Fund hedges not hedge funds
Forget money markets, we need plant markets
It was the night the 2008 credit crunch hit. I’d been out drinking in London with a University friend. There was something in the air that night and it felt like change. We made our way to a dimly lit bar in the heart of the city’s financial district. I rubbed shoulder to shoulder with bankers.
A small crowd of them were taking coke on a semi-regular basis, disappearing off to the toilet every few minutes. There was more money in their nostril than there would be Northern Rock back the following day.
This was very far from my usual world, and these people were at the opposite end of the social strata. They had been schooled in places that would cost more per term than I’d ever earn in a year. I'd ended up there as one of my dearest friends happens to have gone to a bit of an expensive school and these bankers were his old school friends.
They were nice people - those not on coke - money hadn't infantilized them too much. But the mood was somber, Northern Rock's collapse dominated the news along with the trouble with American sub-prime markets.
The question on everyone's lips was, "What would follow?" - it felt like the scene at the end of Fight Club - money itself was in danger. It was an odd evening; I found myself consoling these people who, rightly or wrongly, I assumed never had to worry about paying rent or putting food on the table. The lyrics to Pulps Common People…
You'll never fail like common people
you'll never watch your life slide out of view
And you dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
… would never send shivers down their spine in the same way it does for me and others like me.
When we talked I found that most of them still had money left from their last bonus, and I told them they should just enjoy it. I told them to start foraging or gardening and to get out of the city. I told them just how much I enjoyed this way of living.
I think they just thought I was odd.
That night was significant, one of those memories that my brain favours above others. I recall it with some regularity. I've not changed my thoughts, no matter what response they get. In fact, these thoughts have solidified. The world of high finance and many other office based jobs (including writing blogs) feels unreal and perhaps unsafe too.
Everything to do with plants, trees, fungi, and perhaps people too - feels like a great investment. I still think I gave those bankers some good advice. Knowing how to survive on your own wits, in the wild is a great insurance policy to just about everything that might come your way.
There is a 2018 film, Happy as Lazzaro, (and this short synopsis contains spoilers) the film which I think categorises the reason why it is difficult to implement a simple life. Lazzaro - the central character - shows the peasant workers how to forage. Helping them to reconnect with nature and lead a happy life.
As the film progresses, we find the peasant workers are being exploited and are owed a fortune. We find Lazzaro trying to negotiate with the banks to regain the money owed to them. He’s kicked to death by the bank customers who mistake him for a bank robber.
What I think the film is trying to say is that knowing this simple truth, that the wild world wants to support us and is there for us, is a dangerous idea - especially when going up against the banks. In Lazzro’s case, it was fatal.
Almost two decades on from the Credit crunch there has been another massive change - Covid. We've all now experienced panic buying and seen empty shelves, we all know what mass stress looks like, the veil of civilization has been lifted. Beneath it sits the all-mighty Oz frantically pulling leavers and pushing buttons to try and make us believe he has great power.
The economics of our situation are precarious, globally. We simply don't have the resources for continued economic growth in it’s present form. As we saw during this crisis even safe stocks can become toxic.
I suspect that, if we end up facing more turbulence in the form of a pandemic and more resource wars, then food chains will be disrupted. I could see them becoming nationalistic. We had a glimpse of this in Europe as France stopped buying Spanish strawberries despite going against EU law.
More recently and, the war in Ukraine has caused disruption to world food markets. This is because Russia and Ukraine control a huge amount of the world’s food, 30% of world wheat exports, 19% of corn exports and about 80% of world sunflower oil exports. The knock on effect caused a cost of living crisis across the world.
Situations like the one we are living through, political unrest, crop failure caused by climate change and the impending resource wars will increase food prices further. If hyperinflation hits we will start panic buying on a larger scale, it could wipe out our savings overnight and destroy house prices with one hit.
The only real safe investment then, is in the future of food. And these investments are made every time you plant a seed, a tree, hedge, or bush, every time you learn about what wild food you can eat, and every time you make compost - soil being the key to all of our futures. Invest in plants, soil, fungi and, trees and you are investing in your own survival and the continuation of our species.
But in order for us to continue to survive globally we'll need to invest further. We need to invest in the plants that attract pollinating insects, the birds that help eat the pests who eat our food, we need to stop building on farmland. We need to rewild not only to give us trees that supply us with oxygen to clean our air but, to increase the abundance of wild food and meat for us to eat.
Forget hedge fund managers we need more hedge, shrub, tree, and bush managers.