Salomon bond salesman to acclaimed author October 4, 2011 MICHAEL Lewis was born in New Orleans and educated at Princeton University and the London School of Economics. When he was twenty-four he started working at Salomon Brothers. Finding the experience preposterous he stumbled out three years later in 1988. His bestseller, Liar’s Poker is widely considered the book that defined Wall Street in the [...]
Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour October 4, 2011 IN HIS latest tour de force, Michael Lewis looks at “why Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers”, the reasons “Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack,” and “why the Irish wanted to stop being Irish” and [...]
Chrysler’s Ypsilon does premium October 4, 2011 While scrolling through the radio, inside the new Chrysler Ypsilon I’m driving, I find one of the station presets tuned to Radio Italia. It’s an unusual choice and a reminder of this car’s roots. It’s possible you haven’t heard of the Ypsilon. It has never been sold in the UK, and elsewhere it wears a [...]
CAR TALK October 4, 2011 SKODA CITIGO Škoda has unveiled its new small, four-seater Citigo city car. Powered by a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine with a choice of two power outputs – 60PS – (62.8mpg, 105g CO2/km) and 77PS (60.1mpg, 108g CO2/km), it comes with three or five doors. Sales begin in the UK next year. LIMITED EDITION MINIS Mini [...]
Stellar Keller: French Laundry gives a taste of US’s very best October 4, 2011 AS someone whose job description includes reviewing restaurants, I admit it: I’m spoiled. Sure, it’s not all perfect foie gras and caviar washed down with Dom Perignon. But over time, you clock up a lot of great food because inevitably, the job includes eating at the very best as well as the not-so-good. I tell [...]
GOING OUT October 4, 2011 AUTUMNAL launches have continued apace and you can now go one better than Patrick Bateman by dining at Dorsia, inspired by its unbookable namesake from Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Brainchild of ex-Boujis boys Fraser Carruthers and Nick Andreen, this impressive new South Ken members club is spread over three floors of the (ex-Firehouse) Georgian [...]
Deutsche scraps full-year profits target October 4, 2011 Deutsche Bank said its full-year target of 10 billion euros (£8.6bn) before tax is no longer within reach as the European sovereign debt crisis takes its toll on global markets. Germany’s flagship lender will also take impairment charges on Greek sovereign debt of about 250 million euros and cut about 500 jobs, mainly outside its [...]
FTSE falls below 5,000 as banks tumble October 4, 2011 The FTSE 100 plunged below 5,000 this morning as the banking sector took a hammering sparked by the economic chaos which continues to engulf Greece. While the Government unveiled initiatives to spark economic growth including ‘credit easing’ for small businesses, the state of the Eurozone’s finances continued to cast a shadow. European shares extended losses [...]
Construction activity at ten-month low in September October 4, 2011 Construction activity stagnated in September after contraction in the home-building and civil engineering sectors, a survey of purchasing managers showed on Tuesday. The Markit/CIPS construction PMI headline activity index fell sharply to 50.1 in September from 52.6 in August, its lowest reading since a contraction in December 2010. The weak construction figures contrast with surprisingly [...]
Switzerland tops list of tax safe havens October 4, 2011 Switzerland, despite bank settlements with the United States to disclose tax evaders, remains the top refuge for financial secrecy, according to a new international ranking of tax haven countries. Switzerland is the world leader in financial opacity, only grudgingly conforming with disclosure agreements among developed countries while courting tax evaders in developing nations, said a [...]
