大象传媒

Paul if you want to boost your ratings you could claim to be related to Gareth Bale at the moment. Much as I enjoyed Tuesday night, he is being over hyped to be the new Beckham, Rooney, Walcott. Good luck to the lad. Any economists know how to kick the growth football past the "old orthodoxies" and deliver an accurate cross towards identified economic goals. (just to keep it on topic ;)

It strikes me that "blogroll" requires careful enunciation even though it is a paperless medium. Well done and deserves a better rating. How generous to point me in the direction of alternative blogs to those of the Corporation's.

The odd idiot's guide thrown in some sometimes very heavy stuff is most welcome.

Is there a Mrs. Mason? LOL!

I had to smile watching NN last night when Jeremy asked you 'just how will this new round of QE work in the US'...to which you quickly replied (completely straight faced)...Nobody knows!

The look on Jeremy's face was priceless.

Well done Paul.

RE Night Jack's upward mobility...

How about a TV series about history of economics - a history of how we organize ourselves by how we think capital works? Something gritty n grounded in the lives of people, social and technological and political change. A 5 min slot every other evening is hardly enough. Explaining QE2 in 5 mins and why it's important yet in truth just a desperate stab in the dark by policy makers was a big ask. Yet NN regularly spends loads more time discussing all the latest non-events in Westminster. Whether or not QE2 works is big stuff. You'd hardly guess from the low profile it's received. Harriet Harman's unfunny gibe (has she EVER been funny?) was the BIG ISSUE.

If the 大象传媒 can commission histories of mathematics/atom/motorways etc why not economics? Anthony Jay did one but it was oh so academic and tedious. How about "From Lombardy to Lehmanns".

As you mention in your ealier blog, the politicos (and most of the media) see economics as just one of many "policy areas" rather than the tectonic plates on which all else in politics stand.

The Money As Debt film, putting to one side from whether it is truthful or not, shows it's quite easy to illustrate complex economic processes. If Quantum Jumps can be televised in Atom why not bonds, futures, securitization, high frequency trading, CDOs? (John Molton managed exactly that in 2007 (?) C4 Dispatches)

Let's hope success doesn't result in dumbing-down.

Well done Paul... don't knock you achievement, your a rare eye-on-the-ball economist in the premier league.

#5 trikidiki

Totally agree that we need longer format programs to tackle these bigger issues. Maybe the 大象传媒 will divert some of its whopping budget for the Apprentice towards something more substantive?

In the meantime, if you haven't seen any of these programs then I strongly recommend them:

PBS's Commanding Heights: in theory available on Internet but I had download problems and ordered the DVD

Adam Curtis Mayfair Set: available on YouTube

Rob Newman's History of Oil: on Youtube

Any talk by Michael Hudson (try Max Keiser, The Renegade Economist website or Steve Keen's DebtWatch)

The Quants - alchemists of wall street: on vodpod.com

@5 Triki "How about a TV series about history of economics...? "

There was a very good one about 35 years ago written and fronted by J K Galbraith: "The Age of Uncertainty". It was inspiring and informative; I also have the book. The Beeb should reshow this with intros by current members of its economics staff - and perhaps three extra progs to bring it up to date. Pesto on the banking crisis and corporate governance, Stephanie F on post-monetarist macroeconomic management and Paul M on the relationship between the West and the developing world - Whither Consumerism? Somehow global warming and resource shortages should be built into this.

PS I love the Russian word for consumerism: 'Vyeshchism' = 'thingism'.

Cheers, Hawkeye_Pierce, i'll check em out. Max K is always hilarious/worrying/enlightening.

SOME QUESTIONS



Financial Corporations (Table 4.1.9)
拢 BILLIONS
2001 2006
2008 2009
Total currency and deposits 1795 3683 4436 4360

Securities other than shares
Financial derivatives 1707 9566
5274
Total securities other than shares 1178 1662 11811 7922


Loans secured on dwellings 590 1076 1222 1231

Total loans 1758 3210 4379
3910

Note the leap in derivatives between 2006 and 2008? That's 9 trillion in derivatives, and that's just 1.2 trillion secured on dwellings.

