Showing posts with label bernanke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bernanke. Show all posts

23 January 2008

Mark His Words

Here's a post well worth reading:

Yesterday, we saw the most extraordinary failure of economic leadership in recent years, when the US Federal Reserve pressed the “emergency morphine” button and cut Federal Reserve rates by 0.75%. It will not help.

These are extremely testing times, and thus far, the US Fed under Bernanke has been found wanting. Historians may well lay the real blame for current distress at the door of Alan Greenspan, who pioneered the use of morphine to dull economic pain, but they will probably also credit him with a certain level of discretion in its prescription. During Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed, economic leaders became convinced that the solution to market distress was to ensure that the financial system had access to easy money.

Pretty standard Economist-type analysis you might think; but what's interesting about this lengthy piece is that it's written by Mark Shuttleworth, head of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. What struck was not just that it's extremely well written, but that he took the time and trouble to pen it. I don't think there are many CEOs who would be both willing and able to do so.

I think we can deduce from from this is that Canonical - and hence a key player working towards GNU/Linux on the desktop - is in good hands.