Review: Bairing the strain of failed regulation
By Antony Currie
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
There is one clear and simple message from “Bull by the Horns,” Sheila Bair’s account of her five years in charge of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp: financial regulators still need a good kick up the backside. Bair is not one to pull her punches – she delivers her poor opinion of several financial CEOs in the first couple of pages of her tell-all, and doesn’t stop there in her critiques of America’s banking system.
Review: Lessons for the poor from English history
By Martin Hutchinson
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
It took England centuries to develop a successful industrial economy. Poor countries today want to recapitulate the process in a few decades. In “The Political Economy of Nation Building” development consultant Mack Ott draws some lessons from the English experience.
Review: The real way HBOS gave us extra
By George Hay
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Anyone watching British TV in 2002 will probably remember Howard from the Sheldon branch. The bald, bespectacled bank teller at a new bank called HBOS tried to attract deposits by singing clumsily adapted pop songs. The nadir of this allegedly amusing commercial effort was undoubtedly “Who gives you extra?”, a parody of the Baha Men’s “Who let the dogs out?”. Like Howard, who rapidly became a star, HBOS was trying to be something it was not.
“Hubris: How HBOS Wrecked the Best Bank in Britain”, Ray Perman’s timely guide to the bank’s spectacular 2008 demise, gives a comprehensive insight into what HBOS “extra” ended up being: an extremely unamusing forced takeover, and an 11.5 billion pound state recapitalisation.
Review: Pragmatic management wisdom from the East
By Edward Hadas
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The industrial economy was developed in the West, but it is increasingly global. The same can be said of management studies. Starting with the “scientific management” of Frederick Taylor in the 1880s, the field has been dominated by writers trained in the rationalist tradition of the European Enlightenment. Ikujiro Nonaka and Zhichang Zhu think that Eastern philosophical traditions, in particular the teachings identified as Confucian, offer an alternative perspective.
Review: “Bond Girl” goes for broke, ends up short
By Megan Miller
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
Erin Duffy’s “Bond Girl” does little to shed light on the mechanisms behind the financial collapse in 2008, although it does uphold the copious clichés about the years of excess leading to the downfall. Snapshots of sexual harassment, over-indulgence and trigger-happy traders are all par for the course in this oft-told “Devil Wears Prada” version of a female analyst’s first years on Wall Street.
Review: the two-sidedness of a richer China
By Wei Gu
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
For multinationals, “The End of Cheap China” is a mixed blessing. Shaun Rein, an American marketing consultant based in Shanghai, has written an interesting book with that title. The good news is that customers can afford to pay more. The bad news is that they’re increasingly reluctant to spend their higher incomes on anything multinationals have to offer.
Review: Why Uncle Sam fails to fix his finances
By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
To understand the current state of the U.S. federal budget – and the policies the next president will be forced to pursue from day one – there are two pieces of required reading. The first is a two-year old wonky white paper entitled “The Moment of Truth,” by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The second is “Red Ink,” David Wessel’s handy new guide to understanding the politics of the federal budget.
Review: How the West both lost and won Asian minds
By Edward Hadas
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
“What is the cause of the poverty, indigence, helplessness and distress of the Muslims, and is there a cure for this important phenomenon and great misfortune?”
Review: Not another BRIC in the wall
By Katrina Hamlin
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
BRICs is by no means an obsolete tag. The acronym coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in 2001 continues to operate as both a useful shortcut and a fertile provocation to compare and contrast the world’s four biggest developing economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China. But like all neat catchphrases, there is a danger that one day it will veer into cliché. It’s already easy to over-associate the term with all emerging markets.
Review: Banks bet their lives on neurochemistry
By Martin Hutchinson
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Trading is mostly about neurochemistry. That is the persuasive argument of former trader and current neuroscientist John Coates in his book “The Hour Between Dog and Wolf”. The implication is clear: men have too many of the wrong hormones to be trusted.
-
FEATURED VIDEO
-
Breakingviews: Bank boss bingoMay 17 - Breakingviews editors namecheck Wells Fargo's John Stumpf, who is venturing onto the anti-regulation soapbox, and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, who faces a potentially contentious annual meeting.Video
-
Reuters Breakingviews: Hollande gets serious on Europe - at lastMay 17 - French President Francois Hollande's plan for a centralised euro zone 'economic government' may be premature, but it has legs argues Breakingviews.Video
ABOUT BREAKINGVIEWS
BREAKINGVIEWS ON TWITTER
Books
Breakingviews has published a selection of books for purchase and download.
LATEST TITLES
Predictions 2013: Exploring the year ahead.
Edited By Robert Cole
Bridging the Divide: The economic and fiscal challenges facing the next U.S. president
Edited By Richard Beales
