Tag Archives: central banks
The New Bank of England
A well-informed correspondent, who did not want to be identified, predicts a full “spring clean”: “ I’m inclined to think Carney’s denial of interest (in becoming Governor) was genuine rather than a negotiation tactic like Napoleon’s thrice refusal of the title of emperor. However the denial of interest may have been based on…
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Carney’s likely priorities
Understanding markets and power leads to one conclusion Those who are familiar with his thinking report that he will be keen to emphasise that responsibility for managing risks lies with the firms themselves. So he will be big on reforming governance of financial institutions. He will insist that bank boards live up to their duty…
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Some nuanced views of Mr Carney
The UK media have been gushing in their welcome. It is right to welcome central banking’s “rock star”. But not everybody has been carried away by the euphoria…you only have to scan the Canadian press today: Andrew Coyne at the Montreal Gazette That our banking system was not so badly mauled by the crisis as…
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“Oh, what a lovely slump!”
Older readers of this column may remember a British film of the late 1960s called “Oh, What a Lovely War”, a skit on the first world war, using popular songs of the time, starring the likes of John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith (her of the TV series “Downton Abbey” )….
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Banks that go bust
One of the lessons of FinCR (financial crisis and recession) is clear. We have to get better at stress-testing. That is, we have to understand better than we did what circumstances can push banks over the edge into insolvency, and how regulators can spot weak banks in advance. Or so the story goes. The…
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Tectonic plates shift
There is a short and a long-term way to view the debate on structural reforms in banking. Short term, the question is, will the EU’s Liikanen knock out the UK’s Vickers? Or will Vickers prevail? The recommendations are mirror images of each other, one ring-fencing so-called retail banking the other ring-fencing the investment banking bit….
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Towards the next crash
The political tide is backing off the banks. Few politicians in Europe or the US are willing to support moves for more radical reform. They just want to get the banks lending again. In practice, that means pressing banks to accept the risk of big bad debts down the road…and so set the stage for…
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Did unethical conduct cause the crisis?
Dropped in to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) to hear a talk by Dr Elaine Sternberg (she is the author of “Just Business: Business Ethics in Action”, a research fellow of the Centre for Business and Professional Ethics at Leeds University and IEA’s corporate governance guru; not many philosophers have also been entrepeneurs…
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GOD? We need Moses
Even before today’s job ad in The Economist, it is clear who will win the race. GOD, in the shape of Baron Augustine O’Donnell, former head of the British civil service, is set to be the next governor of the Bank of England. For a start, the job spec indicated that only superhumans need apply….
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Hypocrisy does not help
The financial crisis that began on this date in August 2007 has not ended. It continues, and will continue so long as policy-makers and economists fail to learn its lessons. Instead, what we have is a mountain of hypocrisy. Almost everybody is being economical with the truth. This applies to central bankers, financial regulators and…
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