The one single shaft of light throughout the whole financial situation is that it is clear that the global banking system is corrupt and worthless. The saddest fact is that it is precisely this broken system that is now being encouraged by governments worldwide to continue exactly as they are throug...

The news that Microsoft has hired a senior Wal-Mart executive to spearhead a move into retail will not come as much of a shock. These days retailers run the world, and companies like Microsoft, which have typically supplied big retail, are now increasingly drawn to the idea of opening up for themsel...

The chaotic situation in the financial sector is creating a branding headache for banks' marketers. My wife comes from Tasmania, a weird and wonderful island off the southern tip of Australia. It has some of the slackest planning provisions in the Southern Hemisphere. As a result, when her friends t...

The way banks are dropping interest rates on savings accounts, you would think they don’t want your money. Most “high-yield” savings accounts now offer rates well under 3%. HSBC Direct is the latest to announce an interest rate cut, from 2.6% to 2.45% APY. Obviously there is more t...

Bank shares plummeted today amid concerns that the latest government package to stabilise banks and encourage lending would not solve the deepening economic crisis. Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest faller in the FTSE 100 share index, its price collapsing by more than 70%, to 10p, after it warn...

World stockmarkets fell sharply again today as anxiety over the strength of the banking sector swept through the City. Shares in HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB were all hit hard as investors lost faith in the banks. This helped to wipe more than 200 points off the FTSE 100 ind...

It's always fun to predict what's going to happen. The risk of being spectacularly wrong is very high, but that's what makes the exercise so entertaining. 'Tis the season for dwelling, quickly, on what we learned last year -- de-leveraging is really painful and when gas prices are high, people want ...

Earlier this year I decided to ride the London Eye. It was busy - so busy that the line of people queueing to purchase tickets snaked out of the ticketing room and onto the street overlooking the Thames. In an attempt to manage the line, the Eye's management had constructed a queuing system using ba...

I spent last weekend visiting friends in Holland and headed home on Sunday evening from Schiphol Airport. ING has heavily branded itself throughout and the connecting 'jetbridge' that links the departure terminal to the aircraft was one long ad for the firm. 'Let's talk about your future' exclaimed ...

It's hard to care about Shanghai after Tiger Woods' US Open win....