Banking

The appalling UK GDP figures, which mark the longest period of contraction for 100 years, plus the weakening of US and Euro area economies, provides yet further evidence that current policies everywhere are failing. Yet the debate on what to do is getting nowhere. The sterile argument between Keynesian expansionists and advocates of austerity continues. That…
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The reputation of the City of London has been badly damaged, however the LIBOR affair turns out. People will inevitably ask, who knows what other kinds of criminal or near-criminal activity have been taking place? Would the LIBOR attempted price fixing have come to light without those incriminating emails? What other forms of collusion are…
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This morning the FT reported that some of Wall Street’s top executives, including the heads of JP Morgan and Citigroup, Jamie Dimon and Vikram Pandit, were given double-digit annual pay rises averaging almost 12%, despite widespread falls in profits and share prices. The news confirms claims that banks are finding ways round the clamp down…
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The discussion about the need for a ‘banking union’ in the Euro area needs to focus on the key issues, just as does the debate on the euro crisis as a whole. What matters in deciding whether to assist a country to stay in the euro is its political will to reform. The test is…
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Paul Volcker, one of the few universally-esteemed central bankers of the 20th century, has summed up in a few words the messages of The Money Trap. Maybe I should have saved myself the trouble of writing the 340 page book. At least, that was my immediate thought on reading his article. A colleague called to…
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I am in Hong Kong, enjoying a wonderful view over the harbour towards Kowloon. Here, it seems to be always boom time. Hong Kong has its occasional crashes and crises, but the default mode is one of optimism, expansion, innovation. Hong Kong is a crucial bridge between Europe and Asia, between the City of London,…
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I started writing The Money Trap two years ago because I had become irritated by the narrow terms in which the economic debate was being conducted. In all advanced countries, the same arguments, between those who wanted more expansionary policies and those who insisted on more austerity, rolled on without resolution – and without producing…
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