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Ethics
by leon on May 31, 2009
Interesting piece in the New York Times about future business leaders claiming they will be more ethical. According to the piece, about one out of five of the Harvard Business School graduating class...
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strategy
by leon on May 31, 2009
Hard to comprehend the extraordinary $200 million investment in Facebook by Digital Sky Technologies, a private Russian internet investment group. As reported in the Financial Times, it values Facebo...
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markets
by leon on May 29, 2009
There's been plenty of talk lately about the US housing market bottoming out and that it can only go up from there. But people are clutching at straws. A good example is the paltry 0.3% increase ...
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strategy
by leon on May 29, 2009
Talk about putting their foot in it. Gawker has an interesting piece on how Rupert Murdoch has accused Google of "stealing" his copyright and of how his lieutenant at The Wall Street Journa...
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Ethics
by leon on May 28, 2009
With all the layoffs going on, it's worth asking whether managers ever ponder the ethical implications of what they're doing.As the self-styled "ethics guy" Bruce Weinstein says, sa...
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corporate crime
by leon on May 28, 2009
Conrad Black's appeal against his fraud conviction will have massive implications on the system, regardless of what the decision is. Black, as we know, was convicted two year ago of a a $6.1-mill...
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Accounting
by leon on May 27, 2009
The implosion at Indian IT specialists Satyam raises many questions about corporate governance. As Madhukar Angur says in the Deccan Herald , the debacle suggests we have learned very little since En...
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markets
by leon on May 27, 2009
So economists are predicting the recession will end this year. They reckon the housing market will bottom out and they don't see the recession lasting longer than the first quarter of 2010. Still...
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strategy
by leon on May 26, 2009
Hard to go past this piece from the New York Review of Books where they run a symposium on the financial bloodbath with comments from a team that includes financier George Soros and economists Paul K...
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strategy
by leon on May 26, 2009
An alarming Los Angeles Times report that the US Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims from laid off workers. It's up 25% ahead of last year. Clearly, laid-...
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Accounting
by leon on May 25, 2009
The recession will reshape the work of chief financial officers. When the recovery comes, the world will be very different. CFOs will have to start shifting their focus to getting the most out of the...
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strategy
by leon on May 25, 2009
Despite the recession, the push for green buildings continues. But is green a justifiable expense when companies are struggling to stay alive in the financial bloodbath?A fascinating study Doing Well...
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strategy
by leon on May 24, 2009
Air travel has taken a hammering in this global financial bloodbath. International Air Traffic Association figures show a steep decline in passenger numbers.So it's not surprising to read the new...
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markets
by leon on May 24, 2009
With Britain set to lose its AAA credit rating , there are fears that the United States could go the same way.Bill Gross, the co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. has told...
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risk
by leon on May 22, 2009
Peak oil is back and it will unleash seismic change. As The Wall Street Journal reports, global production of petroleum peaked in the first quarter of last year which means oil prices will soon be ba...
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executive pay
by leon on May 22, 2009
With the market tanking, it might be a time for many companies to consider switching back to options to reward executives. Unless you think the market will collapse again, options could turn out to b...
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Ethics
by leon on May 21, 2009
How much are business schools to blame for the recession?Writing in The Times, Phillip Delves Broughton says MBA should actually stand for Master of the Business Apocalypse.Broughton writes: "Ha...
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risk
by leon on May 21, 2009
A key problem in this economic climate is working out how to keep your staff motivated and engaged. That's particularly hard at a time like this when money is scarce. It's a point examined in...
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risk
by leon on May 20, 2009
The relationship of co-dependency between the United States and China is worrying and dangerous. American consumers buy Chinese-made goods, China piles up billions of dollars from US trade and buys U...
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regulators
by leon on May 20, 2009
One of the big issues facing governments is whether to proceed with carbon trading or introduce a carbon tax. A carbon tax is better because it's more efficient, transparent and simple. Cap-and-t...
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risk
by leon on May 19, 2009
Talk about strange bedfellows. Environmentalists have now found a new and unexpected ally: the US military.The army, navy, air force and the marines have come out in support of the Green army with a ...
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markets
by leon on May 19, 2009
Last week, I did a blog entry looking at how banks were going to face more intense competition in the wash-up from this financial crisis. To put it bluntly, banks will be losing market share to such ...
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markets
by leon on May 18, 2009
Bankers have deservedly received much of the blame for the financial bloodbath that's paralysed governments and transformed societies. But economists are just as much to blame. Possibly even more...
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regulators
by leon on May 18, 2009
Earlier this month, I did a blog entry looking at how appallingly the Securities and Exchange Commission has been managed. Basically, it's a case of of the lunatics running the asylum.Adding to t...
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Ethics
by leon on May 16, 2009
With the recession, companies are cutting back on their corporate social responsibility budgets but it's not going away. As reported here, the big cuts are in corporate philanthropy but they are ...
