Opinion

In the first a brand new series of columns, Roger Steare, Professor of Organizational Ethics at Cass Business School, looks deep behind the statistics and the political blame game to understand how we got into this mess.
Read more...

“Get a grip on financial regulation ! Hedge funds, short selling, spread betting, leveraged buyouts must be curtailed. Regulate them hard ! Better, ban them !”  - Reader’s post (PCMyrs, Tonbridge) on the BBC web site’s G20 weblog.

Where to start ? With all due respect to PCMyrs, the financial crisis was not caused by the activities of hedge funds – a disparate and fast dwindling band of asset managers in any case, following myriad trading approaches. It was not caused by short selling, either. For every short seller, there has to be a buyer taking the other side of the trade. One might as well suggest banning equity purchases, on the basis that they involve somebody else selling stock.   (BF Q2 2009)
Read more...

A crisis looms for US Treasury Bonds. With the world's finances in turmoil, Tim Price believes something has to give. But when?
Read more...

Business is obsessed with profit. Of course it is. “What’s the bottom line?” is now a question that can be asked in any discussion about almost any topic. But why this obsession with profit? Is it healthy? Is it good or bad for business? Is it good or bad for us as people? Is it good or bad for our world? Can we still have viable businesses where profit as we know it is no longer the bottom line? As Professor Roger Steare explains, this is not as strange a question as you might think.
Read more...