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Traditional banking is a difficult, commoditized service business, shorn of products that make fat profits. Continue reading
OWS is, in a sense, running for office just as hard as Gingrich, Romney and Obama. But the task is far more difficult. Continue reading
The Fed chief was the very embodiment of the 'government leader' who bestowed favors for political support. Does it make a difference, does it justify things, that he may well have done much of this (not all) for ideological reasons? Can he escape responsibility by taking the long view? Continue reading
Not only was Newt Gingrich, who carries contradictions around like a flag (he's the Washington insider as outsider, the moralistic adulterer), not punished for all of that in South Carolina; he was rewarded. Continue reading
How will the euro zone convince national entities, each with some call on a deep and emotionally satisfying past (the past, being dead, is often satisfying), to drop all that and cloak themselves in this synthetic garment called 'Europe'? Continue reading
Hail, Procrustes. Your time has come. Procrustes, for those who have mislaid your Plutarch, was a wayward blacksmith and son of Poseidon, who owned two iron beds, big and small. (I always liked that nifty detail.) When travelers passed by... Continue reading
Perrow believes the financial crisis was precipitated by 'key agents' who deliberately ignored warnings, 'created the ideologies and changed institutions, fully aware that this could harm their firms, clients and the public.' Continue reading
Business and financial journalism, according to Dean Starkman in The Audit, has been captured by malign forces mostly on Wall Street and, like those dastardly political reporters, seduced by the siren song of insider access, free food and PR careers. Continue reading
Single-factor causes of systemic disasters are as rare as single defective genes as a cause of cancer. Continue reading
If only we paid greater attention to shareholders then all would be well. That's the gist of a column in Monday's Financial Times by London Business School adjunct professor Robert Jenkins. Continue reading
What's the new year for if not to catch up on all those movies you were too busy, or too cheap, to see earlier? Continue reading
