Column on the Financial Times comment page, October 25th

Among the British, the French have a reputation for arrogance so I was interested to hear Christine Lagarde, the new French finance minister, talking humbly this week in New York about Paris.

“We want to compete with London and New York. Not necessarily at the same level at the moment but we are not going to give up,” she said.

Ms Lagarde, with her shock of well-coiffed grey hair, fluent English, flagrant competence (she spoke in English and translated her remarks into French herself) and former job as chairman of an international law firm, is no Napoleon. She has been dubbed “an American in Paris” and would fit nicely at any meeting in the City of London or on Wall Street.

The rest of this column can be read here. Post comments below.

I have just walked a few blocks over to see Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, at the annual conference in New York organised by Paris Europlace, the organisation that promotes the city and the country as an investment and finance centre.

I last bumped into Ms Lagarde in Davos in January when she was the trade minister but she has since been promoted to become the only woman finance minister in the G8 by Nicolas Sarkozy.

(more…)

Last night, I went to see Michael Clayton. I do like a thriller in which a lone figure takes on the evil force of the dark corporation and George Clooney, in the title role of the lawyer-fixer who gets an attack of conscience does not disappoint.

It made me think about why corporations and corporate executives are almost always villains in Hollywood films. There is a grand tradition of the sinister corporation reaching back to Soylent Green, a sci-fi tale about a company that makes biscuits out of people. Sorry if I have just given away the plot, but you have had 30 years to see it.

(more…)

Column on the Financial Times comment page, October 21st

There was something troubling about this week’s initiatives by Hank Paulson, the US Treasury secretary, to address the country’s deteriorating housing market and the credit and liquidity problems that this is still causing for banks.

His speech in Washington on Tuesday, predicting that the subprime mortgage crisis would spread further, unnerved markets. Mr Paulson’s close-cropped hair, bald pate and intense manner, combined with his gloomy message, made him look like Dr Doom. His hobby is bird-watching, but I would not care to be the bird that he stares at through a pair of binoculars.

The rest of this column can be read here. Post comments below.

Column on the Financial Times comment page, October 18th

For me, the highlight of the launch of the Fox Business channel on Monday was when the sound went off as Ivanka Trump displayed the jewellery collection she is selling at her new Madison Avenue store.

The Donald’s daughter was a guest on the first outing for Happy Hour, an evening show on the US cable channel filmed in the Bull and Bear bar at the Waldorf Astoria. The hosts were Cody Willard, a long-haired hedge fund manager (and FT contributor) and Rebecca Gomez, a pneumatic brunette in a short, turquoise dress.

The rest of this column can be read here. Post comments below.

Book review on the Financial Times Business Life page, October 18th

Blue Blood and Mutiny: the Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley
By Patricia Beard,
William Morrow $26.95

This is an ironic time to be reading this book. The travails of Morgan Stanley two years ago, when it forced out Philip Purcell as its chairman and chief executive after an acrimonious campaign against him by former grandees of the firm, are reminiscent of Wall Street now.

Citigroup is enduring the same slow torture, with some of the same characters. An aloof leader is pilloried for not having a grip on the business and fires subordinates to shore up his own reputation. Mr Purcell first promoted and then ejected Vikram Pandit, among others, as Morgan Stanley drifted. Last week, Chuck Prince reshuffled Citigroup’s ranks and promoted, yes, Mr Pandit.

The rest of this book review can be read here. Post comments below.

I remember some years ago talking to an American friend who was visiting London and was astonished to find everyone walking around talking into a mobile phone. What is the point of this craze? she asked. Why should people need to keep talking in this bizarre way?

We know where that ended up. Americans followed Europeans into the mobile phone craze and are just as prone to whip them out at any opportunity now.

(more…)

Critics of Rupert Murdoch often talk as if News Corporation exerts a monolithic right-wing grip on all of its media properties. Of course, there is something to it: Mr Murdoch is indeed a right-wing libertarian and is not afraid to express his views to his newspaper editors.

But the older that Mr Murdoch gets the more ambiguity emerges within News Corp. Peter Chernin, News Corp’s president, is a Democrat and Mr Murdoch has enthusiastically adopted his son James’ concerns about global warming. He has committed News Corp to reducing its carbon footprint.

(more…)

I’ve always liked Blade Runner, the 1982 Ridley Scott film based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I remember watching with awe in a London cinema the opening pan over a futuristic Los Angeles lit by flares.

But this is ridiculous.

On its 25th anniversary, five versions of Blade Runnder are extant, including the (disappointing, in my opinion) "director’s cut" of a few years ago and the latest one, called the "final cut" (we can only hope). It is playing around the corner from my office at the lovely Ziegfeld cinema.

I suppose it reflects the temptation to endlessly cut, re-cut and remix things that have found a fan base in the hope of getting a bit more out of the franchise. There has never been a Blade Runner 2 so we have been treated to Blade Runners 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc instead.

You will soon be able to get the whole lot in high-definition (and a metal case) for a mere $78.

But I prefer the original version, no matter how resentful Scott was that the studio made him attach a voice-over and a happy ending. Sometimes the Philistines are right.

Here is an intriguing indication - less obvious than the credit squeeze - that the markets are due for a fall. It comes from Ray Soifer, a veteran bank analyst who has for several years tracked the proportion of Harvard MBA graduates who go into finance.

Mr Soifer argues that, when 30 per cent or more of a single year’s graduating Harvard class goes into finance, it is a "sell" signal for stock markets. He does not say why in his report but presumably they flock to Wall Street when times there are very good. And when they are very good, they are due for a fall.

(more…)