Gordon the Firefighter

Whilst listening to Gordon Brown during the 2010 General Election campaign it is difficult to escape an impression that he behaves like a firefighter in dealing with the current financial crisis. He gets into a combative rhetoric and posture and lambastes his opponents as threats to economic recovery. In 2008 Gordon was "the world saviour". Now he got into even a hotter role.

However one must not forget that the current economic crisis was caused by the government and regulators responsible for the probity of the financial world, at best by monumental incompetence that let the financial institutions behave fraudulently, at worst by a criminal conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers.

Indeed Gordon is a firefighter. But either a stupid one or, worse, one with a hero syndrome. All in all, "the world saviour" in the current firefighting role comes across as a bit of a Walter Mitty.

Since writing this article, the author found that Lord Lamont also compared Gordon Brown to an arsonist posing as a firefighter in his article over a year ago (albeit in a different context). It seems it is not only an unbridled imagination.

FSA is coming back to their senses

The UK regulator, FSA, appears to be coming back to their senses. Today an actuarial professional who works for a retail bank, has written to the author of this blog:

"I attended a presentation on liquidity from a senior figure in my banks Treasury department - the FSA are proposing a ratio which would in effect mean LTD < 100%."

On one side it is good news, but on the other it is worrying: even if FSA do something right they do not really understand what they are doing. But it is a progress from much-celebrated "Turner Review".