Now, however, after the election of Joe Biden as president, the US is proposing to do more than double down on already generous support. Is what the US administration doing well judged or excessively risky? For its proponents, the idea of “going big” is designed, among other things, to rectify the mistakes, as they see it, of the Obama administration of 2009. They want this to be seen as a transformative political moment. But Lawrence (Larry) Summers of Harvard has criticised the approach as the “least responsible” in 40 years. Summers is an influential economist and policymaker on the US…
Author: businessfast
It is sad to see all those fresh-faced and eager “distressed asset managers” marching forth with cash-stuffed backpacks through the cheering throngs of pension sponsors, sovereign wealth funds and family office staff. Those who have seen more than one cycle know many of them will not survive. Or at least the money they’re armed with will be lost on the bloody fields of bankruptcy courts, unfixable operating companies and deserted properties. That is usually what happens to inexperienced “deep value” managers when they are given can’t-miss opportunities at the beginning of the down cycle. The cheap assets and arbitrages they…
The whitest thing” in Netflix’s Narcos is “the cocaine”, Sir Lenny Henry joked when the actor and comedian gave a speech about diversity to the Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge last September. Henry, who has been calling on the British TV industry to improve diversity for more than a decade, was making a serious point. The pace of change has been “glacial” when it comes to improving representation of black, Asian and other minority ethnic people on-screen and behind the camera in the UK, he told the audience of media bigwigs. By comparison, some of the new breed of US streaming…