I wrote 2008 – a year in prospect a year ago. I won’t dwell on most outcomes. I think we can agree I got this right though: I think there is one reality we all expect in 2008. The economy will have a difficult year, and the financial sector will have the worst year it
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These are my links for December 31st: FT.com / Companies / Financial Services – Money flows out of hedge funds at record rate – Hedge funds are sinking too In my forecast for 2008 I predicted that both private equity and hedge funds would have a torrid time I was right FT.com / Companies /
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Brendan Barber is looking forward to 2009 on the TUC blog. Amongst the things he says he wants is: A fairer tax system. The government is right to increase borrowing to maintain the strength of the economy. But this borrowing and decent public services will have to be paid for, and 2009 must see a
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Dennis Howlett has asked: Much more important though … Just who the heck is running the profession? We know FASB is financed by the profession in the US but it seems the SEC can over-ride or ignore it when it is under pressure from the Fed. In other words it is the Fed that’s setting
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These are my links for December 30th: FT.com / Companies / Banks – Pension threat to HBOS deal – This is an occasion when the words 'cart' and 'horse' come to mind La fortune de Bernard Madoff en images – Diaporama – E24.fr – Perhaps it's no great surprise that Madoff's yacht was registered in
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This comes from Nation News in Barbados, regarding the Madoff fraud: The largest known loser in the Caribbean is M-Invest Limited, an offshore company in the Cayman Islands that has been hit for hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe as much as US$700 million belonging to private investors who had originally placed their money in
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There’s been some debate on this blog about the duty of accountants to their clients. A commentator has said: Tax is an expense and any accountant doing his job properly has an obligation to act in his clients’ best interests to use lawful means to mitigate the tax liability. The accountant cannot pick and choose
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These are my links for December 28th: Bernard Madoff probe focuses on offshore tax havens | – Fraudulent funds located in tax haven? Surely not!

These are my links for December 27th: A Chill on 'The Guardian' – The New York Review of Books – Alan Rusbridger reviews the Guardian – Tescos case and makes clear that the UK's libel laws need to change I agree