But 'our' financial corporations are international are they not? where are the dwellings? If these banks get into trouble, why does the UK public have to bail them out? If you were to add up all the 14 million homes in the UK and multiply them by the average value of 200K, that only comes to 拢3 trillion. So, what are the derivatives derivatives of?
Presumably not UK Mortgage Backed Securities? The loans against dwellings was only about 1/4 of the loans too. .

if one was to write a novel/drama about world finance then one would fear that describing the reality of the antics people get up to would be regarded as unbelievable fiction?

I prefer Sam in the FT. Martin is inconsistant, and out of his depth on detail (like Uni Fees) Alphaville is simply comic cuts around brokers comments and only John Kay is wise.

Agreed, Hudson is worth a look, especially these . It all makes one wonder if one is living on the right side and if the Cold War ever ended, but just morphed..

Dear Paul,

what you do so excellently is to be the small boy in the crowd who innocently points out that the king has no clothes on.

Keep pointing.

You are able to do this because Auntie Beeb employs you to do so - virtually without exception, all the other commentators recognise that "he who pays the piper calls the tune" - and play the tune they are employed to play.

That's the difference between your role and that of Geoff Randle @ Sky whose brief is to rock the boat but from an entirely implicit partisan libertarian, anti-state "business knows best" perspective - Randall just throws mud mainly idiots who deserve it - you question the logic, practicality and morality of all those involved and expose the contradictions in their positions.

I can't see you being allowed to go on doing this by the forces who want you silenced beyond another year or two - so make the most of it.

#14 tn02

Strictly speaking there are two Michael Hudsons!

He of SuperImperialism fame:


And Michael W Hudson, author of "The monster"

Well done, Paul. Keep nailing the humbug!

a few decades ago Jeremy would have been on the same demos that Tariq Ali was on but there you go, climbing up the greasy pole at the beeb takes preference but a little of that 'marching' experience is still with Paxman, I could tell by the questions he was asking, once a leftie always a leftie even on a million a year! America is going through the worst period in it's economic history and we do not appreciate how bad things are. It is worse than 1929 but because we have mobile phones, plasma screen TV's we think it insulates us from the worst but it doesn't. The trillion dollar deficits are not something you can live with forever, China and the far east have well overtaken America, even Brazil with it's eight per cent growth is passing Uncle Sam. America is bleeding itself from stupid wars trying to police the world or out of narrow self interest but it is too late and the tea party whackos will make it worse....tell 'em, Paul, tell 'em.....

"16. At 09:04am on 05 Nov 2010, Hawkeye_Pierce wrote:
#14 tn02

Strictly speaking there are two Michael Hudsons!

Thanks for the disambiguation. It's quite confusing, as both have written for Counterpunch too.

Much appreciated, as was the reference to Warburton.

Question One: Of the 14 million 'homeowners' in the UK, does anyone know how many 'homeowners' actually do own their own homes vs how many are owned by the private sector financial organisations ('the banks'), having just loaned money to mortgagees whilst holding the deeds and thus title)?

Question Two: Is it not the 'banks' which most fear negative equity.
They have loaned money on assets which will massively depreciate if house prices fall dramatically.

Question Three: In the above (linked to) Blue Book quoted loans, only about a quarter were secured against dwellings. So, what were most of the loans for and who were they to?

Question Four: In whose interests were the banks bailed out by Government? Who is paying? Were the banks bailed out to protect over leveraged private sector corporations who wanted an end to government
(public) interference (regulation)?

As well as the politics.

if you put the PIGS into the program and note how all that differs with the UK is, is time, it might encourage you to think why so many of us can't grasp how self-interested some actually are, and why most are blind to what is really going on. begin with Russia and look at the dates closely thinking how this was liberalism at work, and at whose hands (look up Jeffrey Sachs and crew)..That's freedom.

Intensional opacity (Jocasta was Oedipus' downfall), is worth looking into very carefully.

" is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich鈥檚 Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign. He is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.

Oedipus was the architect of his own downfall, through the insistance of concreting his own history. If there's one thing Bernanke knows , it is this !

#20 tn02

Q1: Not sure, but I suspect a lot less than 50% will be fully "owned" outright. Please share the answer if you ever find out.

