Lord Turner: the crisis and what regulators need to do

Essential reading for treasurers The crisis, what went wrong, what the regulators need to change?

In any company where there is no banker or regulator or top economist, people turn to the treasurer to help them understand the current financial system crisis and what regulators need to do to prevent a recurrence.

Well, help is at hand. Adair Turner, new Chairman of the FSA, has set out in a speech the clearest summary exposition of what has gone on and what needs to change that I have yet come across. It is essential reading for any treasurer.

I will not try to summarise the speech. But it is wide in scope while making essential distinctions that many blur over.

Adair Turner’s speech to the inaugural Economist City Lecture, The financial crisis and the future of financial regulation, is available at http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/Communication/Speeches/2009/0121_at..... (Don’t forget to download the slides which have a separate link on the main speech webpage.)

Read it. Help spread the word.

And use Lord Turner’s points to measure new proposed regulation coming from the UK authorities, from Europe and from the United States too.

By John Grout