Henry Paulson. Hank. Remember him? Of the crisis in 2008, he said: “Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they’re going to make the profit from that risk, they shouldn’t have the taxpayer pay for the losses.” Quite the wisdom one expects from the 74th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Yet, as […]

Remember him?: The risks have not gone away since Hank Paulson was US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Hank. Remember him? Of the crisis in 2008, he said: “Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they’re going to make the profit from that risk, they shouldn’t have the taxpayer pay for the losses.” […]

Henry Paulson. “Hank”. Remember him? Lean, balding, the flared nostrils of a man perpetually haunted by the memory of having to clean dog’s mess from the shoes of his neighbour’s children. Of the crisis in 2008, he said, “Where I come from, if someone takes a risk and they’re going to make the profit from […]

Here’s a piece of recent news that you almost certainly missed: A large consumer products company, Johnson & Johnson, announced a one-off loss owing to a 32 percent currency devaluation in Venezuela. The reason I expect you missed that less-than-seismic piece of news is that, unless you happen to be particularly fascinated in Johnson & […]

The financial turmoil of recent years has produced an outpouring of op-eds, news stories, books and essays seeking to document and analyze the unfolding disaster. Some of the material has been written by insiders, some by those from the outside. Some by experts, some by astonished laypeople. It’s a mass of material which can, remarkably, […]