Business Leadership at a Time of Economic Crisis

At times of good economic conditions, many businesses can chug along more or less successfully because customers have confidence and people are generally not too demanding. However, when times get difficult, the whole environment changes and, all of a sudden it seems, customers are short-tempered, demanding and flighty. At the same time, suppliers start to chase payment, credit dries up and employees spend their time making contingency plans in case the whole enterprise goes belly up.

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Review of Keynes: The Twentieth Century’s Most Influential Economist

When governments first began to respond to the economic crisis that arose in 2008, it seemed as if the lessons of Keynes had been learned by a sufficient number of world leaders for the worst excesses of depression to be avoided. The Brown-Obama connection ensured that large (although, for political reasons, probably not large enough) stimulus packages were passed both to shore up the financial architecture of the world’s economic system and to make it possible for the public sector to take up the load of providing employment and economic growth while the private sector is unable to do so.

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Review of Elliott and Atkinson’s The Gods That Failed

Despite what a number of people have suggested subsequently, few members of the mainstream commentariat predicted an imminent financial crash prior to its actually happening in 2008 (I excuse from this those whose belief system has convinced them of either the impending final crisis of capitalism or the end of the world). Two of those journalists and writers who actually did see something coming are Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, respectively of The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday, which is itself a somewhat contradictory sounding partnership.

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