As Gordon and Alastair puff out their chests and iron their M+S Let’s Pretend We’re Businessmen suits (made in Indonesia) to host the G20 Global Summit on the global economy, a letter from Steven Katirai, whose Google search reveals him as a capital markets consultant based in the North East of England, has been doing the rounds [...]
Category Archives: Finance
An open letter to Gordon Brown, saviour of the world's banks, apart from Iceland, the UK and . . .
March 17, 2009 – 12:52 am
The big money is at the end of the rainbow, same as it ever was
March 3, 2009 – 4:58 pm
Writing in Wilmott, Rudi Bogni argues that banker-bashing may be a convenient way to mask the inconvenient truth that the demands on our financial systems are unsustainable. Western productivity was not up to the task of generating sufficient wealth to fuel perpetual growth, nor is it likely to be. It required a collective suspension of [...]
Unless we kill them now, Zombie banks will roam the earth, eating our future and boring us witless
February 22, 2009 – 3:26 pm
The financial system as a whole is rotten. Predicated on the now-doghoused dogma that markets know best and light-touch regulation is all that’s needed to produce the best of all possible worlds, the regulatory structure failed to prevent banks, insurers and investment funds from acting recklessly. During the good times, investors as well as [...]
Recession or depression? Don't ask Gordon Brown, he's in denial.
February 12, 2009 – 9:46 pm
A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative GDP; a depression is defined as a slide in peak-to-trough of real GDP of 10% or a decline lasting more than three years. According to Mervyn King, Head of the Bank of England, the UK ‘recession’ is much deeper than anticipated. GDP might drop by [...]
Some good news at last – News Corp lost £4.4 billion last quarter
February 9, 2009 – 11:09 am
Cheer up – the recession (depression, according to Gordon Brown’s most recent Freudian slip of the tongue) has some green shoots. You wouldn’t have noticed unless you were looking hard – the company in question is hellbent on global media domination and now owns the Dow Jones Wall Street Journal- but on Thursday, 5 February [...]
If you don't like what you've seen of Davos Man, wait till you see Nationalist Man get to work.
February 5, 2009 – 10:22 am
By Timothy Garton Ash. Davos Man, ‘the most highly evolved mammal on the planet’, should say ’sorry’ for the economic mess he’s got us into, according to a recent piece by British Conservative MP and journalist, Michael Gove. Conservative party leader, David Cameron. Cameron was a Davos Man last year too. Clearly Mr Gove is calling on his [...]
Inflation is handy for stealthily lowering wages, deflation makes money cheaper but discourages risk-taking.
February 4, 2009 – 10:51 am
I’m publishing this comment as a post because I’d forgotten about the effects of inflation on wages – a phenomenon that I haven’t read elsewhere recently - and partly because I’d like someone to answer the question not answered here, namely, what are the advantages of deflation or zero growth? I also like the notion [...]
This is not a detour on the road to Shangri-la. It's the path to perdition.
January 30, 2009 – 10:33 pm
Sally Buchanan made an important point about the inflation/deflation question in her comment below. We may require a re-alignment of our entire value system. The much-misued Utilitarian term ‘greatest good for the greatest possible number’ might depend on thinking about what we do and how we do it based upon what we, and the planet, [...]
Inflation may be marginally less depressing than deflation . . . .
January 30, 2009 – 12:01 am
. . . . . . but that’s hardly a reason to be cheerful. And deflation might dampen wasteful consumerism. By Peter West There’s only one thing worse than inflation, and that’s deflation. Inflation got a bad name for itself in the seventies, but just recently when it has looked like being replaced by its satanic [...]