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Why do we punish financial services firms?

It was announced on 5th December 2011 that HSBC Bank was to be fined £10.5 million by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for unsuitable investment advice provided by its subsidiary NHFA, which resulted in the mis-selling of investment bonds to thousands of elderly and disabled customers. The details of the case have been widely reported, …

Broken Promises? Higher Education and the Global Knowledge Economy

Student unrest seems to be a good indicator for a more general world crisis, whether we think back to 1968 or to events of the last year.  A recent book by Phil Brown, Hugh Lauder and David Ashton, entitled the Global Auction, suggests that student dissatisfaction is likely to rise, at least in OECD countries, …

Currency Wars: why uneven development matters

The announcement in September 2010 by the Brazilian Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, that an ‘international currency war’ had broken out signalled a new stage in the unfolding of the current financial crisis.  Although initially described as a ‘credit crunch’, which made the crisis appear to be a mere temporary inconvenience, the financial problems caused by …

Aid effectiveness: moving from telling to listening

At the end of November and start of  December, the “Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness” is meeting in Busan.  What lies behind this rather opaque title? For much of the history of aid, there have been criticisms that it doesn’t work.  From the right, these have characterised aid as bureaucratic and market distorting; …