Article in Portfolio magazine on British banking

I haven't written much on UK banking - an article about Barclays, one on Alliance and Leicester and one on Northern Rock.

But I got quoted in this neat and accurate story in Portfolio magazine.

All I noted was that the UK had taken Maggie's philosophy to heart and decided that if financial institutions didn't have much capital the market wouldn't deal with them. The result is that UK institutions got to run with much less capital than their American counterparts and that left them vulnerable.

That is clearly true. But the journo found a better story about why wholesale financing arrangements shouldn't be regulated... that lovely cliche about "consenting adults".

Hey you know what happens to "consenting adults"...

I thought you did...