http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/johnkayhttp://www.ft.com/rss/comment/columnists/johnkayFT.com - John Kayen© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009. "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. See http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/terms#legal1 for the terms and conditions of reuse.client.support@ft.com (Client Support)Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:09:17 +0000Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:44:36 +0000Newspapers60http://news.ft.com/cms/d1f3ce1a-6bbe-11da-bb53-0000779e2340.gifhttp://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/johnkay(PICS-1.1 "http://www.classify.org/safesurf/" L gen true for "http://www.ft.com/" r (SS~~000 1))http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/788d77c6-d3b2-11de-8caf-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/788d77c6-d3b2-11de-8caf-00144feabdc0.htmlThe verdict must be that privatisation provided a route for the managed decline of a business whose historic purpose was disappearing, writes John Kay Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:09:17 +0000http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/113092ee-ce2f-11de-a1ea-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/113092ee-ce2f-11de-a1ea-00144feabdc0.html'Rent-seeking' is found whenever economic power is concentrated – in the state, in large private business, in groups of co-operating and colluding firms. America has a new generation of rent-seekers: investment bankers and corporate executives, writes John Kay Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:34:28 +0000http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/2/86e24026-ca62-11de-a3a3-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/86e24026-ca62-11de-a3a3-00144feabdc0.htmlThis compilation of essays from the blog of Gary Becker and Richard Posner covers a range of topical issues including gay marriage, terrorism and traffic congestion, says John Kay Fri, 6 Nov 2009 23:28:10 +0000http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f490100-c8c7-11de-8f9d-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f490100-c8c7-11de-8f9d-00144feabdc0.htmlMarkets are not a well-oiled machine: they are a constantly changing, adaptive biological systemn, writes John Kay Tue, 3 Nov 2009 22:26:15 +0000http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/375f4528-c330-11de-8eca-00144feab49a.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/375f4528-c330-11de-8eca-00144feab49a.htmlWhile regulators may be at fault in not having acted sufficiently vigorously, to say they caused the crisis is as ludicrous as saying that crime is caused by the indolence of the police, writes John Kay Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:36:03 +0000http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/910740ee-bda9-11de-9f6a-00144feab49a.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/910740ee-bda9-11de-9f6a-00144feab49a.htmlWe are all inclined to believe we have more influence over events than we do. The answer is to maintain a sense of our long-term objectives while acknowledging the limits to our freedom, writes John Kay Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:14:18 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/733065f2-b82a-11de-8ca9-00144feab49a.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/733065f2-b82a-11de-8ca9-00144feab49a.htmlThe experience of the airline industry illustrates the phenomenon of regulatory capture – the tendency for regulators to see through the eyes of the industry they regulate, writes John Kay Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:24:29 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/ec77ee24-b2aa-11de-b7d2-00144feab49a.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ec77ee24-b2aa-11de-b7d2-00144feab49a.htmlIf markets are informationally efficient, why is there so much trade between people who take different views of the same future? If the theory were true, the activities it purports to explain would barely exist, writes John Kay Tue, 6 Oct 2009 22:00:29 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ff65514-ad28-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ff65514-ad28-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.htmlLarge and complex corporations, like biological organisms, could only be the product of incremental change and adaptation. Their common essential characteristic is inexact replication, writes John Kay Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:12:16 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/08a7f396-a7a7-11de-b0ee-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08a7f396-a7a7-11de-b0ee-00144feabdc0.htmlBogus measures add nothing to our understanding – they attempt to compress complex problems and analyses into single observations, writes John Kay Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:56:47 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2ba524-a226-11de-9caa-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2ba524-a226-11de-9caa-00144feabdc0.htmlDeposits need to be backed by safe assets otherwise the mismatch of risk provides an unjustifiable public subsidy, writes John Kay Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:46:01 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/c941f226-9ca5-11de-ab58-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c941f226-9ca5-11de-ab58-00144feabdc0.htmlCarry trades, which yield constant small margins punctuated by occasional large losses, offer transitory profits that are entirely offset by unrealised, but inevitable, future losses, writes John Kay Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:33:52 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/8567164c-9725-11de-83c5-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8567164c-9725-11de-83c5-00144feabdc0.htmlConsistency is a characteristic to be prized in a world simpler, more predictable and better understood than the one that we live in – the world described by certain kinds of economic model, writes John Kay Tue, 1 Sep 2009 20:25:51 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/861f8e84-91a3-11de-879d-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/861f8e84-91a3-11de-879d-00144feabdc0.htmlFinancial institutions extend their scope into activities they understand less and less until they are tripped up by one they cannot do, writes John Kay Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:42:00 +0100http://traxfer.ft.com/cms/s/0/a3909a58-8c21-11de-b14f-00144feabdc0.html?o=%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fjohnkayhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a3909a58-8c21-11de-b14f-00144feabdc0.html John Kay turns to 'Middlemarch' for lessons on how to teach feckless gamblers to behave responsibly while minimising future expensesTue, 18 Aug 2009 19:43:36 +0100