Do bonuses fuel antisemitism?

Let me be clear from the start. The bankers who have been, and will continue to dominate news bulletins; Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, are not Jewish.

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New pay rules just won't work

You do not have to be a socialist to think that pay in Britain's boardrooms has gone off the scale.

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Trad retail suffering but online has pain, too

Translating the high-street headlines at the start of a new year is like navigating a maze.

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Food supremo retains her global appetite

No modern takeover in Britain caused so much public furore as the February 2010 purchase by American food giant Kraft of Cadbury.

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Could a BIB promote growth?

The search continues for a big idea to help rebalance the British economy and restore growth. In his autumn statement, George Osborne proposed some £40bn of "credit easing" to get cheaper credit flowing to small and medium-sized enterprises along with a boost for infrastructure spending to create jobs and investment in new capital projects.

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It's time to tax those bankers

The 'Occupy Wall Street' and 'Occupy London' movements are too easily dismissed as the actions of a bunch of middle-class cranks without a real cause. But like the 'Cottage Cheese' protests in Israel and the spontaneous youth protests in Barcelona, they are civil disobedience with real meaning.

The global crisis has placed sharp income disparities in the spotlight.

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The banks still have so much to learn

The reputation of the City has taken a terrible battering as a result of the financial crisis. Each time it picks itself up there is a new blow; perhaps most recently in the shape of the £1.3 billion rogue trading scandal at the London end of Swiss bank UBS.

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Growth, yes, but what social justice?

Nine months have passed since the start of the Arab Spring, when a 26-year-old Tunisian fruit seller immolated himself in front of a municipal building highlighting his frustration with red tape and living standards.

Since then, Israel has looked on with curiosity and apprehension as Arab state after Arab state erupted in violence over surging food prices, high youth unemployment and lack of po

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August? Bring on September

T S Elliot described August as the 'cruellest month' and for the financial markets this year, that could not be more true. Going back four decades it was in mid-August 1971 that the then US President Richard Nixon cut the US dollar loose from gold bullion ushering in the modern world of floating exchange rates.

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Our banking system is still so flawed

Four years have passed since the money markets froze over on August 9 2007, causing a credit crisis and the failure of Northern Rock. And it has been three years since the failure of Lehman.

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Meet the stars of cyber space

Not so long ago it looked as if generations of young Jews in the Western democracies were destined for professional lives as lawyers, accountants and doctors.

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The son may eclipse the father

The Honourable Nat Rothschild, scion of the most famous family in European banking, is proving a surprise package.

After a misspent youth, which saw him branded as a playboy and worse, he could yet become the richest Rothschild of all through a series of spectacular investments in natural resources.

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What's in store for Waterstone's?

The fate of struggling music group HMV and its Waterstone's book chain has been of more than just passing interest to investors. The decline of HMV, which came perilously close to administration in recent months, is a story of our times.

No other British retailer has been more affected by the digital revolution.

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The French have it again...

Normally the goings-on at the International Monetary Fund struggle to find space in the business sections, let alone the front pages, of our national newspapers.

But an odd confluence of events - the priapic behaviour of former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the on-going crisis in the euro zone and the struggle over who will succeed DSK (as he is known) - at the Fund have moved it to

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Chin up, things ain't that bad

The recovery of the advanced economies from the 'great recession' of 2008-09 has been stuttering. This is not surprising. Countries rarely bounce back from slumps in a straight line, especially after a financial shock on the scale which brought the world economy to a shuddering halt in the Autumn of 2008.

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The Glencore Jew in the glare

Just a few weeks ago, the name Ivan Glasenberg would have attracted little recognition outside of Switzerland, where his company Glencore is based. But the decision to list on the London and Hong Kong stock markets has catapulted the South-African entrepreneur to the top of Europe's rich list.

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The West is key in MENA future

The turmoil in the Middle East and Africa (MENA) region, which began with riots in Algeria and Tunisia in December 2010, has been unprecedented in its scope.

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London gets ready for giant Glencore

The upcoming London and Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) of the secretive global commodities, mining and production group Glencore International AG, will be one of the most fascinating of modern times. In size terms alone it will be the biggest ever flotation on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) raising up to $11 billion of new cash and valuing the whole group at around $45 billion.

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Have the banks not learned?

In the light of the bonuses paid by Britain's big banks over the past few weeks - including the 100 or so new millionaires created at the state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland - one might have thought that the crisis, which enveloped the financial system in 2007-08, was over.

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Tchenguiz arrests put SFO in limelight

The high-profile dawn raids and arrests of the Iranian-born Tchenguiz brothers, Robert and Vincent, is a big test for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which is masterminding the case against them.

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