Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
How to rebuild a shamed subject
Lord Skidelsky, author of Keynes: The Return of the Master, writes: It was to be expected that our present economic traumas would call into question the state of economics. “Why did no one see the crisis coming?”, Queen Elizabeth reportedly asked one practitioner. A seminar at the British Academy tried to answer and the FT has taken up the discussion.
Analysis: The dash to flash
A certain type of stock order has raised anxiety among market participants, competing exchanges, members of Congress and now the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mary Schapiro, no-nonsense new chairwoman of an SEC that had been accused of being largely supine till the credit crunch began to batter markets two years ago, this week served notice that the days of so-called flash orders are likely to be numbered.
Editorial comment: Flash of regulation
The Securities and Exchange Commission was severely constrained under President George W. Bush, who blamed slow economic growth on “SEC overreach”. The SEC has now lost its Cinderella status – but its new chairman, Mary Schapiro, must avoid giving credence to Mr Bush’s misconceived complaint.
America needs a single bank regulator
US senator from Virginia and member of the Senate’s banking committee, Mark Warner, writes: We need a financial system that can tolerate risk and promote safe innovation. We cannot afford hobbled regulators that can be played off one another, forced to pull punches for political reasons, or that are too compromised by other missions to act.
Jonathan Guthrie: Swallow the water, but not the marketing
I have been reading the website of the Natural Hydration Council, a body that says it is guided by a panel of scientists. My layman’s precis of its “top ten tips for healthy hydration” is as follows: we need up to three litres of fluid a day; dehydration is dangerous and occurs before we feel thirsty; drinking water regularly is the best way to avoid it.
John Authers’ The Short View: US payrolls
Tomorrow, Wall Street enters into the time-honoured and often silly ritual of non-farm payrolls. Every fourth Friday, the noisy data creates a rumbustious end to the week. The excitement is usually misplaced. This year, an oddly strong May report was cancelled out four weeks later by an oddly weak report for June. And unemployment tends to be a lagging indicator, recovering later than other economic factors.
Lex on inflation
The great reflation will come with a nasty debt hangover. But the notion, mooted by some, that postponing the exit strategy from easy money and allowing some beneficial inflation to boost growth and reduce borrowing in real terms, is both dangerous and misguided.
Letters to the Editor:
- Beijing can count on local consumption
- China set for ever greater competitiveness
- Prescription for better shareholder transparency