The Financial Pages, a daily round-up of what the leading financial papers’ leading editorials have to say.
The Financial Times’ editorial page today warned that Britain should not follow the French government’s meddling example; voiced the need for Iraq to avoid sectarianism; and recommended full disclosure in derivative swaps.
The Financial Times warned that while Britain’s increased activism in supporting selected domestic businesses “may be well intentioned . . . it would be worrying if the UK drifted further into a policy of picking the industries of the future and second guessing the markets.” Instead, said the paper, UK Business Secretary Lord Mandleson should focus government resources on education and infrastructure.
With 80 percent of the votes counted in Iraq’s second general election since the 2003 US-led invasion, the leading contenders appear to be running neck and neck, with a third coalition party close behind. “Despite bitter enmities between and within all these coalitions,” said The Financial Times, “Iraq looks destined for a coalition of factions rather than a national government.” All the more reason, said the paper, for the political class to rise to the challenge of creating “working institutions, including a genuinely national and cross-community government.”
A spate of lawsuits involving local Italian governments suing banks for allegedly misleading them in derivates deals illustrates the need for better practices in such transactions. “All sides need stricter rules,” said The Financial Times. “Public entities must be subject to disclosure requirements and tight limits on the swaps they can make . . . [and] banks must be held responsible for the integrity of their advice.”
The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page today covered Turkey’s threat to deport Armenians and US Senator Chris Dodd’s proposed financial regulation bill.
Incensed by recent US and Swedish nonbinding resolutions to label the mass expulsions and serial murders of Armenians by Ottoman forces 95 years ago a genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to deport 100,000 undocumented Armenian immigrants. This “feel-good meddling from Stockholm and Washington,” said The Wall Street Journal constitutes “empty-gesture diplomacy” and will only serve to harm Turkish-Armenian relations.
Sen. Chris Dodd's financial reform package isn't ready.
The Wall Street Journal, in a lengthy editorial today, criticised Senator Dodd’s financial reform bill and the unnecessary rush to get it passed. “Much like the version that passed the House last year,” said the paper, “Mr. Dodd’s bill clings to the illusion that regulators in the future will know a financial mania when they see it.” And the doctrine of government bailouts for too-big-to-fail financial institutions? According to The Wall Street Journal, it’s alive and well in this draft of the bill.
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