Occupy the City as well as Wall Street
The Occupy Wall Street protest has been described as a deeply instinctive movement to defend America’s traditional values. So far, it has been a peaceful, dignified and respectful, almost wistful,...
View ArticleHatred, Contempt and Fury
A typically indecisive Will Hutton article in The Observer (29.1.12) was headed ‘Hester’s pay discredits bonus culture’. Did Will Hutton think, despite the works of Bob Diamond, Fred the Shred and the...
View ArticleBudgeting for Naked Greed
All sorts of hares are set loose in the run up to the budget: removal of the 50% income tax rate, ending of national pay settlements in the public sector, imposition of a mansion tax, a clamp down on...
View ArticleFree Markets Controlled by the Unaccountables
How does a basic item of clothing, say a shirt, come into existence? Where does the cloth come from? And the colours or dyes, the buttons and thread, the machines that cut the fabric and the machines...
View ArticleDemocratic Capitalism
Among all the debate about the vices and virtues of capitalism there is rarely any serious attempt to define its key characteristics. Whatever they are, they appear to work better than the best known...
View ArticleThe FTSE100 and the UK Economy
Every day, the BBC – in fact the whole media circus – faithfully report the progress of the FTSE100 share index, as though it were a portent of our economic future. Every day so called “experts”...
View ArticleWhy the ‘big six’ energy suppliers are “ripping off” consumers
David Cameron has recently claimed to know a thing or two about economics. So why is he surprised the privately owned ‘big six’ energy providers appear, as Ed Milliband put it, to be “ripping off”...
View ArticleMore Big Six energy rip-offs
The Big Six energy suppliers must be desperately worried. Dermot Nolan, boss of energy regulator Ofgem, is demanding that they explain to customers why they have not lowered gas and electricity prices...
View ArticleDefending the System
What do Hillsborough, Lance Armstrong, Jimmy Saville, Lady Butler-Sloss and the Institute of Economic Affairs have in common? The United Kingdom is a more or less congenial place to live. It is fairly...
View ArticleThe Final Victory of the Establishment?
When Ebay announced its intention last week to sell off PayPal, it was giving into the so called ‘activist investor’, Carl Icahn, who had been calling for the deal for months. The Financial Times...
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Talent for being in the Right Place at the Right Time
During the past week the much derided Bob Diamond, CEO of Barclays Bank, has graced the world with both a lecture and an interview with the BBC. Asked about his remuneration, modesty forbad him to...
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Hatred, Contempt and Fury
A typically indecisive Will Hutton article in The Observer (29.1.12) was headed ‘Hester’s pay discredits bonus culture’. Did Will Hutton think, despite the works of Bob Diamond, Fred the Shred and the...
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Budgeting for Naked Greed
All sorts of hares are set loose in the run up to the budget: removal of the 50% income tax rate, ending of national pay settlements in the public sector, imposition of a mansion tax, a clamp down on...
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What Really Matters Now
Professor Gary Hamel’s new book is available: ‘What Matters Now: how to win in a world of relentless change, ferocious competition, and unstoppable innovation’. Hamel is a breathless optimist. He sees...
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Bad Theory and Management Renewal
Management scholar, Sumantra Ghoshal, accused mainstream business schools and university departments of teaching ‘bad management theories’ that were ‘destroying good management practices’. His...
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God Complex ‘Drivers’ to Extinction
Keynes referred to them as the ‘madmen in authority’, referring to the policy makers and top financial and business executives, who rule our world. Maybe ‘madmen’ doesn’t quite capture their essential...
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The Defunct Professor Friedman?
‘Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist’. Practical men, say, like Bob Diamond. You can’t get much...
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The Glencores, Xstratas and Blairs
Almost 18 months ago Glencore first featured on this blog – Glencore and others are screwing the world – a posting which highlighted the predatory nature of financial monsters like Glencore. The...
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The Real Costs of Globalisation
Globalisation reduces the cost of goods and services as their production migrates to the lowest cost parts of the world. The lower prices are a benefit for everyone and the low cost parts of the world,...
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The Cure for Monopolistic Exploitation
After the Libor rate fixing scandal, and the PPI mis-selling fiasco, we now have hysteria over gas and electricity companies fixing market prices to their advantage at the expense of the general...
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