John Kay - Financial Times

John Kay has been writing a column on economics and business since 1995. He is currently a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He also had a career in the policy world which established the Institute for Fiscal Studies as one of the most respected think tanks, and a business career.

John has published many books, including Foundations of Corporate Success (1993), The Truth About Markets (2003) and The Long and the Short of It: Finance and investment for normally intelligent people who are not in the industry (2009). His latest book, Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly, was published by Profile Books in March 2010.

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It is not difficult to understand why mere mortals are angry

The success of market economies is not achieved by policies that encourage greed

Only a small proportion of the value of goods is represented by manufacturing and assembly

Travellers from emerging economies will prefer to land at Paris and Frankfurt

What would an independent Scotland actually be like? The answer is that no one really knows

Mechanisms that should protect consumers are found wanting

In M&A these days, doing the deal is what matters; justification comes afterwards

The structure of indices makes a big difference to pensions, tax allowances and index-linked debt

Policy to give the low-paid more money rather than benefits is worthy of debate

Social security costs would be a problem even if wasn’t for Bismarck and Beveridge

It is futile to expect stability in a system that is driven by volatility

Complex safeguards failed because failure is intrinsic to that style of oversight

Industries with the power to hold back economic growth open the door to outsiders

Forgetting my goggles has helped me marvel at organisation

The explosion of the cost of mega projects is a recent phenomenon

For the economist, probability was about believability, not frequency

Some people become obsessed by narratives that offer theories of everything

The press has a special responsibility in reporting crime such as the Aurora massacre

Or why it is hard to castrate a bull market

The chain of intermediation should be shorter and simpler

ABOUT JOHN

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