Comment and analysis from Thursday’s FT:
Comment: Josef Ackermann: How banks can win back confidence
For the first time in history, a crisis triggered by US housing finance problems is having global ramifications. Individual companies have drawn lessons from the crisis but common efforts to reform the financial system are the order of the day. The challenge is to extend individual reforms across the financial services industry, writes Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank and chairman of the board of directors of the Institute of International Finance.
Stefan Stern: Time for a brand new you
What do people say about you when you are not there? This may not be a question you have asked yourself before. But your successful, politically astute colleagues will probably have spent quite a lot of time thinking about their reputation, image and impact on others. So perhaps you should start thinking about it. Your career prospects depend on what They are saying about You.
Undercover Economist: Creative capitalism
Many have argued that is is entirely legitimate for a company’s managers to divert resources to social ends. But does this really work?, asks Tim Harford.
John Gapper: Corporate culture shock is a big deal
Look at the management mess at Alcatel-Lucent and it’s tempting to think that some nations will never work together fruitfully in business because of cultural divides and historic enmities. The Germans are too stuffy, the French too insular, the Italians too excitable. The best-remembered British encounter with a Spanish fleet was when Sir Francis Drake fought the Spanish Armada in 1588. But there is reason for hope.
Comment: Beginning of the end for Swiss banking secrecy
Amid mounting criticism of its secrecy practices, the Swiss banking industry finds itself at a crossroads, say Winfried Ruigrok, professor of international management at University of St Gallen MBA programme, and Berno Ullings, associate partner at Solution Providers, a management consultancy. In the long term, Swiss banks must move away from reliance on banking secrecy towards offering superior quality and service.
Lex: Stabilisation funds
With sovereign wealth funds saving the western world, it is easy to forget about their poorer relatives. But stabilisation funds, designed to achieve medium-term macroeconomic stability rather than higher returns from excess forex reserves, are shimmying back into the limelight in some emerging markets. And history shows that well-executed funds can work.
Insight: China extends the credibility gap
Officials in the US must be jealous, says Paul Cavey, head of China economics at Macquarie Capital Securities. Recent events suggest China’s monetary authorities have more credibility than the Fed. US attempts to talk up the dollar have been unsuccessful because the markets don’t believe interest rates will be raised amid the troubling US economic outlook. China’s monetary policy is similarly constrained, albeit because of the perception of exchange rate undervaluation rather than weak growth. But Beijing has been successful in promoting the idea that policy is tight.
The Short View: Commodities prices
In commodities, it’s necessary to separate the long from the short term, says John Authers. Over history, they have moved in “super-cycles”, posting big gains every few decades, then oscillating in line with ebbs and flows in storage for a protracted period. This gives some context to the sudden fall in commodity prices.
Clive Crook’s blog: The end of the WTO?
The dispiriting thing about the latest Doha failure is that the costs of compromise were indeed so low. Governments no longer judge a successful Doha Round to be capable of delivering them a net political gain. Since that was the reason for the WTO in the first place, the game appears to be up.