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Comment and analysis from Friday’s FT:
Comment: Martin Feldstein: The crisis: a tale of two monetary policies
The ECB and the Federal Reserve are facing similar problems but pursuing different policies, says Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard. The ECB has been raising interest rates while the Fed has been cutting them. The overnight federal funds rate is now 2 per cent while the corresponding ECB rate is 4.25 per cent. Which central bank is doing the right thing? Or could they both be?

Editorial Comment: Credit crunch in a century’s context
The credit crunch is a year old, but unless a deep real recession follows, it looks like cause for reform rather than revolution in the financial system. See also the FT’s four-part series and related articles in “The Big Freeze” special feature, on the causes and effects of the past year’s credit turmoil.

Lex: On private equity
It’s always smart to keep some powder dry. Some of the best investment strategies depend on keeping cash on deposit when times are tough – that’s what Warren Buffett does. But for private equity firms, just how dry can this powder become before their investors start getting more than a little fidgety?

Comment: Niall Ferguson: How a local squall might become a global tempest
For a time, the coincidence of a US slowdown and soaring oil prices revived unhappy memories of 1970s stagflation, writes Ferguson, an FT contributing editor. But now a new and colder front is crossing the macroeconomic weather map: the prospect of a global slowdown.

The Short View: European economy
Europe has moved further along the road towards a recession than the US. The economic data of the past two weeks make that conclusion hard to avoid and Jean-Claude Trichet made no great attempt to deny it in his press conference on Thursday.

Insight: The squeals over ‘Corrigan III’
The protests and squeals of pain from the global securities industry over talk of changing credit ratings scales for complex debt products have probably turned into slack-jawed silence in the wake of “Corrigan III”, says the FT’s Paul J Davies. This week’s third in a series of reports into systemic risk from the study team led by Gerald Corrigan, Goldman Sachs grandee and former New York Fed chief, seems an effort to support overstretched regulators and central banks while forestalling the need for tighter supervision.

UK Daily View, video: Are Barclays write-downs enough?
The FT’s Jane Croft assesses the UK bank’s latest numbers and its rising mortgage market share

View of the Day: Gold prices
Just when it looked like fears of systemic financial weakness would drive gold up through $1,000 an ounce, the fall in crude has seen a number of consequences that have undermined the short-term argument for gold as a safe haven, says John Reade, head of commodity strategy at UBS, which has cut its short-term forecast for gold by 15 per cent to $850 an ounce.