Q2: Yes. We were told that it is in our interests to bail them out or they bring the system down. They are threatening us that if we don't do what they ask, they will blow up the economy. Max Keiser calls them "suicide bankers". See yesterday's Keiser Report:



Q3: Good question. On the assumption that they are purely consumer borrowing figures, then there was a big jump in unsecured consumer borrowing taking place between 2001 and 2006. I presume that this growth in, what is in effect debt for consumption (not for investment) took place under "light touch" regulation.

Q4: Yes. This is just privatised profits and socialised losses. And this not just my opinion, but also that of the BoE (see Andrew Haldane's Banking on the State)

P.S. There is some useful data in the ICB Issues Paper - Calls for Evidence:



Deadline is 15th November for those of us who want to exercise our democratic duty and voice our legitimate concerns on this most worrying state of affairs.

Why, one might ask, have, (in the Blue Book 2010 etc) Households been aggregated with "non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH)"? The latter is the massively expanded Third Sector (voluntary sector, see Charities Act 2006), which is how so much of the state has been quasi privatised over the years.

Table 10.10
Asset Value
拢 Trillion
01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09
Residential buildings 2.1 2.6 2.9 3.2 3.3 3.7 4.0 3.7 3.8

"23. At 1:15pm on 05 Nov 2010, supersnapshot wrote:
Oedipus was the architect of his own downfall, through the insistance of concreting his own history."

You unwittingly illustrate that you don't understand the nature of behaviour, and why the story is an illustration of the tragic and opaque nature of the intensional.

Hopefully with the NUJ strike taking place today, Paul, you can sit down and do some digging around to help us all out by establishing where all the "loot" has gone.

Here's a quote from Akerlof & Romer:

"Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations. Bankruptcy for profit occurs most commonly when a government guarantees a firm's debt obligations."

Hmmm, now let's see. So we're looking for an industry that pays it's employees lots of money, the firms aren't really worth what they claim to be worth, and the Gvt is guaranteeing it's debt obligations. Hmmmm... I might have to ponder that one over the weekend..... oh look, wait a minute..... someone seems to think that they are on to something:

"Yves Smith argues in her book Econned that Akerlof and Romer's 'Looting' theory applies to the subprime mortgage crisis and the Financial crisis of 2007-2010. She argues that the 'Looted' companies in this case are banks and others who were 'looted' by certain traders and executives within those companies."



Needless to say Amazon is winging a few more juicy books for me to digest over the coming days and weeks (Econned, plus Michael Lewis' "The big short"). Oh, I love a good Whodunnit.

24. At 3:43pm on 05 Nov 2010, Hawkeye_Pierce wrote:
#20 tn02

Deadline is 15th November for those of us who want to exercise our democratic duty and voice our legitimate concerns on this most worrying state of affairs.

The first figure in the " to which you refer has on page 10, a graph showing total, as well as a) corporate and b) household debt rising over time over the 20 years 1987-2007). But what is a household?

If one looks at the definition of household in the ONS 'Blue Book' (2010) (see link earlier) it's "Individuals or small groups of individuals as consumers and in some cases as entrepreneurs producing goods and market services (where such activities cannot be hived off and treated as those of a quasi corporation)", and if one looks at chapter 6 on "Households and non-profit institutions serving households" as I referred to earlier when referring to asset prices, the latter (NPISH Non-profit institutions serving households) are defined thus:"These include bodies such as charities, universities, churches, trade unions or member鈥檚 clubs".

There was a quiet period in the Blue Book's 20 year history in 1997.

There was major growth of the Third Sector (volunteerism) under New Labour (Ed Miliband) - and the Charities Commission only has 400 odd staff to regulate! The New Act extended the scope of charity dramatically (see the 2006 Act to see just how extensive this has been, it puts the concept of charity into Newspeak).

My concern is that the term 'households' is opaque, and this makes it easy to abuse via sleight of accounting-hand, i.e as a cover for something else (just as charities are)..

#26 Click the link then disappear into your own tragedy



/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2009/06/a_journey_through_chinas_econo.html


First as tragedy then as farce !

#28 tn02

You truly have supernatural powers. Not only reincarnation ;-) but now the omnipotent ability to link to pdf files without being blocked by mods! You are blessed.

Anyway. Although I accept your premise about the 3rd sector, this is still not the major cause of the problem.

