Opinion

Banks only survive because of regulations

We recently celebrated the two hundredth birthday of Charles Darwin.  Darwin, the man who broke through the prejudiced views of the religious world of the Victorian era by being brave enough to say we were descended from apes and not created by God. That is a debate that still rages even today, and it is clear…

Darwin

You’ve been bacefooked

Building upon the theme that you cannot have privacy, even if you are a cybercriminal or cybersecurity expert, you cannot have privacy if you are a social media aficionado. And no greater illustration of the social media aficionado is there than Mark Zuckerburg, uberfacebook leader of the world. A man with over a billion followers, and…

FB pic

Capitalism is dead, long live capitalism

Following on from my previous two polemics: Stop talking about mobile, it's not important; and Money is meaningless I’m now moving on to the final contentious point which is that capitalism is dead. We all knew that capitalism died in 2008 when the crisis hit, or at least the Anglo-Saxon version of capitalism that was…

Haldane

Money is meaningless

I’ve blogged and presented about this subject many times before, so rather than repeating all that, here’s a summation with a new twist. Money is meaningless because we no longer deal in money. When we use the word money, most of us would envisage some brand new shiny, crisp notes coming out of a cash machine,…

Cash

Stop talking about mobile, it’s not important

My latest presentation is apparently a polemic. That’s what my colleague said yesterday, when I said that my new presentation has three themes: Mobile is irrelevant; Money is meaningless; and Capitalism is dead. I wondered what she meant by polemic, so checked out the definitions online and Wikipedia defines it quite well: a polemic is…

Stop talking about mobile, it’s not important

My latest presentation is apparently a polemic. That’s what my colleague said yesterday, when I said that my new presentation has three themes: Mobile is irrelevant; Money is meaningless; and Capitalism is dead. I wondered what she meant by polemic, so checked out the definitions online and Wikipedia defines it quite well: a polemic is…

Try to destroy yourself … and then do it

One of the panellists at this week’s conference said that he employed twenty people whose sole duty was to find a way to destroy the business. I liked the idea of that.  It is a strong and emotive statement.  But what did he mean? “I employ twenty people in my innovation department who purely look…

First digital camera

Try to destroy yourself … and then do it

One of the panellists at this week’s conference said that he employed twenty people whose sole duty was to find a way to destroy the business. I liked the idea of that.  It is a strong and emotive statement.  But what did he mean? “I employ twenty people in my innovation department who purely look…

First digital camera

Regulators are cutting their nose off to spite their face

In another conversation, I gained a new dimension as to how the regulatory and governmental influence is changing a bank’s outlook. I was talking with a very senior manager in a bank.  This person heads up risk, audit and compliance.  He is a member of the bank’s executive board.  A heavy hitting player. He had…

Voldemort

Regulators are cutting their nose off to spite their face

In another conversation, I gained a new dimension as to how the regulatory and governmental influence is changing a bank’s outlook. I was talking with a very senior manager in a bank.  This person heads up risk, audit and compliance.  He is a member of the bank’s executive board.  A heavy hitting player. He had…

Voldemort