It’s 10 years since my forecast of a global financial crisis came true, as Lehman Brothers collapsed. I had warned of this consistently here in the blog, and in the Letters column of the Financial Times. But, of course, nobody wanted to listen whilst the party was going strong. As the FT’s world trade editor wrote […]
Chemicals and the Economy
The Greek carriage hits the buffers as the ‘slow motion train wreck’ continues
The blog remains amazed, and worried, by the inability of many of those reponsible for the global financial system to provide the necesary leadership during the current Crisis. They seemingly failed to grasp in March 2008 that Bear Stearns’ bankruptcy was a clear sign that a major global financial crisis was around the corner. Equally, […]
And then there were none
20 years of investment banking as an independent activity came to an end on Wall Street last night. Bear Stearns was the first to go in March, rescued by JPMorgan. Last week Lehman failed, and Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America. Now the two remaining survivors, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have thrown […]
Lehman goes bust, Merrill rescued
The blog has never liked disaster movies, but it was quite a weekend for those who do. First, there was the hurricane hitting Houston and Texas. I used to live in Houston, and watching the pictures of the damage, could recognise familiar places washed away, or burnt down. The blog’s sympathy goes to all those […]