Death and Taxes

The only guarantee in life is death and taxes. I can agree with death, there is never going to be an escape from that fate but taxes are far from inevitable. There is no need nor is there a benefit to general taxation. They lead to a wasteful use of scarce resources, appropriating the means of production from the competent, placing them in the hands of central planners with no such track record.

Taxes have been in the news of late for a number of reasons. Starbucks, the global coffee brand, has recently declared it will make 'charitable donations' to the tax-man here in the UK, highlighting the absurdity of taxes. The donation is a rational PR stunt to appease customers, the majority of the public still believe taxation is a noble cause. Google and Amazon on the other hand opted out. Eric Schmidt, Google's ex-CEO said it was Capitalism and was proud of the companies track record. Personally given a choice if I would prefer Google to have the money or the Government, I'd choose Google every time. They provide me with useful services for free (in many cases, they now give me hardware for loss prices, such as their Nexus products). On the other hand my Government continues to tax me more. It says I can't have a state pension until I'm over 70 which will no doubt rise further despite the fact I pay 10% of my income to National Insurance which is one giant ponzi scheme that will never pay out. Healthcare is rationed. I have to use badly managed transport systems currently under the grip of the state. I struggle to see the value for the thousands of pounds I pay in general taxation every year. 

Everyone likes to take the moral ground in relation to taxation both rich and poor. Many think taxes should be raised - so long as its not them. People on low incomes believe the rich should pay more. Billionaires such as Warren Buffet, presumably to appear charitable, asks for people on high incomes to pay more. He doesn't mention the fact that he himself does not have a high income, he earns his fortune in dividend payments and such. Of course for those earnings he campaigns for lower taxes - again, others should pay taxes, so long as its not me!

Taxation is such a farcical system and is only kept afloat along with the inefficiencies of the State by the co-exisitng free market. Mises long ago proved Socialism would collapse as it lacked a price mechanism in order to divert scarce economic resources. Taxation is a direct abolition of this price mechanism, there is no alignment with consumer demands and it abandons  entrepreneurship. In the end the systems collapses and needs to be re-managed with the guidance of prices. 

Tax avoidance is not a moral problem it is a rational human action, we all do it. Booze Cruise. Imported Cigarettes. Inheritance Tax, gifts to Children. Putting funds under other family members names to reduce the taxation on investment income. Contractors/Self Employed declaring income as company dividends. Everyone to some extent or other looks to avoid tax, however they then proceed to take the moral ground when a company or individual does the same. Jimmy Carr was demonised for using workarounds recently, but why? People on various levels of incomes do this all the time, it was nothing new. 

One day I believe taxation will be banished to the history books but the majority still believe it to be of benefit to them. Over half the population in the UK get some form of "benefit" payment from the state, reinforcing this belief. We can't give Heathcare or the Police to market forces, who will protect the most vunerable. Electronics, that great bastion of State run economics, the most vunerable now have widescreen TV's when once a TV was a luxury good, a case of more for less. Myths and fears ring in peoples minds keeping one to known conventions. A classic myth is Communist Cubas "Worldclass Healthcare".  Dig a little deeper, deeper than a Michael Moore propaganda film, and the truth comes out. In Cuba it is hard to get even basic medication such as Aspirin, we're not talking about some complex surgery, just a simple product that costs pennies in the West. Cuba's infant mortality rate is low for a reason and its not the healthcare. They simply don't count infant deaths below the age of 6 months or so. Of course this is when the most deaths occur, I could make a "WorldClass" healthcare system with statistics like that. In Western countries like the US they even include premature babies, the ones that only with modern Western Technology have the opportunity of life. In Cuba they die. Old Communist Russia used to fudge the numbers of people who died in hospitals by simply pushing patients outside the grounds when they thought they would die. Bribes were common. Anaesthetic - forget it. You were lucky to get a simple procedure like X-Rays due to rations on X-Ray film.

The UK's NHS heathcare system is bankrupt but there is still the dogmatic belief that people need state healthcare. Meanwhile regulation stifles private competition. Other half baked initiatives such as PFI amounts to nothing more than failed state planning being transferred to large corporations who have their nose at the trough. It won't work for the simple reason Governments will mismanage the funds as there is no price system, no consumer demand, no entrepreneurship. To solve such economic calculations, you need to remove all regulation and Government involvement. Only then will people on the lowest incomes derive greatest benefit.