The biggest rate of growth in debt levels is still the financial sector, 10 fold in ~20 years. Whereas Corporate and Consumer is about 5 fold.

Post #27 explains the MO. The financial sector is embroiled in the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. Whereby those in the know have been siphoning off fraudulently acquired profits, and dumped the responsibility/cost on to others (e.g. the taxpayer / bondholder etc.).

Just seen the C4 news: picket line, Mr Mason, front and centre, taking one for the team - hats off to you sir, total respect. Time for every one to make a stand.

I'll try and get a cake down to my local line next week, good luck with it, and tell the NUJ not to be shy about calling for support and solidarity on the lines, i think they'll be pleasantly surprised if they do.

What is the law on members of the public joining picket lines? If they are not on private property, and they are not there in a union capacity, surely no harm no foul? I would be interested if there are any with legal knowledge out there that can answer?

30. At 6:13pm on 05 Nov 2010, Hawkeye_Pierce wrote:

See figure 5 on page 13 "Figure 5: Growth of securitisation issuance in the UK (拢bn)" and definitions form the end of the paper repeated below. CDOs were impenetrable by design, but what we have heard most about are the residential contribution (RMBS). Why? because they are the largest group and so the easiest to hit? RMBS only account for 1/3 of securitization in 2007 and it's not even clear what residential means as I have said elsewhere. So, to what extent have loans been secured against other assets to grow suspect businesses like property speculation? The suggestion in brief is that the corporates/financial sector has been well and truly shafting the naive public as the numbers don't add up viz 'dwellings'.. It's like taking advantage of grannies and kids.

ABS: Asset-backed security; a security that is backed by cash flows from a pool of underlying assets, such as loans or leases.

CDO: Collateralised debt obligation; ABS for which the underlying assets are debt instruments (which can include other ABS).

Credit default swap (CDS): A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial contract under which one party sells protection to another party against the occurrence of a defined 鈥渃redit event鈥� 鈥� including restructuring and default 鈥� in respect of a specified reference entity. The CDS buyer pays a premium to receive protection against default by the reference entity; the CDS seller receives the premium and in return guarantees the credit risk of the reference entity. If a party holds a security issued by the reference entity, it may want to protect itself against default by the reference entity on that security by entering into a CDS to buy credit protection. Alternatively, a party may simply choose to speculate on the performance of the reference entity by buying or selling a CDS without having any other exposure to the reference entity.

CMBS: Commercial mortgage-backed securities; ABS for which the underlying assets are loans secured on commercial property.

CLO: Collateralised loan obligation; ABS for which the underlying assets are typically corporate or leveraged loans.

Covered bond: Debt securities backed by cashflows from underlying assets, often residential mortgages. However, unlike a securitisation, where a covered bond is backed by a pool of bank assets, the bond is an obligation of the bank, and the underlying assets remain on the bank鈥檚 balance sheet.

RMBS: Residential mortgage-backed securities; ABS for which the underlying assets are loans secured on residential property.

I read about this blog on Richard Murphy's TaxResearch site, which I am pleased to see is mentioned here. I am also pleased to hear mention from Hawkeye_Pierce of Michael Hudson and Renegade Economist (Fred Harrison) both of whom I know through the land value taxation movement. I spoke to PaulM when he chaired a Compass session earlier in the year. I think/hope I gave him a pamphlet entitled Land Value ... for Public Benefit. Economics needs to rediscover LAND - IT'S NOT CAPITAL. I particularly like MichaelH's work because he manages to work the land issue into a bigger picture, giving more weight to the expropriation of surplus labour than 'Georgists'. But FredH did write Boom Bust, House Prices, Banking and the Depression of 2010, in 2005. He also precisely predicted the previous UK land price peak in his Power in the Land, 1983.

Be careful about the Blackpool FC analogy, the normal trajectory for newly promoted 'scrappy, northern, brutalist success' in the premier league ala Hull, Burnley and others is,

First season in the premier league do surprisingly well until christmas

Drop off in performance and results after that point.

Struggle badly in season two (possibly relegated)

Relegated in season 3.


The ones that have bucked the tend in the way you describe are Bolton, Wigan and Blackburn who consistently refuse to be relegated despite everybody hating the way they play (except their own fans)....

