Opinion | Global finance can be a creator of wealth or a weapon of mass destruction. As a perfect storm looms, is the end nigh?
Andrew Sheng says the 2008 financial crisis was a wasted opportunity. Governments failed to act, passing the buck to central banks that pumped money into the global economy and set the scene for the next crisis
This year marks the 50th anniversary of 1968, when many baby boomers like myself came of age.
I was studying at the University of Bristol that year, as my generation of students was protesting against the Vietnam war in Paris, London and Washington, witnessing the unfolding of the Cultural Revolution in China and embracing the hippie lifestyle. Bristol was hardly the home of liberals, it was a middle-class red-brick university, but student protesters there ended up occupying Senate House just before Christmas.
Two events defined my understanding of how the British establishment worked. First, the police negotiated with the students: they reached an agreement that the students would come out to let the police investigate a bomb scare, and then the students were allowed to re-enter and reoccupy the building.
Second, the police switched off the power, and most students, after braving the cold, went home for Christmas. When I asked my lecturer what his impression was of the “occupation”, he said his only regret was that the power cut had ruined Christmas turkeys for the lecturers. Thanks to humour and tolerance, little damage was done.