Taxation is enshrined in law. If you don't pay you go to Jail. I don't believe this will change in the short term as there is not enough critical mass within the public for the abolition of taxes. I believe over time the Government will become bankrupt on a number of fronts and seek the markets help to run such 'sacred' services. Once the public sees the value for money, it becomes irreversible. Then people see what little the Government offers them and wake up to the fact that taxation is wasteful, increased public support for the abolition of taxation becomes more popular. Until that point I guess the majority of us will say we all need to pay more tax, so long as its not me.

Robin Hood Theory

"The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom."

"Louis XIV was very frank and sincere when he said: I am the State. The modern etatist is modest. He says: I am the servant of the State; but, he implies, the State is God"

"A new type of superstition has got hold of peoples minds, the worship of the state. People demand the exercise of the methods of coercion and compulsion, of violence and threat. Woe to anybody who does not bend his knee to the fashionable idols!"

All quotes from Ludwig Von Mises

Social structures seem to come and go throughout history. Absolutist Monarchies, Religious sects, Communist central planners, Feudalism, human history is littered with a constant evolution of selecting what is seen at the time as the next logical progression for the organisation of society. Many of us currently live under a democratic system. Such a system gives us choice between various political parties who stand for certain principles that are supposed to represent the wishes of the public. The problem is that democracy never works. You can never please everyone all with a single unified action. Many people use Apple or Linux Operating Systems rather than the dominate Windows system. Yet under democracy we would all heed to the majority. The biggest irony being that the majority actually would choose the weakest one. Individual freedom allows people to try new things under their own will and thus improve societies well being.

Governments prey on peoples belief that they can offer something for nothing. Notions of "Free" health services, "Free" education are popular sound-bites used by politicians and to give the sayings credit they tell us the minority pay for such services. Ever think why the political system now targets middle income families? So long as people think they are not paying for such services they are sucked into the mirage that is state planning. Someone has to pay for all these projects and it isn't the rich. They can cope with inflation or the Government waste as they can afford to use the additional high quality private services. Its you and me, the majority that pay for the states wasteful use of societies resources.

Anarchism generally conjures up images of chaos, lawless society with no rule or order. The opposite is in fact true when seen through a free market Anarchism viewpoint or Anarcho-Capitalism. Sure we could all go round killing one another, but the majority of people wouldn't. We don't kill one another not because of the implications of going to jail but for a simple human factor, it wouldn't be right or make sense. The majority of people want to get on, increase their living standards and quality of life, ensuring the next generation has access to a lifestyle better than their own. That's peoples nature. 

People also when left to their own devices, do what they want. Why do people want to become Doctors? Because either they want to help people, notice that it is a specialised profession with job security and good pay or they just enjoy that field of work. When individuals have the freedom to do as they please, human needs are met. The only limit is our current knowledge base. As time passes knowledge from generation to generation is passed down, the next problem is solved but then 10 other new problems are created from its solution. A free market has infinite amounts of work for us all to do. 

In a classic example of how Government destroy wealth, think of jobs. Governments on a frequent basis state they want to 'protect' jobs. The free market however creates new opportunities. Under the state we would still be working underground mining coal or whatever our ancestors did as the state would 'protect' such jobs. Meanwhile the free market sent these jobs overseas, people across the world can make products we used to make for a fraction of the cost, thus increasing peoples wealth. How many people 10 years ago could afford a 40 inch Flatscreen TV? Now it doesn't even cost a months minimum wage here in the UK. Meanwhile despite the loss of jobs, new ones have been created. One day Chinese people won't have low paid jobs. We will have sophisticated machines to do the jobs they carry out today. The global pool of intellectual labour increases. Current developing nations workers now join the West to help solve the next 10 problems we have created, while our ever advancing capital structure does the jobs we don't want or need to do. This process happens spontaneously under the action of individuals and free markets. Governments want us to work as we did in the past, all to appeal popular aiding their short term election campaigns. Despite it being a detriment to societies progress.

