Comment, analysis and other offerings from Wednesday’s FT,
Zbigniew Brzezinski on the Group of two that could change the world
The former national security adviser to the Carter administration says the relationship between the US and China has to be a comprehensive partnership, that parallels relations with Europe and Japan.
Lex: Citi break-up
Critics who have (rightly) questioned the benefits of diversification within a banking “supermarket” should not trumpet victory too loudly. For example, profitable corporate banking relies on peddling ancillary investment banking services to customers. Many of those will remain. Citi’s break-up, too, is likely to remain superficial until improved confidence enables its nasties to be sold or spun off.
Lombard on De-Fredding RBS
As Lady Macbeth put it, what’s done cannot be undone. Or can it? Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, has started unravelling the legacy of another notorious Scot – Sir Fred Goodwin – with the sale of the group’s stake in Bank of China. In a crunch, when most assets are worth less than they were three years ago, it would probably have taken more guts not to sell the 4.3 per cent holding.
Opinion: Europe’s banks need a federal fix
Director of the London School of Economics Howard Davies asks whether Europe will continue to integrate, and move towards the promised land of a continent-wide market, or has the crisis blown the EU so far off course that the process of integration will go into reverse.
Lex on the blighted eurozone
Euro membership lowered borrowing costs, but unleashed a credit boom and a rise in prices — most obviously in housing but also in wages.
FT Video: Aer Lingus chairman Colm Barrington on Ireland’s ‘no’ vote
Editorial Comment: Banks, business and a credit carrot
Whatever the spur, the setting up of a loan guarantee scheme is on the right lines.
Gideon Rachman on Generation L for ‘Lucky’
Those of us born in western Europe or the US have never really experienced hard times. Our parents and grandparents lived through world wars and the Great Depression. We have had decades of peace and prosperity.