Opinion

I promise to write up more of the Middle Eastern case studies and issues soon, but became distracted because next Monday I’m joining a debate in Ireland. The debate is at the UCC Philosophical Society, one of the largest and oldest debating societies, and they came up with a wonderful motion: “this house believes that…

Canadian's of course! In an article in Newsweek, there's a long discussion about why Canada has weathered this financial storm so well.  There's the first headline: "Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1–compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1" Well, that disagrees with this chart that I filched off the New York…

After inspiring Bank of America and HSBC to open small business community websites, Join2Grow, the first and some would say the best social finance website from a bank, is closing down at the end of this month.  I've used them as a reference for banking communities for over a year, and so was saddened to…

The shine may be coming off our esteemed leader of the free world already as the Boston Phoenix has taken a few choice quotes from the audio book version of Obama's Dreams From My Father, and remixed them into things that could be used out of context. The original words are from Mr. Obama's swear like a trooper friend Ray, but…

Last week, I decided to post blogs for and against bank bonuses. I was surprised at the reactions to the case in favour, which drew more comments on a single posting  than most of my blog entries. This is obviously an emotive subject. By posting both sides of the debate, I can actually see that…

During the week, I enjoyed lunch with a venture capitalist who works with start-up firms that are innovating in financial services. One of the businesses he’s investing in is Wonga, another business that appears to be disrupting banks' business models in the same way as Zopa has been. I’d never heard of Wonga before, except…

During the week, I enjoyed lunch with a venture capitalist who works with start-up firms that are innovating in financial services. One of the businesses he’s investing in is Wonga, another business that appears to be disrupting banks' business models in the same way as Zopa has been. I’d never heard of Wonga before, except…

During the week, I enjoyed lunch with a venture capitalist who works with start-up firms that are innovating in financial services. One of the businesses he’s investing in is Wonga, another business that appears to be disrupting banks' business models in the same way as Zopa has been. I’d never heard of Wonga before, except…

I bought a bird feeder and hung it on the patio the other week. I filled it with seed every day to see if it would attract the birds. Within a week, there were hundreds of birds feeding on the continuously free and easily accessible food. I enjoyed watching them for a while … but…

I bought a bird feeder and hung it on the patio the other week. I filled it with seed every day to see if it would attract the birds. Within a week, there were hundreds of birds feeding on the continuously free and easily accessible food. I enjoyed watching them for a while … but…