We don't require a state to co ordinate our lives. Who runs the schools, hospitals, police or fire services? People do. But under the states stewardship there is no consumer demand in order to direct these resources. These monolithic entities are enforced on us all, through the use of taxation, regardless of utility to the individual or society as a whole. I would personally like to use private health insurance, however I feel it is a matter of principle that I don't and instead use the NHS as I already pay a wedge of money every month in which I have no idea what it goes towards. I may as well get my moneys worth despite private care being better.

If we rationally think of taxation we see the reality of its stupidity. Every month I have to hand over a certain part of my pay packet. I don't know where this money goes, or even if it goes to services I use. On most products and services I buy I also have to pay 20% to the government. Again I have no idea where this money goes. By law I have to pay this, similar as to the Kings taxes hundreds of years ago. Theres no mutual exchange, just expropriation. This is another of the states great illusions, a "progressive" society, a Robin Hood childhood make belief, take from the rich to give to the poor. All taxation is regressive. There is no such thing as a progressive taxation.

If it was that simple why don't we just hit all entrepreneurs with huge taxes - simple, poverty solved. Why don't we just create ever more rigid labour laws? Got a new business idea, not sure if there is consumer demand, risky venture? Well if you need to recruit someone the state will impose a minimum redundancy notice of a year and an annual salary payout. Not many Googles or Facebooks would have got started in such an environment. Taxes are always regressive because what if we had not taxed the wealthy entrepreneur that money. Wouldn't they have used it more effectively than the state? In new ventures to create further wealth? Heaven forbid that they would try and create charitable organisations such as what Bill Gates is doing, giving back to society run by the stewardship of someone who has proved himself to have a sharp brain at directing economic resources. The invention of electricity, the refinement of the motor car, the rapid advancement of electronics have all improved our lives and some people have got rich along the way. But the state wants us to just see this side. The reality and the side that they conveniently ignore is that with these innovations, products and services - we all got richer along the way! When was the last time the state made us all richer? I'm typing this article, for free, and I'm able to access a global audience. It's not provided by the government but a company set up by individuals. 

The quotes provided above from Ludwig Von Mises provide an excellent historical perspective of the current state system. It's not the final step that society will take. Just like we abolished Feudalism, or Absolute Monarchism or transitioned towards a secular state, we will one day abolish the state. Just as in the past people could not imagine a world without the absolute rule of a King, the majority of people today can not see a world without the state. Just because we do things a certain way does not make it right. For years the world practised slavery. We didn't allow free speech. We were dictated by a privileged few. We used to accept lower living conditions to be ruled by a tyrant in the vain belief that we would go to heaven in our after life. Now people are told the Robin Hood theory from the state and without our current socio-political system the majority of people's lives would be substantially worse. The opposite is true. The sooner people relinquish the oppression of the state, the better all our lives will be. Maybe not in my lifetime, but as a student of history this type of event would definitely be up there as one of the most historically important events for humanity. I just hope its within my lifetime so I can witness such a momentous event. 

"Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism."

Ludwig Von Mises

Taxes and OPEC

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
Albert Einstein

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
Benjamin Franklin

As the world descends into the synchronised Global recession, Keynesian fiscal policies are being used to try and counter market forces. Like pushing on a piece of string, our institutions and leaders will still not admit that we have been living in a bubble, and continue trying to spend money they don't have. Deficit spending has never worked and never will and government intervention has never worked either, but yet this is exactly what we are doing. Governments are increasing their debts, meaning more interest payments are being made to just cover the debt repayments. Money is being poured into overpriced assets such as finance and houses, rather than being spent on infrastructure, hospitals and schools. All this extra debt leads to one thing as time goes on - higher taxes. In my opinion this will happen. With the US presidential election taking place in a matter of days, both candidates are as clueless as each other of how to solve the current problems. Barack Obama is on a mission of change, one of redistributing wealth or to put it bluntly, he seems to be edging towards raising income taxes. In the UK, the pound is sinking and capital is fleeing, with the worst deficits since the Second World War, and coinciding with declining Oil and Gas revenues. The government should be cutting spending at times like these, however this is never a politically popular policy so they borrow. With further borrowing comes further taxation later.

