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Interviews 14th March 2012

More Anglo-Saxon bankers should go to jail, says OECD’s William White

MADRID | Former colleagues at the Bank of England will read with some sense of shock what William White told the Spanish financial newspaper Expansión during an interview with one of its editors, Miquel Roig. Or perhaps not. After all, as Roig points out in today’s edition, “‘Central bankers are a strong brotherhood of mutual admiration,’ former ECB president Jean Claude Trichet used to say. William White was the one who dared…

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Interviews 13th March 2012

The cheek of Mario Draghi with private investors!

By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | The Greek restructuring has been a most impressive achievement. But it has fallen only on private investors’ heads. Public bondholders, like the European Central Bank (ECB), refused to take in their share of losses as everyone else did. When the EBC’s governor Mario Draghi was asked about the ECB’s special protection, turning the central bank into a super-privileged investor, he replied: “I can answer…

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Interviews 13th March 2012

“Beware of Spanish entrepreneurs: they know how to survive!”

YOUNG AND BOLD: THE NEW SPANISH ENTREPRENEURS | NEW YORK | Starting from scratch, Daniel Gutiérrez Alías one year ago created ShakingAsia, a B2B Spanish consulting company based in Tokyo. This 31-year-old savvy IT engineer from Madrid was for a long time funded by his FFF (Familiy, Friends and Fools). Now he is still relying on bootstrapping but has clients such as Red Karaoke or Minube. Hard-working and determined, he wants to shake…

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Interviews 13th March 2012

Bankers, ministers, economists: you’d have to be out of your mind to fix the crisis

WASHINGTON | Our brains do not seem to have been made for a modern-day economy. They are much better suited for deciding among a limited —a very limited— set of options. This could make sense when we were living in caves —for several tens of thousands years, let’s not forget—, and the main selection we had to make was to pick a partner to mate with or a mammoth to take…

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Interviews 2nd March 2012

“Austerity can ruin the euro zone,” says Unipapel’s Millán Álvarez-Miranda

By Fernando Barciela, in Madrid | Unipapel’s managing director Millán Álvarez-Miranda warns the European economy is deteriorating as a whole, from Dublin to Paris and Athens, not just in the periphery of the euro area. Are you concerned about the markets? Of course. You don’t want your company to be undervalued on the markets. In our case, we must also bear in mind that half of the shareholders are present at the council. The fact that the stock price…

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Interviews 28th February 2012

BBVA’s Francisco González: “Spain has now a chance to regain credibility”

MADRID | The newspaper El País published an interview in its Sunday edition with Francisco González, president of BBVA and “one of the bankers that travels the most around the world. Some even criticise this obsessive international concern, but it provides him with the ability to know how Spain is perceived abroad.” What are the lessons learned after four years of crisis? This has been a very severe crisis due to a…

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Interviews 22nd February 2012

The no-no’s of a good CEO

NEW YORK | What makes an interesting CEO, a really charismatic one? And what kills all the charm? A survey by the 10 Company and Gotham Research Group conducted last December among business bloggers pointed out the worst sentences a manager could possible pronounce. Here is an excerpt of the article by Celeste Altus at Mediabistro. “Win-win situation”: I think this one hit its effectiveness peak in the 1980s. Bloggers point…

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Interviews 22nd February 2012

London-Madrid …Valencia?

LONDON | Spanish president Mariano Rajoy stepped on to Downing Street but talked instead to the City of London. It will not be the last time that this happens. The shift in the UK’s relationship with most European Union country members should be a troubling sign of the declining power Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament retain amid one of the most crude economic downturns seen in some decades. Then…

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Interviews 20th February 2012

Spain’s banking reform 3

By Fernando Gonzalez Urbaneja, in Madrid | Three decrees for the reform, restructuring and rescue of the Spanish financial system have passed and some voices at the Bank of Spain point out there might yet be a fourth one, if needed. Three plans for a sector which boasted of being the best in the world, and neither of all three have exactly been effective in restoring the credit market. The Socialists…

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Interviews 20th February 2012

José Sartorius: “Most Spanish employers understand UK’s ‘no’ to the Tobin Tax”

By Jacobo de Regoyos, in Brussels | José Sartorius Álvarez de Bohorques devotes most of his time to his role as a member of the European Economic and Social Committee. He was appointed by the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organizations CEOE and the Banking Association AEB. Are the Spanish entrepreneurs against the Tobin tax? Well, I have not met with all Spanish entrepreneurs, but the AEB and the CEOE are contrary to the Tobin…