Buy when bankers move from denial to depression
In a column last year, I described the evolution of the credit crunch in terms of the stages of grief identified by Elizabeth Kübler-Ro...
A ban on touts will not rig a fixed game
The internet is transforming many businesses, and none more than the business of the ticket tout. The spiv on the street corner h...
An innumerate mistake that haunts the government
Next Monday, the British government faces its most serious parliamentary revolt since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. The iss...
Lennon was right about music and the man
Charlie McCreevy, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, recently announced his intention “to propose to the College (of Commis...
In times of complexity, common sense must prevail
Confidence in the models used for risk management in financial institutions is a casualty of the credit crunch. In this newspaper...
How I blew my money on the wrong video discs
Two years ago, I previewed the battle of consumer electronic formats. Sony and Toshiba offered competing systems for high definit...
Why more regulation will not save us from the next crisis
Suppose that at some time in 2006 – or, more usefully, earlier – the Financial Services Authority had written to the banks it supervise...
No need to own the road: just buy the tollbooth
Last week, I described the arithmetic that has made Warren Buffett the world’s richest man. The magic of compound interest over f...
Just think, the fees you could charge Buffett
The news that Warren Buffett is now the world’s richest man led to the predictable round of stories about his frugal habits – the cherr...
Sloppy talk means executives are lost in space
At a business conference recently, I thought I would scream if anyone repeated again the phrase ‘in the space’. But the room woul...