One policy that made the Great Depression so Great, was when Hoover raised income taxes to try and fund the governments deficits. In my opinion we will see this again in the not too distant future. If we take the US for example, they have over $10 trillion of debt on the books, and around $50-$60 trillion of future liabilities, which will more likely increase as time goes on. You can't pay these vast numbers without tax increases, and this will put further strains on Western economies. Ireland and Spain boomed when they joined the EU as they benefited from the generous EU subsidies. Ireland in fact had their first housing boom in their history due to this extra income, but it was all a short term illusion. The Celtic tiger is due for a long decline, with emigration rather than immigration, occurring again. Spain too has issues, reliant on selling foreigners overpriced holiday homes. As air travel becomes more expensive over the years to come there will be further collapse. Italy has huge debts and is in complete denial. With a retirement age of 58, and a lethargic economy it is only being protected by its membership of the Euro. The UK after amounting huge debts, the biggest seen in the west proportionally per head, and with huge external liabilities seems to have run out of time. The plug could be pulled at any moment on any of these. IMF bailout talks have begun. Pakistan, Hungary and Iceland are a few, that have become unwound.

Increasing taxes are the worst thing a government can do during a downturn. This further compounds the problem, taking money out peoples pockets and thus the economy so the government can use it for their own inefficient consumption. If more taxes are implemented then expect very hard times indeed. I feel we have boxed ourselves into this position due to all the waste that has occurred over the previous years and we will have to pay more taxes, and I've been saying this for some time. They will either be taken from income or other indirect forms, or maybe a combination of the two. Governments will look to this to try and re-balance the books, rather than admitting the social system is too extended and cutting spending.

Income tax - Do we need it?

There are some people who feel that we shouldn't need to pay income tax at all. I always find this an interesting concept. Can you imagine getting all your salary with no tax deductions? We used to have no income tax in the UK a long time ago. It was in 1798 when William Pitt introduced income taxes in order to pay for the wars with France. This is essentially how it began. By Governments running up debts that they needed to fund, so turned to the working people to take some of their pay to subsidise their spending. So how could we survive without income taxes? Well we would use our newly untaxed income to pay for stuff ourselves, rather than the government spending our money for us. Schools and hospitals, for example, can function without the need for state systems. The best schools and hospitals are already private institutions. This system would in fact be incredibly efficient despite what people tell you that we need government. Income could be raised by taxing consumption, land etc. The working people who produce wealth for the economy, by expending energy should be the least taxed sector of the economy.

There is a problem with the above. It relies on people making the right decisions and being in control of their own lives. I and many others could manage our own affairs and ensure we had medical insurance and paid for schools etc. However a lot of people can't manage themselves, thus making the wrong decisions and taking the incorrect measures. A lot of people still need to be spoon fed and can not take responsibility for the actions.

OPEC and the Oil Barron's

OPEC have announced that they are going to cut supply and surprise, surprise, the uninformed governments and media have repeated the common mantra that the greedy cartel are responsible for high oil prices and they want the price to remain as high as possible. Nothing could be further from the truth. OPEC are simply trying to keep supply in line with demand and ensure a greater longevity in their oil fields. If they kept forcefully pumping their oil fields the way they have been, oil supplies would collapse within the next decade inducing worldwide collapse and a breakdown of society worse than anyone could imagine. Over pumping a field leads to a steeper decline, the best examples are the Russia's fields which during the eighties the Russians began overproducing them as it was the only way to get hard currency to support the collapsing Communist system. The curve of these fields is a very sharp increase in production, followed by an equally sharp decrease in decline as the field becomes depleted. Contrast that with the fields in Norway that have been well maintained and gradually extracted, the production gradually ramps up and peaks but the decline is gradual and thus the field yields more oil in the long run.

Saudi Arabia the worlds biggest oil producer have already damaged their oil fields, with various technical issues being reported by the Saudi Aramco engineers over time, as early as the sixties and seventies. During the oil spikes in the seventies Saudi Arabia ramped up production to cover the short term shortfall to ensure the west didn't enter a terrible depression, or try and find alternatives. Oil fuels Saudi Arabia's economy along with other OPEC members economies. The last thing they want to do is send the price sky high, thus destroying world economies with economic collapse and destroying their number one export industry. They are simply hinting to the world that this once abundant resource has ceased to be cheep and abundant. It is becoming increasingly hard to extract and more energy is required to get the remaining oil. High hydrocarbon prices are here to stay and countries need to adapt and accept this fact.

