The last week has seen a flurry of activity around the world on the regulatory front but I have a suspicion the only people who will be really satisfied are the very people at whom the reforms are aimed - the institutions that caused the financial storms of the last year or so.
As far as I see it, the United States and Europe have such fundamentally different approaches to this that it is hard to see any global regulatory consensus emerging, let alone concerted action to put in place a regulatory system that would prevent the near collapse of the western financial system again. We have to remember that we are only looking at a slightly calmer scene now because of the billions of public money poured into propping up the system and its institutions. As Sir Martin Sorrell observed on Radio 4 last Friday, the amount of public debt racked up dealing with this is eq...
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