Goodwin must lose his knighthood January 19, 2012 IT is time for Sir Fred to become once again plain Mr Goodwin. He should be stripped of his knighthood, awarded in 2004 for services to banking at a time when the Labour party and the Scottish establishment thought he was a genius and a great business hero. He was no such thing and ended [...]
Coalition needs to tackle jobs crisis January 18, 2012 BRITAIN’S jobs market has ground to a halt and with more people joining the labour force than leaving it unemployment is soaring. This is an emergency, yet the government is paralysed, with radical supply-siders (including, perhaps surprisingly, several advisers in 10 Downing Street) largely stymied, thanks to Vince Cable and allies. There are some reforms [...]
Britain is right to oppose a Tobin tax January 17, 2012 SUPPORTERS of an EU Tobin tax like to see themselves as the enemies of finance and supporters of the poor. They want to punish the City while raising money for increased public spending – or if the EU’s plan goes ahead, to finance Brussels. They are certainly right that such a tax would hurt financial [...]
Rating agencies are still far too soft January 16, 2012 MANY people have been outraged by Standard & Poor’s downgrades of so many countries, including France and Austria – and last night, of the European bailout fund itself, now no longer backed by enough AAA-nations to be deemed safe. But those who are angry are deluding themselves. The only scandal is why it has taken [...]
How US CEOs are being cut down to size by investors January 15, 2012 HERE is a finding you won’t have read elsewhere. The total pay of top CEOs in listed US firms has gone down – yes, gone down – by about 50 per cent in real terms since peaking in 2000-01. This is what Steve Kaplan, professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, reveals [...]
Londoners can’t wait another decade January 12, 2012 IT was good to hear Boris Johnson’s commitment to boosting London’s rail and road infrastructure at his speech to Mansion House last night. High speed rail is a waste of money but there are plenty of smaller, local projects, including in London, that would add far more value and tap more easily into private funds. [...]
Life isn’t just – but self-belief works January 11, 2012 SOMETIMES, willing something to happen actually works. If you are young and want to make lots of money when you grow up, you are actually much more likely to end up richer than those of your peers with a more relaxed attitude to wealth. The first prerequisite to becoming rich is to want to become [...]
Life isn’t just – but self-belief works January 11, 2012 SOMETIMES, willing something to happen actually works. If you are young and want to make lots of money when you grow up, you are actually much more likely to end up richer than those of your peers with a more relaxed attitude to wealth. The first prerequisite to becoming rich is to want to become [...]
Six reasons this rail plan is a mistake January 10, 2012 IF money grew on trees, the government’s London-Birmingham HS2 high-speed rail scheme would be a good thing. Unfortunately, the nation faces fiscal Armageddon; so here are six reasons (there are many more) why the coalition is wrong to back HS2. 1) Like virtually all government infrastructure projects, the costs of this grandiose white elephant will [...]
Time to root out fake facts on boards and pay January 9, 2012 REWARDS for failure are bad; rewards for doing well are good. That is one of this newspaper’s guiding principals; as I argued in this space yesterday, the Prime Minister is right to be giving more powers to shareholders to make sure they exercise closer control over boards. It is wrong and indefensible for CEOs who [...]