For those of you who are in a Firewall with massive constraints on what you can and cannot access on the internet, I apologise if you cannot play these two videos, but they are worth watching.
First, there's an interesting commentary from Chris Patten, the Conservative Politician and Former Governor of Hong Kong who oversaw the handover of the City from Britain to the Chinese a decade ago.
In November, he was interviewed in Sydney, Australia, and when asked: "What will Barack Obama inherit?", his answer was "bloody great deficits".
Chris went on to say that Obama's biggest challenge in his new reign is going to be building up a culture of savings in America's psyche after years of running up debt.
I think that challenge will be there for all next year.
Roll on 2009.
Speaking of which, if you didn't see the UK's Have I Got News For You Christmas Special, then I commend you to watch this opening 10 minutes:
Not just for the George Bush clips (2 minutes in), which are priceless, but the hilarious discussion of the banking industry (jump to 3 minutes 25 seconds if you want to cut to the chase).
Bye bye 2008.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...