Cicero's Songs

A lot of anger is directed towards those in the corporate world who earn large salaries. Sometimes, in my view, that anger is not truly justified: for example, when an entrepreneur takes out income based on their ownership of a company, I -for one- tend to see it as just reward for those who take a risk with their capital. However, listening to Martin Sorell on the Radio trying to justify his large remuneration , despite the objections of the shareholders in WPP was not an example of just reward.  The fact is that Martin Sorell does not own the company he founded and built any more- his ownership is less than 1% of the shares- which still represents £800 million- after several sales, not least following his divorce from his first wife in 2005. he may have founded it, and built it but now he no longer owns it. However, Sir Martin, is insisting on a substantial increase in his remuneration, to reflect, as he sees it the success of WPP over the past year. Yet, he does not seem t...

The rumbles about the BBC coverage of the Diamond Jubilee have continued, with the latest rumours suggesting that the poor coverage may even have a serious impact on who will be appointed as the next Director General of the BBC when Mark Thompson steps down shortly.  The essence of the complaints has been that the coverage was neither informative nor entertaining- which from the little I saw, seems justified. The "send for a Dimbleby " message that has summed up the complaints seems to me just to underline the scale of the problems, not just of the BBC but of the wider media. In the BBC, it could have been "send for a Snow " or send for a Beurk ", or indeed send for any one of half a dozen other families that have at least two members working for the Beeb.  The BBC, like virtually all the media, is a nest of nepotism. Indeed, without a public school education and family connections, it is exceptionally difficult to break into journalism of any kind. T...

Amidst all the Jubilee hullabaloo in the UK, the second- and ultimately more significant- story remains the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone and the continued instability in the markets. The signs of a slowdown in the Chinese and the American real economies have put further pressure on the Eurozone economies that are still struggling to return to growth.  The ongoing restructuring of the Spanish banking system has alerted the markets to the fact that their remains a significant capital requirement, even after the forced mergers of the Cajas . However, despite the more hysterical of the comments from UK commentators and politicians, the fact is that the Spanish economy does not have the same long term government problems as Greece does. The deficit issues are a function of the the banking system breakdown, not the series of policy mistakes that hampers Athens even beyond the banking crisis. As a result, although serious, there is far greater trust offered to Madrid- and that solidar...