PESTON'S PICKS - BBC
Enviado: 13/10/2008 21:06Não resisto a recomendar as análises do Robert Peston, editor de economia da BBC. Um paradigma de rigor, informação e análise, na boa tradição do grande jornalismo britânico. Em baixo transcrevo o ultimo comentário de hoje (sim, são vários por dia, á medida dos acontecimentos) como exemplo. O site é:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/
BANKS SHOULD BE BORING
Today investors on the stock market gave something of thumbs down to shares in Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS - which means that we as taxpayers will almost certainly end up owning around 60 per cent of Royal Bank of Scotland and about 40 per cent of a new super-bank created by Lloyds TSB's rescue takeover of HBOS.
Think about that for a second - because it is one of the great events in the history of the British economy.
Both of these giant banks are central to how we create wealth in this country.
They look after the savings of countless millions.
They lend to countless millions.
They grease the wheels of capitalism.
But the incompetence of RBS and of HBOS means that we as taxpayers have had to bail them out to the tune of £31.5bn.
Chances are that this is the moment when future historians will say that the tide turned decisively against almost-anything-goes, laisser-faire financial capitalism (what I described yesterday as an important strand of Thatcherism) - which has been the prevailing ideology for almost 30 years.
It'll end because some bankers themselves have been chastened and will choose to mend their ways - and others will be hectored into doing so by the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, and the Treasury.
Till just a few weeks ago, the City and our banks - the financial services industry - swaggered that they were the great British success in a country with few other world-beating industries.
But as boom year followed boom year, and fat bonus followed fat bonus, many banks and bankers became over-confident, arrogant.
They forgot the essence of good banking, which is to know your customer, to measure the risks when lending or investing, and to never lend more than the customer can afford.
A great and enduring bank is almost invisible, a dull and self-deprecating provider of basic services - not the puffed up, too-clever-by-half firms that many big banks became over the past few years.
The humiliation of RBS and HBOS will probably cut all our hubristic banks down to size - it should return us to a world of simpler, safer banking.
Which would probably be a good thing - although it means the City of London will probably shrink over several years.
And that'll be a drag on the economy as a whole - unless and until they achieve what many would like them to do, which is to provide finance and nourishment for wealth-creating industries that are less prone than is the City to boom and bust.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/
BANKS SHOULD BE BORING
Today investors on the stock market gave something of thumbs down to shares in Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS - which means that we as taxpayers will almost certainly end up owning around 60 per cent of Royal Bank of Scotland and about 40 per cent of a new super-bank created by Lloyds TSB's rescue takeover of HBOS.
Think about that for a second - because it is one of the great events in the history of the British economy.
Both of these giant banks are central to how we create wealth in this country.
They look after the savings of countless millions.
They lend to countless millions.
They grease the wheels of capitalism.
But the incompetence of RBS and of HBOS means that we as taxpayers have had to bail them out to the tune of £31.5bn.
Chances are that this is the moment when future historians will say that the tide turned decisively against almost-anything-goes, laisser-faire financial capitalism (what I described yesterday as an important strand of Thatcherism) - which has been the prevailing ideology for almost 30 years.
It'll end because some bankers themselves have been chastened and will choose to mend their ways - and others will be hectored into doing so by the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, and the Treasury.
Till just a few weeks ago, the City and our banks - the financial services industry - swaggered that they were the great British success in a country with few other world-beating industries.
But as boom year followed boom year, and fat bonus followed fat bonus, many banks and bankers became over-confident, arrogant.
They forgot the essence of good banking, which is to know your customer, to measure the risks when lending or investing, and to never lend more than the customer can afford.
A great and enduring bank is almost invisible, a dull and self-deprecating provider of basic services - not the puffed up, too-clever-by-half firms that many big banks became over the past few years.
The humiliation of RBS and HBOS will probably cut all our hubristic banks down to size - it should return us to a world of simpler, safer banking.
Which would probably be a good thing - although it means the City of London will probably shrink over several years.
And that'll be a drag on the economy as a whole - unless and until they achieve what many would like them to do, which is to provide finance and nourishment for wealth-creating industries that are less prone than is the City to boom and bust.