Yearly Archives: 2007
Science is the pursuit of the truth, not consensus
The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad.
London deserves better than Crossrail
The imperative requirement is for processes that both require and allow elected politicians to make choices and implement them.
Tough love is the best regime for failed banks
The notion that private companies can extract indiscriminate, industry- wide support from the public for the benefit of their investors by threatening that their weaker members will collapse is intolerable in any sector.
Helping savers and attending to credit risk
The public interest does not require taxpayer support of financial institutions: indeed it requires that some of them make substantial losses in this crisis. Only then will credit risk begin to be priced appropriately and lenders do their diligence.
BoE should not do City’s bidding
Financial market liberalisation cannot be undertaken on only one side of the balance sheet. If there is freedom to lend, then there must be freedom to lose money on lending.
Chain reaction that burned out ICI
Farewell to ICI, Britain’s leading industrial company for most of the 20th century. As a national institution, ICI nurtured some of Britain’s best management talent and developed the skills and knowledge behind the country’s most successful postwar industry.
Shallow lesson of business books
The mistake both authors and publishers of business books make is to confuse a book about “what I did” with a book about “how to do it”.
Sometimes the market is best viewed from afar
That investment style of being in touch with the market but distant from it has impressive antecedents and performance.
Same old folly, new spiral of risk
Risk markets are based more on imperfections of information and understanding than on differences in attitude to risk. And with this, financial follies repeat themselves in each generation.
Leaders will always fall prey to the sirens
The general inability of governments to bind themselves exposes a paradox at the heart of most political systems: the vast powers of governments are often weakened by their inability to bind themselves.
