Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Nouriel Roubini for the A-list: The eurozone heads for break up
The muddle-through approach to the eurozone crisis has failed to resolve the fundamental problems of 
economic and competitiveness divergence within the union. If this continues the euro will move towards disorderly debt workouts, and eventually a break-up of the monetary union itself, as some of the weaker members crash out, writes Roubini, founder of Roubini Global Economics.
Lex on Glencore mining its own business
If anyone can knock wayward Kazakh mining companies into shape and do deals in racy jurisdictions, it is probably Ivan Glasenberg, chief executive of Glencore, Lex says. Talk that the newly listed commodity trader-cum-miner is eyeing a bid for Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, in which Kazakhmys holds a key stake, has prompted a pop in both companies’ shares. But it is wildly premature.
Philip Stephens: Labour must own its past to build its future
David Cameron is fortunate in his opposition. When a government feels obliged to trumpet radical reform of, well, its own radical reforms, something has gone awry, says the FT columnist. Beyond the troubles over the health service, the coalition’s progress has begun to look like a succession of stumbles and swerves. Brash promises have been colliding with cold realities. In the spheres of education, criminal justice, immigration and welfare as well as the NHS, ministers have been learning how much easier it is to announce their shiny new policies than to put them into practice.
Stephen King: Time to put the southern Silk Road on the map
From a western perspective, it’s tempting to believe that either the eurozone debt crisis or the US slowdown is the greatest show on earth, says King, group chief economist of HSBC and author of ‘Losing Control: the Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity’. That temptation should be resisted. The greatest show on earth is happening elsewhere: the creation of a southern Silk Road, a network of new “South-South” trading routes connecting Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
Sony Kapoor: A plan to rescue Greece and save the euro
European Union leaders are getting their knickers in a twist over Greece, again, says Kapoor, managing director of Re-Define, an international think-tank with offices in Berlin and Brussels. Here the facts are well known: Greek debt spiralling up to 170 per cent of gross domestic product; a stubborn double- digit deficit; the collapse of private investment; and a quickly shrinking economy. The EU’s “Plan A” – liquidity support and structural reform under a joint EU and International Monetary Fund programme – has run aground. So what Europe needs is an immediate and credible “Plan B”.
Sushil Wadhwani: Markets may regret Bank’s regulatory policy
This week marks the first formal meeting of the interim financial policy committee in the UK. It is envisaged the FPC will contribute to financial stability by using macro-prudential tools to make asset price bubbles smaller by “leaning against the cycle”. I have, for more than a decade, argued that the way UK monetary policy was being conducted was flawed, as the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee was unwilling to use interest rates to lean against the cycle in response to emerging bubbles, writes Wadhwani, chief executive of Wadhwani Asset Management.
Editorial Comment: Colleges’ big bang
The reaction to A. C. Grayling’s New College of the Humanities has been not just apoplectic but apocalyptic. Reasonable people may disagree whether a for-profit college is per se a good idea, but many seemingly assume that the project spells the end of British education as we know it. That says little about what NCH has to offer; more about the bigger changes in UK higher education policy.
Analysis: Oil: Differences in Opec magnified
Until this month, Mohammad Aliabadi’s main task was to prepare Iranian athletes for the 2012 London Olympics, writes the FT’s David Blair. Then, on June 2, the head of his country’s National Olympic Committee was suddenly appointed oil minister. Within just five days, he was sweeping into Vienna in a black limousine with Austrian police escort to take the helm of the most highly charged Opec meeting in recent history.