But I am guessing that is not the type of 'scrappy, northern, brutalist success' you are looking for??

Deep down you want to be Man utd.. genuine sustained success off the back of scrappy northern brutalism with a sprinkling of barely tolerated foreign talent and glitz (Cantona excepted).

Not a bad approach and the track record to back it up, but as a Leeds fan it is my duty to despise all that is Man Utd irrespective of the facts.

A Bit like your attendence on the picket lines striking for pensions you know are completely unsustainable and in many ways unfair. As a duty bound Man utd hating leeds fan I can understand those actions, but we both know that Man utd are going to stay in the premier league and those pensions are going to go sooner or later no matter what we do dont we?

Your success is deserved by the way and long may it continue but on a Man utd model pls (those words stick in my throat), not a Blackpool, Burnley, Hull, Bolton or Blackburn one.

Paul,

I just noticed your post in early Oct on Gary is still attracting quite a few interesting comments from accross the pond (up to 126 responses thus far and still alive as of yesterday).

Maybe if you want to get to that No.1 spot you should pitch more for the Glitz in the US Man Utd style, you could become the Simon Cowel of USA economic commenting, not even Pesto could compete with that.

There does seem to be a need and market for your style of journalism in the states.

Check out the latest comments if you have not done so already on your Gary post, they are quite an interesting snap shot on the current struggle for possetion of the American soul which seems to be going on over there.

Good stuff.

33. At 00:09am on 06 Nov 2010, Carol Wilcox wrote:
"I particularly like MichaelH's work because he manages to work the land issue into a bigger picture, giving more weight to the expropriation of surplus labour than 'Georgists'."

The nature of anarchism:- some are on crusades, some are looking for good reads, some for theories, or book deals, or employment in advisory roles, but far more just interested in high-brow TV entertainment/gossip for a few minutes.

Few are interested in with a view to securing SFO prosecutions, legislative change, and re-regulation, as all that requires radical change to our political economics, i.e.a shift away from Trotskyism (Permanent Revolution and grass roots populism in order to keep the state at bay) towards socialism and/or Islam (with Chinese/Arab, not Jewish, characteristics) and the Libertarian media/status quo marshals very powerful anarchistic forces against that every day, some of which you see above.

On a lighter note, if the Uzbekistan ambassador is reading this blog,.a suggestion - consider re-broadcasting the latest ITV Morrison's advert to your population with the innuendo that UK children are being abused as sprout labourers.

Jericoa, play the ball not the man. You don't seem to be aware of what matters and what doesn't - which means you have something to learn. Try arguing with that and see where it goes.....(there's method to this, can you see it yet?).

Bottom line: When you use a class term (e.g a collective noun or
adjective) do you know what you are referring to? Do you know how you are using quantifiers? If not, do you really know what you or anyone else is talking about? If not, reason and logic can't be applied.

That's the domain and problem of the intensional, perhaps the hallmark of Libertarianism? Why do you think the Chinese have engineers (science strives to be extensional) running their country, whilst we have PPE and other humanities graduates? Why are scientists depicted as geeks here, but not in China? Why are creative, argumentative, Personality Disordered people, treated as celebrities and role models here, but as maladjusted subversives elsewhere? Why are populations across the liberal-democracies ageing and already in, or headed towards, negative growth, and what will happen when the bulge in low ability immigrant and underclass births hit school rolls and teachers can't teach them because of a fall in mean ability? Will the teachers be blamed? Will that give trustees control over schools assets, and lead to staff layoffs through capability proceedings? Remember, about half the public sector is employed in education and health, and salaries and pensions is largely where the money goes.

@35 Jericoa, Paul

I'm (at least) equally concerned about posession of the British soul - we need to fight for it!

Comrade Paul, you're the first picket I've ever seen wearing a pin-stripe suit!



I note that Evan Davis and Jonathan Dimbleby turned scab. They really ought to be told...

THE WORKERS - UNITED - WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!

Zoellick seeks gold standard debate

Paul, if you want to make more friends...say you are related to Fernando Torres, there is a resemblance and besides he scores more goals than Bale!

