Comment, analysis and offerings from Monday’s FT,
Wolfgang Münchau: The political causes of a not-so-secret meeting
They cannot even organise a private meeting, notes the FT columnist. How, then, can they solve a debt crisis? The bungling of a not-so-secret gathering of finance ministers in Luxembourg on Friday night provides an object lesson in how the politics of eurozone crisis resolution is going wrong.
Lucy Kellaway: Must I remember my kids’ ages just to log on?
Returning to the office last Tuesday after a long weekend, I couldn’t start work as I’d forgotten my computer password, writes the FT columnist. Perhaps it was the combined excitement of a spectacular wedding followed by a spectacular death, but my brain was no longer able to retrieve a simple sequence of seven characters.
News analysis: Debt fund to target gap in lending
A group of former bankers and the departing global chairman of Deloitte have formed a debt fund manager in an effort to target an expected shortfall in funding to mid-cap European companies, writes the FT’s Anousha Sakoui. The group is the latest European venture to start up in the wake of the credit crisis to fill a gap created in lending to smaller companies.
Clive Crook: Now Obama must lead on the deficit
A rise in the headline rate of unemployment was not the ending President Barack Obama would have chosen for last week, notes the FT columnist. The spectacular triumph of finding and killing Osama bin Laden boosted his poll ratings and set analysts calculating how he might use the event to seize the initiative in Washington. Within days, mixed signals from the labour market sent a reminder of what matters most to Americans between now and the next election. It’s still the economy, Mr President.
Nick Butler: How shale gas will transform markets
The past 100 days have been a dramatic time for energy markets, as a nuclear accident in Japan followed revolt across the Middle East, with oil prices fluctuating sharply in the aftermath, writes the chairman of the King’s Policy Institute at King’s College London. Despite the sense of crisis, however, neither Fukushima nor conflict in Libya is likely to disrupt long-term patterns in global energy supplies. But there is one new development – the rising importance of shale gas – that just might.
FTfm: Last word – what to do with a recalcitrant dollar
The global financial system continues to operate in a dysfunctional manner, says Edward Chancellor, member of the asset allocation team at investment manager GMO. New economic imbalances and credit booms are popping up around the world. At the heart of the problem lies a global reserve currency that derives from a country with negative real interest rates, negative savings rates and a dubious commitment to price stability. Is there no alternative to the dollar standard?
MoneySupply: The UK Monetary Policy challenge
Thursday’s decision to keep monetary policy on hold in the UK was such a foregone conclusion that it barely made ripples, writes the FT’s Chris Giles. But predictability does not mean the Bank and economists are equally calm beneath the surface. Rather, they are furiously paddling to try to work out what on earth is going on with the British economy.