Business Comment

Inside Business Comment

David Prosser: Moving into the eurozone endgame

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Outlook Into the lion's den came George Papandreou. That the Prime Minister of Greece was in Germany singing for his supper yesterday while his own parliament was debating the latest austerity measures he proposes spoke volumes. Mr Papandreou rightly decided his priority should be to seek to persuade Germany that Greece is serious about meeting its commitments – both for the sake of Greece itself, which needs its next slice of bailout cash, and for Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who will tomorrow ask her own sceptical parliament to ratify the deal agreed in July that was supposed to end the eurozone crisis.

David Prosser: Regulate salesmen, not what they sell

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Outlook The Financial Services Authority said yesterday it was not moving to a system where it pre-approves financial products because it does not have the resources to do so. A better reason for avoiding such a system is that it's a bad idea.

James Moore: Gold rush may be over as steep price dive sees the metal lose its lustre

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Outlook: Since hitting a high on 6 September, the gold price is now off by 20 per cent. The silver price has slumped nearly 50 per cent

Hamish McRae: This scheme might just work but significant hurdles remain

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Analysis: An eventual break-up of the eurozone cannot be ruled out – indeed many would say it was inevitable

Ben Chu: The challenge for the eurozone? It must find its Abraham Lincoln

Monday, 26 September 2011

Economic outlook: When the Christian Democrats hear the word eurobonds, all they see is hardworking Germans picking up the bills

Margareta Pagano: La recapitalisation? It's time for the French to swallow their pride

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Recapitalisation is the same word in French but it's slightly prettier said with a Gallic twist; not in France, though – there it is a dirty word and only uttered with much hissing.

Hamish McRae: No one can say if this is a pause in the recovery – or another leg of recession

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Economic View

Hamish McRae: If there is hope, it lies in the emerging world

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Analysis

Stephen Foley: HP's bizarre decision may yet turn out to have been a masterstroke

Saturday, 24 September 2011

US Outlook: Hewlett-Packard's decision to appoint Meg Whitman as chief executive is bizarre bordering on the laughable.

Stephen Foley: A sticky time for Fed's Operation Twist

Saturday, 24 September 2011

US Outlook: The day after the Federal Reserve announced its latest attempt to boost the US economy, Operation Twist, the central bank released a study which explains why it won't work. The financial crisis began in the US housing market, and recovery from the subsequent recession will not be complete until the housing market is finally healed, no matter what jiggery-pokery the Fed performs.

Stephen Foley: Titans of Wall Street face a loss of power

Saturday, 24 September 2011

US Outlook: This will hardly satisfy the scores of #OccupyWallStreet demonstrators staging a sit-in in the Financial District here in Manhattan, but it has been a good week for those of us who want to cut the overmighty US banks down to size.

David Prosser: The biggest problem of all is policymakers' inability to agree

Friday, 23 September 2011

Outlook Desperate times require desperate measures: and it is difficult to see the US Federal Reserve's extraordinary $400bn "Operation Twist" as anything else (not least, because there are very serious doubts about its effectiveness). What they also require, however, is a consensus for action – the sort of global response mustered by Gordon Brown following the collapse of Lehman, in which parties who have implacable ideological differences put them aside in the face of a crisis. And unfortunately, what we have now is the opposite of that.

Are we following in the footsteps of Japan and heading for a lost decade?

Friday, 23 September 2011

Hamish McRae: Household debt has shot up. We must pay the excesses of the last boom - excesses by us as individuals as well as by the Government on our behalf.

David Prosser: Tesco takes action to address loss of share

Friday, 23 September 2011

Outlook If in doubt launch a "price war". That has been the tactic in the supermarket sector for as long as anyone can remember. Yet most price wars are in name alone: mark-downs on prominent products are paid for by mark-ups in another aisle.

David Prosser: Lord Davies's generosity on women on the board is about to be abused

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Outlook Let us be charitable and say they are leaving it late. UKSIF, the sustainable investment group, revealed yesterday that it has written to all of the FTSE 350 companies which have yet to explain how they will respond to Lord Davies's report in February on increasing the number of women on the board, the deadline for which is fast approaching. So how many stamps did UKSIF have to buy? More than 250 – and 60-odd of the letters went to blue-chip FTSE 100 companies.

David Prosser: Will more QE refloat Britain's economy?

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Outlook It looks ever more likely now that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will call for another bout of quantitative easing in order to get the economic recovery back on track (or to avoid deflation in the terms in which its mandate is framed). The minutes of the meeting suggest QE2 may begin as soon as next month.

David Prosser: Rothschild's gain is the country's loss

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Outlook When Sir John Rose stood down in February from a long and illustrious term of office running Rolls-Royce, this column was one of many to heap praise on the contribution he had made to British manufacturing and technology. I also urged the Government to find a way to use his skills and experience.

David Prosser: Huhne's attack on the big six is heart-warming, but you'll still pay for real heat

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Outlook The word is that senior Liberal Democrats are jockeying for position in expectation of a leadership battle before the next election. In which case, one can hardly blame Chris Huhne for playing the populist card yesterday, having seen potential rival Vince Cable do so 24 hours previously. For Mr Huhne, the bad old energy companies represented the fish in the barrel to replace the overpaid company directors shot by Mr Cable on Monday.

David Prosser: Airlines' pleas to stay stuck in the lounge

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Outlook It is difficult to imagine that Iata, the airlines association, is going to have much joy with the call it made yesterday for a suspension of the European Union's plan to bring its members into the carbonemissions trading scheme from January. For one thing, Europe's political leaders have made it clear they are determined to press ahead with their timetable. For another, Iata's forecasts for the airline industry's prospects vary so dramatically so often that they are scarcely credible.

David Prosser: Time for Grübel to say when he is going

Wednesday, 21 September 2011

Outlook If reports in the bank's home country of Switzerland yesterday are to be believed, UBS chief executive Oswald Grübel will ask the bank's board for a vote of confidence during the meetings it holds today and tomorrow, in order that he can stay on to deal with the response necessary to the rogue trader affair. He should not get it.

David Prosser: Cable seeks a political windfall from modest attack on executive pay

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Outlook: Vince Cable's proposals amount to a pretty timid attack on executive pay levels that he has previously described as outrageous

Stephen King: If we looked at the bigger picture, the eurozone's problems would disappear

Monday, 19 September 2011

Economic Outlook: If some countries have lower-than-average inflation, it must follow that others should have inflation that is higher than average

Hamish McRae: Yes, the euro is bad news, but this side of the Channel is almost as bleak

Sunday, 18 September 2011

Economic View: Let us, for this week at least, declare this column a eurofree zone and focus instead on what has been happening here.

Margareta Pagano: Pity UBS. But it could just as easily be RBS

Sunday, 18 September 2011

Governments must look again at a full break-up of the banks.

David Prosser: Eurozone in no mood for Geithner's mercy mission

Saturday, 17 September 2011

Tim Geithner was polite enough to say that, given the economic problems back home, the US Treasury Secretary was notnecessarily in the best position to offer Europe advice on how to get out of its mess. Still, Mr Geithner must have wondered why he had bothered with a 6,000-mile round trip, given the Europeans' obvious distaste for any of his ideas.

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