The Great Debate UK
What’s Good Value in Green’s Household?
– Neil Collins is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –
Stephen Green, the chairman of HSBC, published his latest book on Thursday. Green is a passionate Christian who devotes considerable energy to disproving that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
His latest offering is entitled Good Value and immediately raises two questions: Is a slim volume really good value at 25 pounds? and Good Value for whom?
HSBC has come through the banking crisis in much better shape than most of its western competitors. A combination of luck (its roots in the far east, where they save first and borrow later) and judgment (it elected not to join the financial arms race that was investment banking) allowed it to escape meltdown. The ignominy of state aid was avoided.
