The banking crisis and credit crunch are the product of regulation and government policy and the way to get more safety into capitalism (which most people still accept as the way to go) is to insist that transparency and fear are the best policemen.
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mind and body on 1 August 2009. No comments.
Hot from ENRON, the dazzling show at Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva Theatre, one realises that it was a romp with next to nothing useful to say. I imagine it will go down a storm when it transfers to the Royal Court. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis on 6 April 2009. No comments.
I had a letter in the Financial Times recently and I’m afraid it gave me rather a buzz. This is partly because attention at that level is always welcome, but also because my note appeared during the paper’s quite sustained attampt to get its brain round the current crisis. Oh, and I think the letter said what I had been struggling to say for a while. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis on 15 February 2009. No comments.
It is commonly said that we are facing “the worst” recession or depression for decades or even a century or so. If this is true, how much does it matter? More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis on 12 February 2009. No comments.
I have no idea how much of the Banking Crisis can be blamed on Sir James Crosby, but there is certainly an unseemly rush to blame him for everything now. The Prime Minister, politicians, and journalists are all piling in and it’s ugly. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 10 February 2009. No comments.
The four ex-leaders of HBOS and RBS were impressive in their account of their parts in the Banking Crisis. They were smarter and more interesting than most of their questioners from the Treasury Select Committee today. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis on 7 February 2009. No comments.
Is it time to blame shareholders for the credit crunch? I’ve tried thinking through blaming nearly everyone else and was surprised to see that for some reason I’d left the firms’ owners off the list. That’s weird, since I normally assume that shareholders are the ultimate arbiters of a firm’s values. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 31 January 2009. No comments.
I am not an economist or a politician but I still feel confident in pointing out the silliness of my leader’s belief that capitalism must discover niceness. More »
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Politics and campaigns on 2 December 2008. No comments.
Unemployment is likely to get quite or very bad. The numbers unemployed may reach 1980s or 1990s levels, or even 1930s levels. Here’s a comparative sketch of the miseries ahead. In a new way, they may be worse than ever. More »
