Odds & ends

Back from a very relaxing few days up on the North Norfolk coast. A few bits that caught my eye.

1. Via S&M, this post on Falkenblog is a good defence of the EMH, and a lot of it rings true with me, even though I'm not a believer. John Kay says the EMH is illuminating but not true, which is a useful way of looking at it.

2. Via Charlie, Stephanie Flanders has blogged about another Osborne speech that has generated some interest, since he talks about creating along-term investment culture (a phrase I think we used at the TUC not so long ago!). A few handfuls of salt to take this Damascene conversion with. One, it wasn't so long ago that Osborne was brown-nosing the BVCA, and criticising unions for attacking private equity. Secondly, why keep the proposal to scrap duty on shares, since this will make trading more attractive (in fact the opposite of Keynes' idea in the end of my previous post). Finally, the speech itself is detail free, and seems to do little more than restate existing or emerging best practice (apparently pay in the financial sector shouldn't encourage short-termism for instance).

3. Finally, Matthew Taylor, who kindly gave me a plug, has a couple of pieces about the recent corporate governance circle event at which Paul Myners spoke. I would be interested to hear folks at the event said/thought about the recent ISC statement (welcomed by George Osborne by the way).