Think about all the Non profit, 'charity', aka Office of the Third
Sector) organisations which have effectively become asset-shelters in recent years. What a wonderful cover the domestic household is if one were to be interested in hiding one's financial machinations.

Think of schools and hospitals now being encouraged to become Trusts where their assets (e.g. land and tax payers money - a guaranteed income stream - note that education and health have been ring-fenced in the recent cuts, why not, its a guaranteed source of revenue for those after the assets surely, see also 'free schools') will become part of the charity's assets.

Think of 'households' as explicated in earlier posts. When you think of a household, do you think of a quite little family with dad and mum struggling to pay off their mortgage debt? Or do you think of private schools, universities and tens of thousands of other registered 'charities' (see scope of ).

Just some food for thought as the classes keep being refined in the interests of freedom ().

And if you have an opinion, but it isn't informed, and you don't have the sense to radically question your own grasp, what is that a sign of, and isn't it very easy to exploit?

What's needed here are some thorough Regulatory Impact Assessments, (although to date, none seem to have ever seen the full picture - see financial crisis).

is from the Halifax/Lloyds estimate back in the Spring.

"The ONS definition of household wealth has many different components, including financial assets, houses, non-residential properties, jewellery, and other valuables. The Halifax measure of wealth includes only residential buildings and financial assets held by UK households (i.e. a group of people that feed and house themselves), and in this respect differs from the household wealth figures published by the ONS in the National Accounts. The ONS measure of household wealth includes, besides households, non-profit institutions serving households such as charities and unincorporated enterprises (e.g. shops, taxi firms, farms) where the finances of the business are linked with the families that run them. These largely non-household categories have been excluded as this research is focused only on the financial position of households. On average, the Halifax estimate is around 10% lower than the ONS figure. For example, the published ONS figure for net household wealth for 2008 is 拢6,575 billion, whereas the Halifax estimate is 拢5,896 billion."

Note also that here they refer to just 拢2.5 trillion in housing equity in 2009. Look at the growth in derivatives referred to above. They are not RMBS.

Search for ""non-profit institutions serving households" uk" in Google and go the Bank of England database. Just to start this off, here's one:



Plot the dates vs amounts in Excel and scetterplot them looking at the years after New Labour came to power in 1997. Try (LPMVVYJ) "Monthly amounts outstanding of monetary financial institutions sterling net lending to unincorporated businesses and non-profit institutions serving households (in sterling millions) seasonally adjusted", and "Monthly 12 month growth rate of monetary financial institutions' sterling net lending to unincorporated businesses and non-profit institutions serving households (in percent) not seasonally adjusted (LPMVVYD)

Question: By collapsing classes/categories, and treating the Third Sector (and other unincorporated businesses) as one, is it at all possible that 'households' as a basic economic unit have been abused in order to politically and economically redirect where the substantive excessive lending was? Rolling out credit cards and easy mortgages to the not so smart (like Monty Slater) could have been abused as a subterfuge in order to hide where most of the risky lending was really going, e.g. into to high risk property speculation and similar ventures.

On the 3rd Nov, The Charity Commission appealed for help given that it's having it's budget cut by 1/3. There are now something like 186,000 charities and the Commission has about 400 staff. Here are some . Look at where most of the money goes, and who has most of the money.
Something more than Tescoisation seems to be going on , and this is just the registered charities, what about the other 'households'?..

"Charity trustees have been invited to share their views on the Charity Commission鈥檚 future.

The call comes after the regulator鈥檚 funding was cut by 33% in real terms as part of the government鈥檚 review of public spending. The Commission has announced that the cuts are likely to lead to a loss of 140 full time equivalent posts." .

Remember the FSA?

Scappy, Brutalist & Northern it may be, but it's not Blackpool, you're more like 70's Leeds, and Norman Hunter :)

More than anything else I think it's the Sardonic/Laconic delivery that really makes you good to watch. For all his brains Krugman doesn't cut it in person, he's like a furtive naughty schoolboy.

But congrats on both placings, they're both well deserved.

#13 Sam came from Alphaville, and if you think it's just comedy & traders talking you're missing a beat, it's far more in depth than that, they're very good. As for Mr Wolf, well, he's a heavyweight. Seriously, the quality of the FT's output is unrivalled IMO. But each to their own.