Poetry and capitalism make a heroic couplet December 8, 2011 T.S. ELIOT was a banker, but that hasn’t stopped two poets from refusing to be shortlisted for this year’s prestigious, £15,000 Eliot Prize over a sponsorship deal with Aurum Capital, an investment firm specialising in funds of hedge funds. First Alice Oswald and now John Kinsella have given up their coveted places on the list. [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 8, 2011 Chinese walls Terrific advice [Culture clash: Five tips for Western firms that want to do business with China, yesterday]. I’ve lived and worked in Greater China many times over the past 15 years. How I wish I read this article before my first trip. If anyone is skeptical about anything in the article, trust me, [...]
Culture clash: Five tips for Western firms that want to do business with China December 7, 2011 EVERYBODY knows how important it is to do business with China, but many business people are making serious errors that are hitting their company’s bottom line. So, what is the most important aspect that western companies need to focus on when dealing with the Chinese? A report released earlier this year by Blackwood Group revealed [...]
Today’s freedom was yesterday’s trade privilege December 7, 2011 THE Freedom of the City originated in the early thirteenth century. Today the freedom is largely symbolic, but in the Middle Ages it was a valuable working document that gave you the right to trade. It would enable you to carry out your trade or craft as a member of one of the venerable City [...]
Cameron isn’t down and out in Brussels yet December 7, 2011 TO THE headline writers, the case is clear cut: David Cameron is at best at loggerheads with his party on Europe, and at worst selling them out. Backbench MPs are demanding that the UK must repatriate powers from Brussels and hold a referendum, but the Prime Minister dismisses such options, stressing that the most important [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 7, 2011 It’s not cricket While Forest Capie and Geoffrey Wood [History reveals breaking up a currency union isn’t hard, yesterday] think that the process of breaking up the euro could be a swift and relatively clean, the examples given do not involve the same levels of redemonination risk that a euro break-up carries. If you were [...]
History reveals breaking up a currency union isn’t hard to do – but you must be fast December 6, 2011 WHAT happens when a country changes its currency, either by creating a new one to replace the existing one or when it leaves a monetary union? A good starting point is New Zealand’s switch from sterling to the NZ dollar at the end of the 1960s. That was a simple matter of redenomination and printing [...]
Why the CBI was wrong to attack EC audit reforms December 6, 2011 AUDITING is at a crossroads. The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, the Office of Fair Trading, the European Commission, the US audit regulator (PCAOB) and investors all have substantial concerns about the listed company audit model. John Cridland of the CBI outlined the case for resisting the EC’s new proposals in these pages last [...]
Spending your money like a sex-crazed ape December 6, 2011 I ONCE saw a documentary about the extraordinary sexual appetite of the bonobo ape. This gave me an idea for an anti-impotence drug. I plan to isolate the genes in bonobos that account for their virility, pack them into some kind of a pill and sell them off by the truckload. The idea is at [...]
RAPID RESPONSES December 6, 2011 Tax and the City Congratulations to City A.M. for raising the issue of the threat to the City by intrusive and unnecessary EU regulation [Calls for PM to protect the City, Monday]. As a London MEP I am fighting in the European Parliament to protect my constituents’ jobs and to preserve the City’s status as [...]