Royal Bank of Scotland fiasco shows the power of networks
The last week or so has seen complete mayhem in the Royal Bank of Scotland and its subsidiaries. A computer glitch has caused their payments systems to collapse. Monies have not been processed, 17 million customers have been unable to access their accounts and pay their bills. The impact for RBS has been catastrophic. So, […]
Minsky Mania: a Raincheck
The American economist Hyman Minsky is currently very fashionable, especially amongst those who are sympathetic to the idea of more government intervention in the economy. Minsky argued that financial crises were an inevitable feature of capitalism, unless governments stepped in through regulation and central bank action. He hypothesised that in prosperous times, when the corporate […]
What a good job Keynes didn’t believe in forecasting
Keynes is in many people’s minds at the moment, as uncertainty about the course of the economic recovery is high. In May 1933, at roughly the same stage in the cycle as we are today, Keynes wrote in the Times: ‘Confidence has been restored and cheap money established both on long and on short term […]
