How to take Moral Hazard out of Banking
As Dubai World’s default shows, the financial crisis is far from over. Surprise, surprise, among the creditors with the biggest exposure is Royal Bank of Scotland – a reminder that reckless lending by supersized banks was a global phenomenon. Taxpayers are entitled to ask for a radical reform of banking regulation to ensure they will never again have to foot huge bills for financial folly. So far, there is only one credible proposal.... Read more

An Empire at Risk
We won the cold war and weathered 9/11. But now economic weakness is endangering our global power.... Read more

The Great Wallop
A FEW years ago we came up with the term “Chimerica” to describe the combination of the Chinese and American economies, which together had become the key driver of the global economy. With a combined 13 percent of the world’s land surface and around a quarter of its population, Chimerica nevertheless accounted for a third of global economic output and two-fifths of worldwide growth from 1998 to 2007.... Read more

WALL STREET’S NEW GILDED AGE
A YEAR AFTER THE CRASH, A FEW FINANCIAL GIANTS ARE BACK TO MAKING MILLIONS, WHILE AVERAGE AMERICANS FACE FORECLOSURE AND UNEMPLOYMENT. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?... Read more

Why a Lehman deal would not have saved us
If only. Lawrence McDonald begins his insider’s account of the fall of Lehman Brothers with seven “what if” scenarios, speculating on how different decisions might have saved his former employer. If only Dick Fuld, Lehman’s chief executive, had listened to those who warned of impending losses on the bank’s property portfolio. If only Mr Fuld had not antagonised Hank Paulson, the then Treasury secretary. And so on.*... Read more

There's no such thing as too big to fail in a free market
The collapse of a financial institution is not necessarily a disaster. If free markets are to thrive, we must not allow giant, state-supported banks to believe that they are indestructible, Niall Ferguson warns ... Read more

A runaway deficit may soon test Obama’s luck
President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US as he takes a well-earned summer break after just over six months in the world’s biggest and toughest job. ... Read more

‘Chimerica’ is Headed for Divorce
When does a rising power become a threat? There is seldom a single moment. A century ago, AngloGerman antagonism was still a relatively new phenomenon; an alliance between the two empires seemed plausible as late as 1899. Likewise, the United States took time to identify Japan as a serious rival in the Pacific region; it was not until the 1930s that relations really soured. In both cases, the perception of a strategic threat was slow to grow. But grow it did—and ultimately it led to war. Could the same be happening to the United States and China today? Are we imperceptibly but inexorably slipping from cooperation to competition?... Read more

A Bit of Blather with Bookworms then it’s off for a Wild Swim
In the past seven days I’ve taught my last class of the year at Harvard, I’ve (nearly) marked my final paper and – nomad that I am – I’ve kicked the Massachusetts earth from my feet and started my travels. First stop was the velvet-green hills of Hay-on-Wye. Last year, thanks to torrential rain, the literary festival was more like Glastonbury for bookworms than the Woodstock of the mind (as Bill Clinton famously called it). This year the Welsh soil was baked dry. Hay without wellies is heaven. It was also a pleasure to discuss the 90th anniversary of the Versailles treaty with the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who, at 92, is two years older than the treaty and has stood the test of time much better. Although we are poles apart politically, I deeply respect him as a historian.... Read more

Corrupt, Amoral Politicians. An Economy Sinking in Terrifying Debt. And a People Enraged. Britain Has Been Here Before... and the Lesson Should Chill Us All
A corrupt parliament; an unprincipled government; an economy sinking under a mountain of debt - and a people enraged. Not a bad description of Britain in 2009. Also not a bad description of Britain nearly two centuries ago, in the dismal decade of distress and discontent that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Yes, we've been in this mess before. The question is: How did we get out of it? And can we do it again? In his Rural Rides, which he began writing in 1822 and published in 1830, the radical journalist William Cobbett portrayed a country groaning under the twin burdens of debt and sleaze. The 1820s were a time of acute financial crisis - of deflation, a crashing stock market and soaring unemployment - and Cobbett expressed better than anyone the bitter national mood. Unlike the economists of his time, he dismissed the idea that the crisis was the result of a natural business cycle. For Cobbett, it was clearly a consequence of political corruption. 'A national debt,' he wrote, 'and all the taxation and gambling belonging to it, have a natural tendency to draw wealth into great masses - for the gain of a few.' Now, Cobbett lamented, 'the Debt, the blessed Debt' was 'hanging round the neck of this nation like a millstone'. Ring a bell? It should. Under Gordon Brown's stewardship of the nation's finances, we have witnessed both an explosion of public debt and a marked increase in inequality. We can already feel the millstone growing as taxes rise to pay the interest on the money borrowed to bail out the greedy incompetents who blew up the big banks. The UK Debt Management Office estimates that the Government will have to sell a record £147.9 billion of new bonds in the 2009-10 financial year. But that understates the magnitude of the debt mountain. According to one estimate, the various guarantees, asset purchases, capital injections and stimulus measures introduced by the Government since this crisis began amount to 59 per cent of gross domestic product.... Read more