Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Banking bandits

Who are the more notorious banker-bandits, Americans or the British? I am confused because the cover story in the Time magazine dated 23rd July reasons "why London breeds financial scandals" and claims that the Barclays' scandal is just the beginning. The Economist dated July 14th-20th sarcastically responds saying, "America has its scandals as well" and goes on to narrate a string of American bankers' shenanigans.

Updated on 9th Aug: The tussle between Britain and America has taken a more bitter turn after the NewYork regulators came up with a startling finding that Standard Chartered Bank had enabled unlawful movement of more than $250 billion to Iran. They have also threatened to cancel the bank's licence for its NewYork branch.

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Time magazine's canard

Time has called our prime minister an underachiever. No report can be more false than this. Manmohan Singh is a non-achiever.

Sumantra Ghosal used to refer to "satisfactory underperformance". Had he witnessed Singh's style, Ghosal would have called it "satisfactory non-performance". If a nation's leader lets the corrupt thrive and refuses to open his mouth except at the dentist's, would you smugly call him an underachiever? I would call him a destroyer of the nation.