from debating a gold-based vs paperbased economy to one where a complicated web of derivatives and credit can bring down the global economy, as happened with sub-prime, collateral debt obligations (CDOs), credit default swaps and what have you not.

I'm reminded of this brilliant visualisation of the credit crisis, and I'm afraid I belong to those who think we're not out of the woods from that crisis yet, far from - especially not media companies who are struggling to deleverage, find a more viable business model and at the same time suffering the effects of the collapse in the advertisement market. Things are not looking great.

But back to the macroperspective: while reading the book I found myself wondering how much and how little has changed, and how, even if the financial market and its instruments have grown ever more complex, many of the arguments remain very similar. Just listen to this bit from Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria:

Finance has a history of messing up, from the Dutch tulip bubble in 1637 to now. The proximate causes of these busts have been varied, but follow a strikingly similar path. In calm times, political stability, economic growth and technological innovation all encourage an atmosphere of easy money and new forms of credit. Cheap credit causes greed, miscalculation and eventually ruin. President Martin Van Buren described the economic crisis of 1837 in Britain and America thusly: "Two nations, the most commercial in the world, enjoying but recently the highest degree of apparent prosperity and maintaining with each other the closest relations, are suddenly plunged into a state of embarrassment and distress. In both countries we have witnessed the same [expansion] of paper money and other facilities of credit; the same spirit of speculation...the same overwhelming catastrophe."

"Modernisation" Minister launches book on sharing culture

I just learned that an anthology on sharing culture, edited by Heidi Grande Röys, the Norwegian minister of Government and Administration Reform, is out today (via Sermo Consulting). It's called "Shared opinions - about the web's social side" (my adhoc translation, more about the book + excerpts for download in Pdh here in Norwegian)

I must admit my gut feeling is scepticism because, well, she's hardly at the forefront of the social media (r)evolution, but I see that many clever people, such as Eirik Solheim, Gisle Hannemyr and others, have contributed to the book, so I'll try to get hold of a copy as soon as I'm back from London. If it really is a sign the country's Government has caught on to what's happening it is very encouraging. I have seen various attempts at Government blogging which hasn't really impressed me, and I know some Norwegian politicians are getting pretty good at twittering, even blogging, so maybe... I'd like to be convinced....   

Heidi Grande Röys, Norway's minister of Government Administration and reform, photographed by me at the 25 year anniversary for the Norwegian edition of Computerworld last year.

Sshh... don't mention it: on burying a book launch

Carl I Hagen. Ooops, slip of the tongue, and a most humble apology to my international readers for focusing on local news, but the publishing house of this controversial Norwegian politician seems bent on burying the news of his book launch.

Sending out an invitation to the launch of his new book at 7:39pm on a Friday evening in Norway, where journalists are known, likely even, to leave their work at 4- 5pm, makes you suspect this is a book they don't want to be associated with. Now, who shall I compare Hagen with: Pim Fortuyn, Jörg Haider, Newt Gingrich? In either case, we're dealing with a politician the intellectual elite might be uncomfortable being associated with, but one the publishing house might safely assume is controversial and/or popular enough for 'the masses' to purchase a book from even if the media didn't mention the launch. Or, maybe they've cut an exclusive with someone...

Those were the days...

Or were they? Whether or not this is history, and if making it history is desirable, can be debated, but it still sums up much of the glory newspapers held, and still hold to many a journalism student. Okay, so I've shamelessly ripped this quote from a Fantasy book, "The Court of the Air" by Stephen Hunt, but I bet most of you can relate to some of the romantic sentiments about newspapers in these lines:

"It's easy to mistake this [The Middlesteel Illustrated News] for a couple of sheets of wood pulp, m'dear, but you'd be wrong. This is a weapon. No less than the bloated airship floating above Middlesteel; and this can do a great deal more than burn a district to the ground. It can inflame an entire nation to arms. It can send the people stampeding in one direction or t'other at a polling booth. It can burrow into the heart of the flash mob and turn over the stone of the underworld so everyone can see the worms and maggots crawling through our sewage. It can uproot the stench and sweat of Stallwood Avenue mill and slap it down inside the comfortable five-storey house of an articled clerk. It can take a selfless act of bravery and make it seem like the grossest foolhardiness - or it can take an idiot and raise him up to strut across the floor of parliament like a peacock."

The most Dangerous author in Britain

I was enthralled to read a while back that New Line Cinema, the studio behind the Lord of the Rings triology, has started casting the first part of Phillip Pullman's fabulous trilogy "His Dark Materials". I absolutely loved those books and found it intriguing to see how much Pullman draws on Milton's "Paradise Lost" and the works of William Blake, as I was quite obsessed with those works myself in my early teens.

Peter Hitchens, the conservative British columnist, famously published an article about Pullman entitled “This Is the Most Dangerous Author in Britain”, in which he called him the writer “the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed.” The New Yorker came up with a more informative review in this excellent article: “His Dark Materials” may be the first fantasy series founded upon the ideals of the Enlightenment rather than upon tribal and mythic yearnings for kings, gods, and supermen. Pullman’s heroes are explorers, cowboys, and physicists."

I also like Pullman's approach to literature: "Stories never fail us," said Pullman when he won the Carnegie Medal. '"In adult literary fiction, stories are there on sufferance. Other things are felt to be more important: technique, style, literary knowingness. But stories are vital. There's more wisdom in a story than in volumes of philosophy.

...The present-day would-be George Eliots take up their stories as if with a pair of tongs. They’re embarrassed by them. If they could write novels without stories in them, they would. Sometimes they do."

And the future is...

Anne-Marie Ugland. Mark that name. Last week she signed a contract, likely to lead to her first series of popular novels, with one of Norway's biggest publishers. Ever since we went to senior high school together she's nurtured and worked towards this ambition: Doggardly. Disciplinedly. Passionately – always upholding the virtue of the good story. At this point I could reminiscence about the good old times and the elaborate plans we made for the future, but the future is upon us: well-deserved Anne-Marie. Congratulations!

The tooth trolls have arrived London

Cultural imperialism comes in many different forms: today Norwegian tooth trolls Karius and Baktus will be let loose in London in an attempt to get East End kids to get their toothbrushes out more often. Creations of Norwegian author Thorbjorn Egner, Karius and Baktus live in poor Jack's mouth where they continuously plot to create as much damage as possible. Little Troll Productions is staging “Karius and Baktus"at the Hackney Empire today and tomorrow.

Great Sci-fi news

Hot off the press: I was thrilled to find that Ken MacLeod has just been nominated to the 2006 Hugo Awards for his novel Learning the world, way to go Ken...