Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Wolfgang Münchau: Shrink the eurozone, or create a fiscal union
I was confused when Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, proposed a European Monetary Fund, writes the FT columnist. I had not expected this. Was it an attempt to deflect attention from the fast-approaching bail-out of Greece, as one close observer suggested to me? It does not seem plausible. Or perhaps this marks a genuine change in the German position? Had I missed something?
John Cassidy: Lessons from the collapse of Bear Stearns
Two years ago on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson called up Alan Schwartz, the chief executive of Bear Stearns, and told him the jig was up. “Alan, you’re in the government’s hands now,” he said. “Bankruptcy is the only other option.” Thus began the epic stage of the credit crunch and 24 months on, many costly lessons have been learned, notes Cassidy, author of ‘How Markets Fail.’
George Osborne and Jeffrey Sachs: A frugal policy is the better solution
Virtually all policy analysts agree that the path to renewed prosperity in Europe and the US depends on a credible plan to re-establish sound public finances, write Osborne, Britain’s shadow chancellor, and Sachs, director of the Earth Institute. Without such a plan, the travails which have hit Greece and which are threatening Portugal and Spain will soon enough threaten the UK and the US.
Lex on buy, sell, whatever
The “buy” and “sell” recommendations issued by research analysts on traded stocks are a constant source of stress for chief executives. Perceived as being market movers, the highest-ranked researchers take home million-dollar pay-packets, demand a chief executive’s full attention, and rarely bother to offer their advice to outsiders, unless they happen to be a big client of the bank. But for all the fuss, how powerful are they as a driver of a stock’s performance?
The Long View: Fears of Chinese bubble reverberates
Over the next few days, the Financial Times will be holding a series of “Great Debates” in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, asking whether China will be a superpower in 2020, notes the FT’s John Authers. Viewed from New York, it seems a strange question.
Lucy Kellaway: You can’t always get what you want
The Grateful Dead have been rebranded, says the FT columnist. Formerly they were five hippies who took a lot of drugs and made music. Now they are business school case studies, hailed as visionary geniuses for creating customer value, promoting social networking and engaging in strategic planning. This new direction for the band is written up in the March issue of The Atlantic, which claims that business students have got tired of studying companies and have turned to the Dead instead.
FT Dot Comment: Keynes and the Chinese (government) speculator
Reading the interesting argument between readers commenting on Paul Murphy’s strong backing for speculators in Saturday’s FT prompted me to re-read chapter 12 of Keynes’ General Theory, and his prose is every bit as good as last time I read it, almost 20 years ago, says the FT’s James Mackintosh.