More on innovation

A blog mini-review of a new book Traders, Guns and Money looks interesting: the book (which we admitteldy haven't read) is written by Satyajit Das, described in the blog as "a hard core derivatives expert."

One of the themes of the book?

"He also states quite clearly that innovation is no longer about problem solving or creating value for customers but regulatory evasion and using complexity to extract higher fees from customers."

Indeed - as we have noted on several occasions. And the second part of that -- about using complexity to extract higher fees from customers -- well, this brings us back to the notion of competition, in our recent blog on the subject. Not all of this is about the offshore system, but just as a reminder for those who didn't read all of that rather long-ish blog of ours, this, from the paper recently given by TJN's John Christensen, is worth reminding ourselves:

"BBC's Today programme 
interviews
 endless
 numbers
 of
 corporate
 pundits
 lobbying
 for
 tax
 breaks
 to
 keep 
the 
City
 of 
London
 "competitive":
 interestingly
 the
 interviewers
 never 
ask
 why 
City 
lawyers
 and 
bankers
 don’t
 reduce
 their
 massive 
fee 
rates
 in
 order
 to 
stay
 competitive
– 
its
 always
 a 
case 
of 
“we 
need
 more tax breaks or 
our 
most 
talented 
people
 will 
shift
 to
 Monaco
 or
 Guernsey.”