RAPID RESPONSES June 11, 2012 Moral hazards [Re: It’s time governments stopped bailing out bankrupt banks, yesterday] Banks won’t stop behaving responsibly until they know that behaving irresponsibly results in unmitigated disaster for them. That means letting them fail and making sure directors and executives enjoy a level of liability for their actions. Failure would suddenly seem much less appealing if [...]
Get out the way: Small firms must be allowed to return UK to growth June 10, 2012 THE EUROZONE crisis is like a tragic opera: a torturous tale in which half the cast will be dead by the intermission. Of the Eurozone’s 17 characters, 12 are in recession, while all are banking on Germany to play the hero and keep the whole racket going. Monetarists and Keynesians disagree on how to return [...]
UK shareholders are set to rise in activist autumn June 10, 2012 SHAREHOLDER activism is one of this year’s biggest business stories, as the recent public disputes over executive pay attest. But this is just the beginning. The conditions are ripe for the shareholder spring to turn into an activist autumn. Where does shareholder activism go from here? The debate on executive pay will now focus on [...]
The City’s success needs a cocktail of local stability and global enterprise June 10, 2012 DURING my travels as Lord Mayor, I have sampled many cocktails at home and abroad. During my recent business mission to the Far East, I had a particularly fine one – a bright concoction known as the Singapore Sling, offered to me in the place where it was first mixed. It represents globalisation in a [...]
As Syria nears civil war, has the Arab Spring proven a general success across the region? June 10, 2012 YES Brendan O’Neill The idea that the Arab Spring has become an Arab Winter reveals more about Western prejudices than about reality in the Middle East. Many say the upheaval was more akin to Iran 1979 than France 1789, with Islamists rising. Yet if Islamists are doing well, it is by default a result of [...]
RAPID responses June 10, 2012 Generation gap [Re: We have no obligations to future generations: They’ll be better-off than us, Wednesday] This is the first Jamie Whyte column with which I disagree. Just because a distant ancestor has performed some task that benefits me, centuries on, I owe nothing to him or her. If, for my own benefit, I resurfaced [...]
The subprime mortgage crisis isn’t over – UK taxpayers remain liable June 7, 2012 THE subprime mortgage crisis isn’t over. On the back of misguided government policies, taxpayers in the US and UK remain on the hook for huge sums. The ideology of affordable housing must end. It took just 13 years to destroy the American mortgage market with devastating effects for the rest of the world. The process began [...]
London’s contemporary design lustre is a reflection of its inspiring heritage June 7, 2012 THE Barbican’s new Bauhaus exhibition is full of ghosts. These early twentieth-century disciples of modernism are renowned for furniture as coolly perfect as an equation, but it is the human messiness of achievement that haunts every room. A chair that takes the breath away is posed between half-finished student exercises, invitations to parties and dozens [...]
My proposal for a referendum on Europe’s future June 7, 2012 IF THE German people are persuaded by their politicians to continue funding the Eurozone, based on much greater integration, many existing EU member states will swallow concerns about undue austerity. But the UK will have a choice to make. Britain must not remain passive any longer – this is our EU by treaty. It is [...]
Should we be trusting of social networking companies to protect our online privacy? June 7, 2012 YES Sam Bowman Like all firms, social networks can only succeed by giving customers what they want. If people want privacy, the profit motive will give social networks a good incentive to offer it to them. LinkedIn’s security breach this week will probably provoke new innovations in security. Social networks have to constantly innovate and [...]