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strategy
by leon on May 15, 2009
Who are the big winners coming out of this financial crisis? And how will they threaten to destroy banks?The Economist identifies four big winners that will decimate the banking sector. These include...
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markets
by leon on May 14, 2009
While there is still talk about green shoots, the data suggests something else. The US economy is still in serious decline and things are not really looking better.First, there are the reports of US ...
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Information About
, risk
by leon on May 14, 2009
One of the most disturbing trends in recent years has been the growing incidence of disease bordering on pandemics. Examples include swine flu, bird flu and SARS. That seems to be a global trend.Now...
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Ethics
by leon on May 13, 2009
The problem with bringing in stricter laws to fix the banking system is that it turns good behavior into a matter of compliance. As economist John Kay writes, that stricter rules can never replace in...
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strategy
by leon on May 13, 2009
After delivering itself into the hands of a bankruptcy judge, Chrysler is idling plants and shutting them down, pushing its suppliers closer to the edge of bankruptcy.How then do we explain the autom...
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strategy
by leon on May 12, 2009
Over the years we have seen many boycotts of corporations. Targets have included Coca Cola for it alleged repression of trade union activity in Colombia and its depletion of groundwater resources in ...
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markets
by leon on May 12, 2009
On one hand, we have billionaire financier George Soros saying that all the stimulus packages are starting work and that the financial crisis is easing. He predicts that Asia will be the first to eme...
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corporate crime
by leon on May 11, 2009
Gee, she sure can talk.Hard to go past the revelations last week in Vanity Fair from Eleanor Squillari, Bernard Madoff's secretary of more than 20 years who claimed the man was an egotistical sex...
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risk
by leon on May 11, 2009
Obama's battle to overhaul the credit card industry and rein in their exploitative practices is likely to turn into a sideshow when you take a look at the impact that credit card losses will have...
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regulators
by leon on May 9, 2009
The Securities and Exchange Commissions stuffed up big time with Bernard Madoff, letting him get away with his fraud for some time. It failed to do its job and protect investors.Now a Government Acco...
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Ethics
by leon on May 9, 2009
The global crisis is as much a failure of ethics as it is of finance. Business at the end of the day has to serve society which gives it its licence to operate. Creating virtual products as they did ...
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markets
by leon on May 8, 2009
Is the US economy on its way to recovery or not?Some would point to the results of the bank stress tests as a green shoot with 10 of the 19 largest banks needed to boost their capital by a combined t...
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Information About
, risk
by leon on May 7, 2009
Is this crisis shaping up as worse than what we saw in the 1930s. There are some claims that this might be the case.In Britain, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has forecast tha...
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strategy
by leon on May 7, 2009
Two alarming reports, both from the Centre for Public Integrity, show how entrenched the banks are in the political system and how close they are to politicians. Is it any wonder the US Government wo...
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strategy
by leon on May 6, 2009
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has announced massive losses, and they come before the market imploded and advertising revenues dried up following the Lehman Brothers collapse. And that's a warnin...
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corporate crime
by leon on May 6, 2009
So now Bernard Madoff's son has turned into a Wall Street warrior defending dad's not so good name. The story about his fist fight with securities trader Reed Abend came out on the Dealbreake...
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SOX
by leon on May 5, 2009
Has Sarbanes Oxley lulled us into complacency and a false sense of security?That's the suggestion from Georgetown University law professor Ethan S Burger in this piece Today's Financial Crisi...
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risk
by leon on May 5, 2009
And so The Wall Street Journal reports that 10 of the 19 banks undergoing stress tests will have to boost their capital and that list might include Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup. The fun...
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markets
by leon on May 4, 2009
A bull market is a random market movement that causes an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius. It's a joke that illustrates the irrational animal forces that drive markets.In this b...
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strategy
by leon on May 4, 2009
Back in 2007, Warren Buffett warned shareholders that newspapers were on the skids. In his letter at the time, Buffett said "the days of lush profits from our newspaper are over".The proble...
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Accounting
by leon on May 3, 2009
If you thought fair value was an almighty bun fight, you ain't seen nothing yet. The International Accounting Standards Board is tackling off balance sheet vehicles that have destroyed so much we...
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litigation
by leon on May 2, 2009
The Chrysler will probably be messy. First, it has to get through the court battles as Chrysler lenders object to the move into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under the government brokered deal. Th...
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strategy
by leon on May 1, 2009
After months on life support, Chrysler is now pinning its hopes on a restructure with three new principal owners: the US Government which says it will keep its nose out of day to day operations, the ...
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Ethics
by leon on May 1, 2009
In an extraordinary development this week, a pioneering climate change scientist Jim Salinger has been sacked from his post in New Zealand. According to the New Zealand Herald, his great crime was ta...
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regulators
by leon on May 1, 2009
Ratings agencies did a lot to bring on this recession by giving dysfunctional outfits a clean bill of health. Now they're being held to account, not before time. Standard & Poor's, Moody&...
