This week in the world of business has been dominated by massive trade deals and bitter trade disputes, with this post suggesting that a link between the two is that the outcome of these developments portrays a vision for those British voters who voted to leave the E.U. of what post-Brexit Britain will look like. In what is proving to be a great advert for the E.U. and its members not following the path of the British (a message sharply delivered by the French and German electorate this year, despite the rise of the AfD ), the plight of Canadian company Bombardier is, for a variety of reasons, bringing the reality home to the British in a remarkable way. In this post then the focus will be on the ongoing trade dispute between Bombardier and Boeing, which is quickly elevating into a political catastrophe, and the merger of French company Alstom with its German Counterpart Siemens (leaving Bombardier in the cold), which in itself demonstrates the capability that exists within a co...

Earlier this year here in Financial Regulation Matters , we took a look at the confirmation of Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary in the U.S. from within the concept of ‘Government Sachs’, which is a phrase that has been adopted to describe the continuous presence of former and prospective Goldman Sachs employees within the top offices of the United States political framework. The previous post focused on Mnuchin as he ascended to one of the most crucial jobs within the American political framework, but in this post the progression of Gary Cohn, who sits as the Director of the National Economic Council (NEC), will be the focus. Whilst the existence of ‘Government Sachs’ will not be questioned because, quite frankly, it cannot be questioned, assessing the effect that Cohn is having is an important endeavour because, as is generally accepted, these are currently quite extraordinary times. We saw in the last post on ‘Government Sachs’ that Goldman’s stranglehold on these socie...

In this co-authored piece, Jake Richardson helps me assess the recent increase in the adoption of the 5-year old ‘Build-to-Rent’ initiative which is being peddled as a potential solution to the Housing issues being experienced within the U.K. at present. The piece finds that one of the key outcomes of the recent moves is a demonstration that housing policy is too divided, which the piece suggests lays at the core of the issues within this particular marketplace. Earlier this year it was declared in the mainstream media that ‘ solving the housing problem is hard to deliver, hard to explain… [and] is an example of the weakness of our political system ’. This sentiment, which was used as a platform to suggest that cutting ‘stamp duty’ could be the most viable short-term fix, represents the difficulties that surround housing in the United Kingdom. In this piece the concept of the housing ‘problem’ will be used rather than the housing ‘crisis’, because even though finding solid de...

Today’s post reacts to the news today that Standard & Poor’s (S&P) have finally fallen in line with the other members of the rating oligopoly (Moody’s and Fitch) in downgrading China’s sovereign debt rating to A+, which puts it one category below the U.S. The reason for this, according to S&P, is that the growing credit bubble in China is systematically reducing financial stability in the country, which seems to confirm fears that recent moves by the Chinese Government to limit the growth of that particular bubble have not taken hold. However, with the BRICS nations calling for the development of their own major rating agency, the news that some analysts suggest that things are moving in the right direction in China despite the recent downgrade may accelerate the plans of the BRICS nations so that the pace of agency development falls in line with the wishes of the Indian Prime Minister who recently made loud calls for an acceleration in that regard. In this post, then, ...

In today’s post, the focus will be on the debt bubble that continues to grow by the day. We have looked at the personal debt bubble on a number of occasions here in Financial Regulation Matters , so in this post we will look at the recent comments made by the head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – Andrew Bailey – and assess whether his views are a. appropriate and b. sufficient enough to garner any sort of change. One of the issues that we see over and over again is that the focus of people’s attention is so narrow that only very limited changes can be affected, and ultimately it is then likely that the underlying causes of the issues will remain and effect society at some point in the future. We have discussed this issue of the debt bubble a number of times before in Financial Regulation Matters , ranging from analyses regarding those deemed to be ‘ financially excluded ’ which often leads to credit dependency, to the rapid increase of credit dependency in certain se...

RBS has been the subject of a number of posts here in Financial Regulation Matters (ten), with posts concentrating on their incredibly poor performance over the last two decades. Posts have looked at aspects such as the increasingly poor financial results being disclosed by the bank and Fred Goodwin’s close-call when he narrowly avoided having his day in court regarding his performance in the run up to the Financial Crisis. However, in today’s post, the focus will be on the so-called ‘Global Restructuring Group’ (GRG) and the sentiment that its problems are causing; we have looked at the issue before with regards to a leaked document that partially detailed the abuse of power demonstrated by the group, but the reaction to that leaked report has been incredibly revealing, and will form the focus of this piece. We heard last time how the GRG, a division within RBS which was tasked with assisting SMEs navigate troubled periods , was in fact doing the opposite and was actively c...

Usually, here in Financial Regulation Matters , posts will start with a quick introduction to the subject at hand, and then will dive straight into the analysis. However, in today’s piece, it is important that we depart from this format and spell out, precisely, the sentiment of the following piece. Firstly, regular readers of Financial Regulation Matters will know that the posts often confront political issues, as is necessary given the interconnectedness of politics, financial regulation, the economy, and society moreover, but it is rarely from a biased angle; the posts are not on the ‘left’ of the political spectrum, because they are pro-business, and they are not on the ‘right’ of the spectrum because they do not subscribe to the pro-market sentiments that are often, and correctly associated with the political ‘right’. However, this post will be focusing on the political ‘right’ and the Conservative party in particular. Additionally, the posts attempt to offer a (somewhat) bala...

In June of this year, this author wrote of the sale of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) to the Macquarie Group for £2.3 billion, something which had Conservative politicians rejoicing at the £160 million profit the sale generated for the public purse. However, the piece and the associated commentary was adamant that the sale represented the lengths to which the Conservative Government’s regressive commitment to short-termism could go, with the assertion being that Macquarie could not be relied upon to continue the positive work of the GIB or not bleed the organisation dry before it moved on. Although there are many instances of the Macquarie group portraying this negative aspect to capitalism, in this post we will focus on the latest example and revisit the decision of Theresa May’s government upon that basis. Before we revisit the sale of the GIB, assessing the latest example of the culture at the Macquarie Group will reveal for us the care and attention that the Conservative ...

Today's post is a guest post by Jake Richardson, an LL.B. student from Aston University's Law School. On many occasions here in Financial Regulation Matters  we have discussed the increase in certain technological fields and the impact that it may have upon wider society. In today's post, Jake discusses the relatively recent rise in the testing and implementation of autonomous vehicles and examines the potential impact that this may have - in relating the increase to social considerations like safety and costs, the post makes a very good point that a societal shift may need to take place for such technological advances to really take hold. The Boom of Autonomous Transportation The idea of autonomous transportation may not have yet hit the minds of many people in the United Kingdom, nor in fact the world. Yet, many manufactures have already teamed up, such as the likes of Bosch and Mercedes, with many more companies committing plans to mass produce driverless cars...