Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Gideon Rachman: Bankruptcy could be good for America
Perhaps the most memorable thing said so far by an official in Barack Obama’s administration was the remark by Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”. America is now piling up debt and may one day be lucky enough to experience its very own national fiscal crisis. Let us hope it is not wasted.
Peter Tasker: Busting the myth of the Brics
Emerging markets used to be known as the markets you couldn’t emerge from in an emergency. They are now mainstream. But are valuations low enough to offer good investment opportunities? In less popular areas, perhaps yes. But the biggest of them all, China, is in a bubble phase. And just as there has never been a bubble that hasn’t burst in the end, so there has never been an investment boom that hasn’t been followed by a bust.
Analysis – Let us pay: The Church of England’s pensions crisis
Throughout England, the Church of England is wrestling with the consequences of a financial crisis that could strip it of its earthly heft for good, write Sam Jones and Norma Cohen. Faith in the equity markets and the consequences of new regulations have holed the Church’s flagship pension scheme, where the shortfall nearly triped within two years to reach £352m. And that is only one of a litany of problems affecting public and charitable schemes around the world.
Michael Skapinker: The sorry business of corporate apologies
Does sorry help? It depends. For an apology to work, it needs to be unequivocal and the apologiser needs to show that he understands what he did wrong. Three recent corporate apologies – from Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric and Jerry Levin, one-time chief executive of AOL-Time Warner – provide lessons in how not to say sorry.
Short View: In China we trust
It is China’s appetite for other countries’ goods that has driven the markets’ recovery of the last year, writes John Authers. But the global impact of China’s buying is becoming controversial. China’s growth is far preferable to contraction. But now that Chinese buying has recovered, as many had hoped, it appears that markets in the rest of the world are questioning whether this is what they really want.
Lex: Global imbalances
Even shoe shine boys are warning about “global imbalances” these days. Just as “pumping liquidity into the system” is said to be a good thing, the truth is such concepts are little understood. Imbalances can in fact be both desirable or vexing. What is more, in so far as they manifest themselves in current accounts, imbalances have actually moderated post-crisis. Time to stop worrying?
US Daily View, video: Banks brace for the backlash
The FT’s US business editor Francesco Guerrera discusses how the US banks are preparing for an outcry over their coming round of bonus payments, and the challenge of keeping staff satisfied while minimising the fall-out from angry lawmakers, regulators and the general public.
EnergySource blog: Peak oil demand funds
There are plenty of peak oil investment funds, but this is the first peak demand – or post-oil, as they call it – fund that we’ve heard of. The idea behind London-based Beetle Capital is not only everything peaks, but that the world is already in a peak oil phase and will soon enter a phase that is not just post-oil, but post-growth. From a short paper it published on Monday.