Looters’ “run on the police” deals blow to trust
Riots in Hackney, August 2011 (Getty Images)
Direct attacks on people, property and businesses are far more terrifying than market turmoil. But there is one striking parallel between the riots disfiguring British cities and the financial crisis that began exactly four years ago: both have shaken the foundations of public confidence in established institutions – the police in the case of the riots, the banks in the case of the credit crunch. Read more
We love robots – tireless, productive workhorses of the modern assembly line. But we also hate robots – sinister mechanical simulacra of the human workers they make redundant. Read more
Kraft demerger déjà vu must worry Cadbury
I can only hope a demerger of Kraft Foods into its snack and US grocery businesses will save consumers from the unholy alliance of Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and Philadelphia cream cheese in a single spread, recently heralded by UK tabloid The Sun.
More worrying, however, is the impact of near-constant corporate reorganisation on the underlying businesses – and particularly on Cadbury. Read more
Hard logic behind Huawei’s handset vision
I’m fascinated by Huawei Technologies: it encapsulates all the challenges that fast-growing Chinese companies face – from governance to branding – and then some.
It’s already the world’s second largest manufacturer of mobile network equipment by revenue, but Huawei’s latest big bet is to be one of the world’s top three mobile handset brands by 2015. Wan Biao, chief executive of Huawei’s device unit, set the target at Wednesday’s launch of its cloud-computing smartphone, the “Vision”, based on Google’s Android operating system. Read more
Barclays and HSBC: not so global (thank goodness)
Barclays: "a Britain-and-onetime-colonies bank"
It’s common to think of Barclays and HSBC as global banks. Certainly, they’re more international than their big UK rivals, as their recent interim results demonstrate. But Pankaj Ghemawat, professor of global strategy at IESE Business School and author of World 3.0, points out that they are more geographically concentrated than most people think – and that’s a good thing. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
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