Recently in Finance Category

My colleague over on Lifestyle (look to the right and scroll down), Jo Ind is having a bad week understanding the financial news.

Believe me Jo, you're not the only one. I read the newspaper three times yesterday and I still don't get this 'short selling' stuff. Thank goodness for children's tv.

Redundancy can be a terrible thing (we know a thing or two about it in these parts) and I wouldn't wish it on anybody but I wonder how much sympathy there will be for those now being shown the door following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
This year City workers shared more than £13bn in bonuses - equating to £27k for every worker - and knowing what we know today, one has to ask why.
Yesterday Stephen Green from HSBC called for bankers only to be be handsomely remunerated when a deal is successful - it might surprise many to hear that this isn't already the case. Either way reform looks a certainty but will it prevent this kind of cataclysmic collapse happening again?

"History has rarely seen factors like this occur at the same time" BMW's financial director Michael Ganal told a news conference last week.

He spoke as BMW's first half pre-tax profits fell to €1.24 billion, down some 35% compared to the same period last year. Net profits also took a nose-dive, down 26%. They were not alone. GM and Nissan also announced dire results last Friday. GM's spectacular $15.5 billion second quarter loss is the third-worst in its 100-year history. Meanwhile, despite increasing market share in the US, Nissan's net income still fell by over 40%.

Ganal was in effect referring to a number of events that have come together at the same time. A 'perfect storm' might be another way of describing things for some major auto manufacturers.

It's a good world, the world of the well-meaning. Got a problem? Just speak nicely to whoever's causing the trouble and all will be well.

That's the theory. Whether or not, in a naughty world, it works is another matter.

The police are trying it in Redruth in Cornwall where anti-social teenagers have been making life hell for the peaceable and law-abiding. There's now a curfew in place aimed at getting troublemakers off the streets by 9pm. Except it is voluntary. Which presumable means that those who believe their right to misbehave trumps the right of others to peace and quiet will simply ignore it.

In another world entirely, much the same thing is being tried to get private equity companies to do what doesn't come naturally to such beasts and sign up to a code designed to show the world that they're not the jobs-destroying, asset-stripping, tax-avoiding, debt junkie bandits of the bottom line they're popularly believed to be.