It's also amusing when the media mentions that the oil companies are making obscene profits, at the expense of the public. Again its all uninformed dribble, something that has become common in modern journalism (read any of John Pilgers work as he details the decline of journalism, I would personally recommend Heroes as a starting point). For a start oil companies are public listed companies. If they make huge profits profits, compared with other stocks then buy shares in them and reap the dividends. However there is nothing stellar in that aspect and they are like any other tradable company. Profits for big oil companies seem huge, but this is only because they work in huge volumes of the product they sell. Compared with other industries, oil companies actually work on lower margins. Oil company share prices are based more on their oil reserves rather than their profits, as a company without oil has a pretty weak business model, hence the fairly recent fiasco with Shell. The fact that oil is so volatile in price compounds their problem, which brings me onto the next issue of the recent oil price collapse.

This price collapse was to be expected. As with all markets, speculators got involved and drove the price of oil too high and subsequently as oil is bought in 6 month futures contracts these positions were unwound as the delivery date got closer. I predicted to my dad a few months ago that I thought they would fall to around $70-$80 a barrel, with them now around $67 so a tad below. I don't know how low they will fall or when they will begin to rise again, I'll leave that to the technical analysts amongst us. I like to focus on the fundamentals as short term markets behave irrationally, and $67 is cheap. While the public think this is great news, this is in fact setting up a future disaster in the next few years. Future oil projects are being cancelled as the price has collapsed, which means lower oil production for the future which will lead to a greater oil price spike. Projects that were producing, are now being shut down as the oil price has dropped below economic viability recently. It's not like setting up an Internet company. Getting oil projects set up along with the distribution network takes time, years in fact. That's why the looming crisis has the potential to be catastrophic. When it will hit I don't no. If the world collapses then never, but I think the world will go on and continue to grow. The above applies to all commodities. Similar projects are being cancelled as prices drop and projects become less commercially viable. The lack of credit compounds the problem too as money is not available to finance these projects.

I will end with a graph that I found regarding world oil production and projected demand. As can be seen, there's been no substantial increase for the past few years. If the predictions are to be followed as detailed on the graph have a look at how the population demand increases as supply keeps declining. It looks pretty scary 5-10 years from now, just when the next boom should begin. We may be looking at a complete disruption of the business cycle for years to come until we adapt the way we use energy.

The Run on the Global Financial System

The systematic liquidation of the financial system has truly gripped the worlds attention this week, as fear has spread to all facets of society. Global Stock markets have been crashing. As prices fall, margin calls are being made ensuring further deleveraging of positions. Comparisons with the Great Depression have become widespread in the mainstream media. World leaders and Central Banks have been meeting to try solve the issues, with co-ordinated interest rate cuts and monetary packages. Iceland, a whole country, is on the verge of collapse. Citizens everywhere have been withdrawing savings from banks, feeling safer holding cash themselves. Physical precious metal dealers are running out of gold and silver. The American mint has stopped issuing certain gold coins. All assets are in free fall with no place to go, apart from cash. Libor is rising, the Fed's balance sheet has exploded, talk of the CDS meltdown has begun as positions at Lehman, the recently collapsed investment bank, are unwound. The US debt clock in New York has run out of digits. The UK has part nationalised it's remaining banking system, after the full nationalisations of Bradford and Bingley and Northern Rock. If the general public didn't realise the severity of the situation before, they do now, after a week of paralysis and sheer terror caused by decades of high finance prominence, as savings and production were side lined for the new age. The public will pay dearly for the misallocation of capital, the loss of private savings and the end of cheap energy in the years to come. To illustrate what an unusual week it was, we saw Gordon Brown making banking jokes. It was a week of many surprises.

The years to come will be more of the same with many mini crisis to come. And in times of crisis, history has always shown there is great change. Politicians and governments always intervene in a panic stricken manner when all around them seems to be crashing and failing. Emergency laws are enacted for the 'good' of the nation. Normality of the past, has been replaced with the normality of the foreseeable future. This brings me to the point of what could possibly happen over the next decade. There are many interesting and viable possibilities that could occur and I will explain my thoughts on what actions could be taken, in order to try and stem the future crisis that will take place.

• Confiscation of gold is more than plausible or the suspension of moving from paper assets into gold and silver. Precious metals are always seen as a safe haven when finance is in trouble. As the mistrust of paper based money becomes more prevalent after years of financial incompetence, people will start looking for tangible assets, ones outside the system. It would be an irrational decision and make no sense, but our leaders always seem to endorse those types of ideas.
  
