Business Comment
David Prosser: Darling faces an impossible choice at RBS
Outlook Be careful what you wish for. Since the moment the taxpayer began spending money on bailing out our banks, Alistair Darling has faced calls to be more interventionist on bankers' bonuses. Finally, he has now secured the right to clear – or veto – the bonuses paid for 2009 by Royal Bank of Scotland, as part of the price for the bank's participation in the asset protection scheme.
Inside Business Comment
David Prosser: Will customers smart?
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Outlook For those who mistrust the UK's biggest energy companies' attitude to their customers, the roll-out of smart meters to every home in the UK will ring alarm bells. The Government said yesterday that energy suppliers would have to pay to install all those meters – at a typical cost of £340 per household – but also that it would not stop them recouping the money from customers.
David Prosser: Dubai crisis could have been far worse
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Outlook While the Dubai crisis rumbles on, the consensus on international markets is that this is turning out to be a little local difficulty rather than a new phase of the global credit crunch. That may be so, but how much worse might the contagion have been without new rules, introduced earlier this year, on mark-to-market accounting of banks' assets?
Sean O'Grady: What gruesome deal was behind this betrayal?
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Like the tale of Cinderella's delicate glass slipper and the ugly sisters, the EU seems to have difficulty trying to find a policy on footwear that fits.
David Prosser: Building societies in the firing line
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Outlook The building society movement, by and large, has had a good credit crunch. While many of the poster boys of the financial crisis have been former mutuals that chose to convert to banking status during the Nineties – Halifax, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley – the larger societies have escaped relatively unscathed. Just one small society, the Dunfermline, was the subject of State intervention, and others, notably Nationwide, the sector leader, have seen their reputations enhanced.
David Prosser: Sarkozy savours his sweet victory
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Outlook You have to hand it to Nicolas Sarkozy. While most of Europe has been pussy-footing around last week's appointment of Michel Barnier, a Frenchman, as EU commissioner with jurisdiction over the City of London, France's President did not try to hide his delight. "I want the world to see the victory of the European model," Mr Sarkozy said yesterday. "[It] has nothing to do with the excesses of financial capitalism."
David Prosser: There is still no evidence QE is working
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Outlook: It may take a new perspective to get the Bank to think again
David Prosser: Lib Dem plan to hit the fat cats backfires
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Outlook: The latest proposal flies in the face of one of the Lib Dems' touchstone ideals
David Prosser: Scotland feels the chill
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Outlook: There is no point having greater fiscal powers if tax revenues are impossible to find
Stephen King: Dubai's November pain provides a glimpse of what may lie ahead
Monday, 30 November 2009
The Dubai episode reveals that the global financial crisis is not yet over.
Hamish McRae: Shifting sands: Will the emirate's default push us into another crash?
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Economic View
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EDITOR'S CHOICE
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1Warning: Do not take this picture
2Matthew Norman: Justice vs Mercy: the impossible conflict behind Demjanjuk's trial
3Cameron's team turn on Davis for attack on green agenda
4Robert Fisk: This strategy has been tried before ? without success
5Cyclists three times more likely to die on UK roads than abroad
6US politics: Every man for himself!
7Get tough over threat by RBS board, says Cable
8RBS board may quit if £1.5bn bonus plan is vetoed
9Lord of misrule: New Ukip leader's honeymoon ended as soon it had begun
Columnist Comments
• Adrian Hamilton: Let's hope it really is an 'exit' strategy
All the talk of targets by which withdrawal will be gauged is so much pie in the sky
• The Sketch: One well-timed retort and Gordon's back in the game
Ah bwaah bah habbab. Hang on, start again. Bwwhaaabwabab darrbba bubbua
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