This is a handy summary of Wall Street’s woes: …investment banks rely heavily on borrowed money, called "leverage" in financial lingo. Lehman was typical. In late 2007, it held almost $700 billion in stocks, bonds and other securities. Meanwhile, its shareholders’ investment (equity) was about $23 billion. All the rest […]
Anders Aslund is a direct, reasonable and perceptive analyst of Russia’s economy. He lays it on the line here: Russia’s isolating itself politically and you see this, this extraordinary crudeness [with which] Putin and [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov talk to everybody. And that of course means that people are less inclined […]
James Barbour from deep Moscow has tagged me in a new Internet game of One’s Three Inspirational Communicators. The idea originated as (of course) a New Wave PR meme, but is none the worse for that. So at the risk of being earnestly irrelevant as the world’s financial system totters, here goes. What […]
Is Zimbabwe’s political power-sharing agreement good or bad for Zimbabwe? If anything is deemed to be better than total collapse, it might be seen as good (for the time being, until it isn’t). But it sets a wretched precedent. It has all the moral stature of a deal between a […]
What is the precise mechanism which makes people start to talk in arch post-modern jargon? Like this: Labour needs to provide a convincing new narrative if left-of-centre politics are to remain the driving force in Britain. Or this: Mr Brown and Mr Darling must find new ways of telling a […]
How bad is it getting as the global financial system takes another big hit as Lehman Brothers tank? The reasonably optimistic case for the US economy is here. And the sprawling mess of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is scarcely a crisis of private enterprise – rather a result of […]
Right now, for me, gender trumps everything else. Therefore, what?
Greetings Britblog Rounduppers. Number 187 hosted by Liberal England is here. It links to my post on European Parliament instincts to ‘validate’ bloggers: Charles Crawford offers a voice of sanity here: Above all there is a way to ‘validate’ the best bloggers. It’s called the marketplace, millions of judgements by […]
If you are in a political race, you want to exploit whatever tendency your opponent’s supporters have towards craziness. Since the crazier your opponent’s noisiest fans behave, the higher the chances that neutrals may start to wonder if your opponent is just a bit crazy too, and so tend towards […]
Is inexperience for high office in the United States a problem? Or a design feature: If we implicitly think uncertified citizens are unfit for the highest offices, why do we trust those same citizens to select our highest officers through free elections?