  
• I still believe in inflation in medium to long term. Prices may be falling currently but this is deleveraging not deflation. The governments and authorities are embarking on the great reflation, slashing interest rates, pumping future earnings into the system. Therefore I can see certain key commodities becoming very expensive and price controls at some point seem likely. Of course an idiotic policy, but they did it in the seventies.
  
  
• Rationing is also a policy I can see been implemented at some point in the future. Food and energy rationing may become standard.
  
  
• Further nationalisation of the system. The banks are gradually relying heavily on governments, but it won't stop in the finance sector. You will probably see airlines, car makers, other key industries handing out the begging bowl for government intervention. If we begin drinking vodka and producing fine cigars, then we know we really are in trouble.
  
  
• Higher taxes sometime in the future are inevitable in my opinion. We are accumulating huge amounts of debt, more future promises to pay based on future earnings, with no current capital now. Western governments can't manage the books, and were running deficits well before the slowdown in the global economy. All of these future earnings may be severely impeded by our ageing populations and the end of cheap energy. I think Colin Campbell, a prominent proponent on the peaking of Oil, summarises it well in a speech he gave to Parliament in 2004 about the coming oil depletion, where only 3 MEPs bothered turning up.
  
  "The perception of looming decline may be worse than the decline itself. There will be panic. The market over-reacts to even small imbalances. Prices are set to soar in the absense of spare capacity until demand is cut by recessions. We will enter a volatile epoch of price shocks and recessions in increasingly vicious circles. A stock market crash is inevitable."
  
  And this from a geologist, someone not specialised in the details of economics and finance.
  
  
• Further government borrowing will have further consequences on how much money our governments can keep borrowing, and if they can find a buyer. As Robert Preston, a mainstream journalist states:
  
  "Possibly the biggest risk for the US is that in bailing out the finances of the private sector, Paulson would dent international investors' confidence in the American government's balance sheet - which could ultimately undermine the dollar, push up inflation even more and raise the cost of servicing debt for the US authorities."
  
  What happens if the Saudis, Japanese and Chinese don't want to keep lending money to the West? We have little capital in our own societies. The prices of government bonds will go up, as investors suddenly realise certain institutions have no intent on making good on their promises as the currency devalues further.
  
  
• Interest rate cuts have been used progressively over the past year. The trend will continue. They will fight the inflationary boom, that has just occurred, with more inflationist policies during the bust. Don't expect to be living on easy street though. Debt is far too high and the last thing banks are thinking about are more risky loans, just as defaults are rising and capital is being destroyed at a rapid rate.
  
  
• I heard recently that bonuses in the city this year are due to decline 60-70% this year. As I have said in a previous post, finance will be in big decline for years to come. The age of excessive rewards are over, and in my opinion finance will become a middle earning job, with places like New York and London, that were heavily reliant on high finance to be in a state of terminal decline. For how long who knows. We may have seen a top, for the rest of our life times.
  
  
• It may be all hands to the pump, co-ordinated action, on the current events, but this may turn as time goes on. Protectionist policies and the hoarding of certain assets will become more and more common between countries.
  
  
• Regarding the above, if the flight of investors from certain countries does occur then governments may freeze assets to try and keep them within their borders, enacting emergency laws.
  
  
• Wars regarding resources are bound to become more prominent. We have already had the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which was the establishment of a middle east police station for the West. With more shortages to come, these areas will be of critical importance to many economies, with countries organising themselves into coalitions. China has already been in agreements with Venezuela regarding Oil supplies to name one of many relationships that are being formed. Water will become more important, with the potential for conflict between Israel and Palestine, Pakistan and India to name a couple. The Twentieth Century was the most bloody Century in human history, with the second half involving more deaths. I expect the first half of the twenty first century to continue this trend and be even more bloody, although I do hope I'm wrong on this point.

I suspect there will be a rally in the markets next week. The governments should be able to calm investors fears in the short term. More runs and panics will happen over the following years. With these events will come great changes. We are all in uncharted waters. Governments have the buckets at hand, but will it be enough to save the sinking ship? Or is the ship destined to sink as the damage done so far, is irreversible?