This morning’s Wall Street Journal story on Martin Broughton, chairman of British Airways, predicting that US airlines will soon start lobbying for the relaxation of foreign ownership rules has the ring of truth to me.

The reason is that one senior executive of a US airline said precisely that to me recently (off the record). He said that he could no longer see the point of the US law barring a foreign airline from owning more than 25 per cent of a US one and would not object to it being abolished.

The reason he gave for this was that the industry was largely financed by debt anyway and it did not make much difference who held the equity. This seemed fair enough but underlying it is financial pragmatism - US airlines need capital from wherever they can get it these days.

Of course, from the consumer’s perspective, allowing foreign ownership would be a boon. The US airlines - like those in some other countries - have existed in a protectionist world for too long and it has not helped either standards of customer service or the industry’s solvency.

The long-running battle over the ownership and control of Virgin America showed how protectionist the US market remains. Even my executive was too wary of a backlash to make his views known openly.

But there is nothing like self-interest to batter down longstanding traditions and I suspect Mr Broughton’s prediction may prove true.

There is a lot of financial action in Qatar at the moment, and that means fees for investment banks. Last week’s announcement of a strategic partnership between NYSE Euronext and the State of Qatar to boost the local stock exchange is being followed by an IPO of Vodafone’s Qatar business.

What strikes me about the latter is the financial advisers to the deal: HSBC Middle East and Qatar National Bank. Neither of these is one of Wall Street’s big swinging investment banks, which are now sweeping into the Gulf in the hope of gaining petrodollars.

The gulf is an interesting test case of longstanding relationships versus deal-making prestige. Qatar National Bank clearly has a lot of the former, but so does HSBC, which has been in the Gulf for a long time, as it has across Asia.

This counts for something but not as much as you might think. One HSBC banker in the Gulf told me last year that the bank was already under pressure from the Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanleys of the world, which were squeezing it out of deals that it formerly expected to get.

In general, the financial world is pretty unsentimental and all of the talk about relationships mattering in China has not stopped the big Wall Street firms picking up a lot of business there. I expect the Gulf will be just as fertile territory for them.

I am on leave for a couple of weeks. Normal service will hopefully resume on or about June 30.

The glass ceiling on Wall Street is getting lower.

The abrupt removal of Erin Callan as Lehman’s chief financial officer yesterday (along with Joe Gregory as Lehman’s chief administrative officer) is first and foremost a sign of Lehman’s fight to regain credibility among investors.

But it also means that Ms Callan, who was dubbed “Wall Street’s most powerful woman” in the April issue of Portfolio magazine is powerful no more. She is being unceremoniously bumped down to “a senior position” in the investment banking division.

Ms Callan’s move follows the firing of Zoe Cruz, the previous holder of the “most powerful woman on Wall Street” title. She was dismissed as president of Morgan Stanley last November by John Mack, its chairman and chief executive.

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My Financial Times column this week is about the global food crisis and the stand-off about how to solve it between the US government, Monsanto and environmental activists such as Greenpeace that are opposed to genetically-modified crops. I come down on the side of the former, with caveats. You can read it here and comment below.

Lou Dobbs is very annoying.

Having got this off my chest, I can go on to say why the CNN cable news host, who takes to the air most nights in the US to complain about illegal immigration and free trade has riled me.

As detailed admirably by Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times, Mr Dobbs’ latest populist crusade against foreign ownership of US assets concerns CSX, the US railway company that has been attacked by The Children’s Investment Fund, the London-based hedge fund.

Mr Dobbs described it the other night on CNN as “a new threat to national security and sovereignty” because investors in this “shadowy foreign investment fund” may include sovereign wealth funds. You can see the video here.

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I was reminded the other day that it currently costs £13 to enter Kew Gardens as a visitor. Since I grew up in Kew, I happen to be an expert on the history of the entrance fee to Kew Gardens and it is mind-bogglingly high compared with the past.

Forgive the middle-aged reminiscence but, when I was a child, it cost three pence (yes, a thrupenny bit)  to get into Kew Gardens. Upon decimalisation in February 1971, they put the price down to one new penny, or 2.4 old pence.

This was the high point in terms of Kew Gardens’ cheapness. As public subsidies were cut and the gardens were forced to become financially self-sufficient, the entrance price steadily rose over the years to its current level.

Applying the Bank of England’s calculator of retail price inflation, the pound in 1971 was worth about £10 in today’s money, which makes the 1971 entrance fee the equivalent of 10p.

Thus, according to my calculations, it is currently 130 times more expensive to get into Kew than it was when I was a child.

I do not mean to suggest that the current entrance fee is too high. Kew Gardens would clearly not be as well kept-up and have such a high global reputation if it still cost 10p to get in. The other day, for example, I found Kew-branded seeds on sale in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (a bargain $8 to enter).

Still, fings ain’t what they used t’be. I wonder if anyone can think of a product or service that has escalated in price to quite such a degree?

Lehman Brothers’ announcement this morning that it is seeking $6bn in fresh capital after making a $2.8bn loss in the second quarter shows that things remain tough on Wall Street.

To go with it, here is an anecdote about employment conditions in investment banking that you can treat with as much seriousness as you wish.

I was just talking to a friend here in New York who was about to attend two separate leaving parties for families he knew. In each case, the family was leaving New York because the father had lost his job on Wall Street.

One banker, who used to work at Bear Stearns, was moving with his family to London because it was the only place where he was offered employment. There were no offers in New York, thanks to the sudden rash of redundancies.

The other banker had been told by his employer - a global bank - that there was no job for him in New York. However, there was one in India, where he has family connections. So that is where the family is now going.

It seems that the US is not a land of opportunity for investment bankers just at the moment.

My column this week is about the clever wheezes that private equity funds deployed to ensure that they keep control of companies they bought even in a downturn. Tony James, president of Blackstone, thinks this is good for society; I am not so sure. You can read it here and comment below.

I plan to write in my FT column this week about private equity buyouts and the aftermath of loose financing such as covenant-light loans and payment-in-kind bonds.

For those who cannot wait, here is the list of 10 tongue-in-cheek reasons given by David Rubenstein, a co-founder of the Carlyle Group, for why private equity is still a great career.

Mr Rubenstein included his list in a recent presentation on the industry. The public controversy surrounding private equity has clearly not made him lose his sense of humour.

His reasons are:

1. There is no educational requirement - anyone can get into the business, no barrier to entry.

2. You don’t have to keep time sheets or fill out insurance reimbursement forms.

3. Lack of clear skills or a high IQ is not a handicap - it may be a plus.

4. You get to hire lawyers and economists, the people who were smarter than you in college.

5. Your ability to make charitable contributions will get you invited to much higher class parties (and get your children into higher class colleges).

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