EU is set for its own sub-prime crisis April 18, 2011 HUMAN beings have an infinite capacity for self-delusion, especially when it comes to matters financial. I still remember how, in late 2006 and early 2007, all too few investors, financiers, commentators and regulators wanted to believe that the US property market was in the early stages of a crash or that there was anything to [...]
How to be the perfect interviewee March 30, 2011 GET THE JOB YOU REALLY WANT BY JAMES CAAN Portfolio Penguin, £12.99 IF YOU were going to create a parody of an inspirational business book, it would look a lot like Get The Job You Really Want (the “really” is actually underlined on the book’s cover). It has all the hallmarks of an inspirational business [...]
Cutting spending through the ages March 28, 2011 BEWARE, dear reader: this is a trick question. Which Chancellor of the Exchequer cut spending the most in a single year? Was it George Osborne in his Budget last week, which if this weekend’s protesters are to be believed is pushing through the most “reckless” reductions imaginable? Or was it the great Tory chancellor Nigel [...]
Why we shouldn’t bail out Portugal March 25, 2011 HERE’S a heretical thought: let’s not bail out Portugal. The near-bankrupt country has just seen its Prime Minister resign after losing a key vote on his government’s fourth austerity package in a couple of years, while Fitch has just downgraded the country’s credit rating. Yet the talk now is of a bailout – even though [...]
Moody’s cuts Spain’s debt rating March 10, 2011 Rating agency Moody’s has downgraded Spain’s sovereign debt rating by one notch and warned of further cuts to come. The cut in the rating – to Aa2 from Aa1 – drove the euro to session lows against the dollar, while the premium investors charge for Spanish ten-year debt instead of German Bunds expanded to its [...]
Cameron needs to act – not just talk March 7, 2011 ON the face of it, David Cameron’s pledge yesterday to “take on the enemies of enterprise” was a breakthrough. It was great to see the prime minister at last get off the fence and criticise the officials and bureaucrats that have done so much to halt progress and job-creation in Britain. He joked that even [...]
Time to tackle our terrible tax code March 3, 2011 AMAZINGLY, the world’s fastest talker can speak 637 words aloud a minute. Yes, seriously. The record-holder is a Londoner called Steve Woodmore, who has featured repeatedly in the Guinness Book of Records. Tolstoy’s War and Peace comes in at a hefty 1,204 pages; it would therefore take 12 and a half hours for our record-holder [...]
Yes, Minister: when reality is like TV February 7, 2011 SOMETIMES, fiction is the best guide to reality. I have been rewatching Sir Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s brilliant Yes, Minister, one of Britain’s best-ever and much-loved sitcoms. It depicts the warped relationship between a wannabe reforming politician and his civil servants, who spend all their time thwarting him and gradually turn him into a pathetic [...]
City A.M. exclusive: Michael Douglas on Gordon Gekko | City A.M. January 28, 2011 IN THE character of the Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas created one of cinema’s most memorable scoundrels, writes Timothy Barber. That was in the 1987 film Wall Street, made at the height of the 1980s boom years. In last year’s follow-up, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (released on DVD on Monday) Gekko [...]
From midlife podginess to lean, mean jockey machine | City A.M. January 27, 2011 FROM JUMBO TO JOCKEY: ONE MAN’S JOURNEY TO BATTLE HIS WEIGHT AND AGE TO LIVE OUT HIS CHILDHOOD DREAM BY DOMINIC PRINCE Fourth Estate, £10.99 “Most people said I was mad. Others thought I’d get myself killed. The rest just howled with laughter at the idea that I – 16st 7lb and aged 47 – [...]