Remarkable stories from the web in a new, easier format.
former General Electric CEO Jack Welch declared in 2009, “Shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world”
How Shareholders Are Ruining American Business – Justin Fox – The Atlantic
What is being done here in the UK and also in much of the eurozone is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.
How Austerity Has Failed by Martin Wolf | The New York Review of Books
Pop quiz: What do the following financial crises — AIG, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup off-balance sheet SIVs, Bear Stearns, Long-Term Capital Management, and the “London Whale” of JP Morgan — all have in common?
A Wall Street regulator’s race against time
A GROWTH slowdown in the so-called BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — could be impeding the expansion of the global economy.
Emerging Markets, Hitting a Wall – NYTimes.com
In fact, the real pain has scarcely begun in France, though like a patient going in for surgery everyone is wincing in anticipation.
BBC News – What has happened to the French joie de vivre?
History and biology suggest that strict monogamy, which has social advantages, is not a “one size” fits all proposition.
Opinion: Monogamy is unnatural – CNN.com
So you maybe thought that pan-European financial regulation was an age away, with the slow-moving timetable set by reluctant German policymakers, and never-ending disagreements over bailouts. Well, it turns out that so far as the fit and proper test for key bankers is concerned, this is already subject to EU law and not just national law.
The quiet arrival of euro-wide banking regulation | FT Alphaville
This is worth bearing in mind in light of the ‘other‘ hypothesis explaining some part of the trouble in China at the moment. This is based on the idea that the mother of all carry-trades may be being pushed to its limits by rising US bond yields, FX volatility and Fed taper speculation (if not the Chinese’ own attempt to stamp out over-invoicing practices).
A big PBOC bluff? | FT Alphaville
A beagle, basset, boxer mix named Walle is named the winner of the world’s ugliest dog competition for 2013 in Petaluma, California, on Friday.
Terms including “Israel,” ”Progressive” and “Occupy” were used by agency workers to help pick groups for closer examination, according to an internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press.
Documents show IRS also screened liberal groups – Yahoo! Finance
Just one year ago, the German chancellor was calling for “more Europe, not less.” But now she has completed a radical about-face.
About Face: Chancellor Merkel Cools on European Integration – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International
The Fed has rumbled the markets with QE exit/taper talk. That, at least, is the standard explanation with regards to the EM sell-off and other market turbulence.
But what if all this wasn’t started by the Fed
Which came first, rising real rates or taper fear? | FT Alphaville
