By Ian Fraser Published: Qfinance Date: November 26th, 2012 Many of François Hollande’s predecessors as French president have publicly stressed the need for structural reforms – for example plans to raise the pension age, or measures to free up France’s labor market – but balked before implementing them. It happened to ex-president Jacques Chirac, who shelved plans for [...]
September 7th, 2012 When David Cameron reshuffled his cabinet earlier this week, the arrival of a trio City of London bankers and consultants at Her Majesty’s Treasury went almost unnoticed. This in my view was a lacuna. The three men are Paul Deighton, a former Goldman Sachs partner and chief operating officer for Europe (pictured above), Sajid [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Qfinance Date: June 7th, 2012 George Soros caused quite a stir when, in a remarkable 4,400 word speech at the Festival of Economics at Trento, north-eastern Italy on Saturday June 2, he outlined the unpalatable choice that now faces Europe. With a Greek exit looming and the Germans resolutely ignoring Spain’s pleas for [...]
By George Soros Remarks at the Festival of Economics, Teatro Sociale, Trento, Italy June 2, 2012 Ever since the Crash of 2008 there has been a widespread recognition, both among economists and the general public, that economic theory has failed. But there is no consensus on the causes and the extent of that failure. I [...]
November 23rd, 2011 Updated November 24th: This handy interactive infographic shows how sovereign debt has exploded in European countries in recent years. According to the figures, the country with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio for each and every year from 1980 to 2010 was Belgium – and it was only overtaken by Greece in 2011. The [...]
November 19th, 2011 Ian Fraser’s introduction: This blog was written by Golem XIV, a pseudonym for filmmaker and author David Malone. David’s core argument is that banks, not governments, are to blame for the current eurozone sovereign debt crisis. While there are some serious omissions — the article does not mention the flawed nature of [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: November 6th, 2011 Nicolas Sarkozy had hoped to use his time as head of the G20 to achieve lofty goals like rethinking the global financial system and tackling commodity price volatility. But the French president has ended up doing little other than fire-fighting and his tenure may yet [...]
August 22nd, 2011 There are eerie parallels between the continuing precipitous falls in the shares of European and UK banks and the stomach-churning gyrations seen in September and October 2008. And it’s kind of ironic that one of the biggest fallers, Barclays, bought Lehman Brothers before superimposing its own investment banking logo on the failed [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: August 12th, 2011 The temporary short selling bans imposed by Belgium, France, Italy and Spain in the hope of rooting out perceived market abuse and trying to restore a semblance of calm to volatile financial markets have gone down like a lead balloon in the markets. Investors, industry bodies and academics [...]
August 4th, 2011 It must have seemed a good idea at the time. The Smurfs were welcomed by the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street last Friday, July 29th, to ring the opening bell. This may have been a good move for Sony Pictures, which has a movie to plug but it has turned [...]