Ben Chu



Profile:
Full name: Ben Chu

Area of interest: Government and Politics; Economics

Journals: The Independent

Email: [mailto:b.chu@independent.co.uk b.chu@independent.co.uk]

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Website: Independent.co / Commentators

Blog: Openhouse

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Education: Manchester Grammar School; Jesus College, Oxford: History

Career: The Independent: comment desk; letters department; personal finance; leader writer, 2004-

Current position/role: Commentator, Leader writer


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The Independent:
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Remit/Info: Government and Politics, Economics

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Role: Commentator, Leader writer

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Email: [mailto:b.chu@independent.co.uk b.chu@independent.co.uk]

Website: Independent.co / Commentators

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Articles: 2011

 * We'll never know whether Labour is right - Why is the Coalition expected to borrow more than the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast in June 2010? - 17th November
 * Britain’s subprime bankers - Note that Barclays, which constantly points out that it made it through the credit crisis without taking public money, registered losses of £21bn on subprime investmants, only slightly less than that corporate disaster zone, RBS - 10th November
 * The Cannes debt festival - It's the biggest event in the French resort's history – and an absolutely critical one for the world leaders who are taking part in it. Ben Chu previews a G20 summit that could make or break the world economy - 3rd November
 * Securitisation poisoned the economy. Is it really a sensible idea to revive it? - In 2007, the party stopped. Investors finally realised that they had bought junk - 24th October
 * The IMF matters, but we should also pay attention to the World Bank - Economic Outlook: Staff at the Bank are under huge pressure to push money out of the door. The emphasis is on quantity rather than quality - 3rd October
 * How long can Germany sustain this contradiction? - It is a German paradox. Opinion polls show that the population is mostly hostile to more bailouts for Greece and the use of German national credit to underpin a rescue for the rest of the eurozone. And yet the most popular political parties in Germany at the moment – the Social Democrats and the Greens – are those that back precisely those policies - 30th September
 * The challenge for the eurozone? It must find its Abraham Lincoln - Economic outlook: When the Christian Democrats hear the word eurobonds, all they see is hardworking Germans picking up the bills - 26th September
 * Why no flexibility? It's the markets, stupid, says George - The Treasury won't countenance a "Plan B" on deficit reduction in response to slowing growth. Even a "Plan A-plus", as floated by some of the Coalition's increasingly nervous supporters, is apparently out of the question - 22nd September
 * The banks will take a hit – but their pain is the economy's gain - The benefits to the British economy of a safer banking system are huge - 13th September
 * is safe for now but twitchy markets may not tolerate more delays'' - As expected, cataclysm was avoided. The German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that the emergency measures to safeguard the future of the single currency did not break national law - 8th September
 * Germans have yet to be told they face a momentous choice - Merkel is fighting a fierce tactical battle to save her coalition. But she has not spelled out to Germany the costs of allowing the euro to break up - 2nd September
 * Any delay to reform would represent fiscal recklessness - When it comes to closing the deficit, George Osborne is against any delay. But over banking reform, the Chancellor seems to prefer a more relaxed timetable - 31st August
 * Merkel can't admit to her voters that the euro is worth paying for'' - Economic View: What has the euro ever done for Germany? - 28th August
 * can forgive the debtors – or it can throw them in the dark tower'' - Economic View: In Nuremberg there stands a forbidding brick tower known as the Schuldturm. In the Middle Ages this is where those who could not pay their debts were sent - 21st August
 * our most vulnerable people really safe in the care of these men?'' - It is a long way from Ireland's Coolmore Stud to Winterbourne View. But the two are linked by a fat trail of cash - 3rd June
 * the monarchy performs a public function, it needs scrutiny'' - For as long as this country has had monarchs, the secret business of royalty has been a source of intense interest - 8th January (see: Royal Family granted new right of secrecy)



Articles: 2010

 * bankers who are the real drain'' - I am ready to accept that the benefits system harms those it is intended to help. But if a life of reliance on others is bad for the poor, then surely it is equally so for the rich - 5th October
 * Diamond - a very dangerous banker'' - Warren Buffett advises investors to 'be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful'. But Diamond's record shows that he is greedy all the time - 9th September
 * beware the American model'' - The 'social signifier' of where you went to university seems to matter more on this side of the Atlantic. Seven out of ten ministers in the Cabinet went to Oxford or Cambridge - 18th August
 * default could have same impact as Lehman collapse'' - Why does Greece's debt crisis matter to the rest of us? The answer, in a word: contagion - 29th April
 * praise of the artistic blockbuster'' - They might be crowd-pleasing, but this one was not dumbed down - 15th April
 * English football lost its mind'' - If you think sport matters at all in our national life you should be concerned - 30th January



Articles: 2009

 * a good reason why climate naysayers are failing'' - Isn’t it likely that oppositionist views have been weighed and found wanting? - 24th December
 * zombie of free-market fundamentalism lurches on'' - The idea that banks must be left to their own devices still drives policy - 26th November
 * Johnson - would you buy a faulty boiler from this man?'' - Imagine that there had been a great global conflagration which began when boilers with faulty designs around the world simultaneously exploded - 4th September
 * the banks aren't lending out their income from quantitative easing'' - An insightful and informativeanalysis by Robert Peston on quantitative easing on the BBC website. Why is all that money that the Bank of England is putting into the economy not increasing the money supply? Peston's theory is that the banks are essentially soaking it all up and using the funds to stabilise their balance sheets - 7th August
 * Act of Settlement served its purpose'' - To grasp why Parliament passed a law in 1701 forbidding a Catholic from acceding to the throne, you need to understand a little of the era's power politics - 28th March
 * – and it just won't work'' - The Calais ‘Guantanamo’ - 21st March
 * The golden rule is a distant memory. Now we're flying blind - The course of this economic crisis has been full of unexpected twists. But yesterday's revelation of falling Treasury tax receipts and rising government borrowing was not one of them - 20th February 2009
 * Time for Israel to talk to Hamas - There is, it seems to me, one argument that Israeli ministers have been pushing more than any other to justify what they are doing in Gaza... - 6th January 2009



Articles: 2008

 * How Britain became a giant hedge fund - Over on the Spectator's Coffee House blog, Fraser Nelson, uses some alarming statistics compiled by Michael Saunders, an economist from Citigroup, to castigate Gordon Brown - 12th December 2008
 * Has the mystery of Sir Ian Blair been solved? - The career of Sir Ian Blair has long been something of a puzzle - 10th December 2009
 * Game over? English football at bursting point - Amid a frenzy of borrowing to pay the wages of international superstars – and build extravagant new stadiums – the most treasured clubs in the Premier League have been sold off to foreign investors. But as times get hard, English football could be sitting on a debt time bomb - 2nd December 2008
 * Sentimental brutality - Martin Narey, the head of Barnado's was accused of bad taste by some last week for suggesting that had Baby P lived he might well have grown up to become one of the "feral" youths the populist press loves to hate. I think it was a point well worth making - 1st December 2009
 * So it's back to the Seventies - Tax the rich. The return of the politics of envy. New Labour is dead. That's the view of many in the right wing press this morning in the wake of the Pre-budget report - 25th November 2008
 * Obama the ‘anti-American’ - I'm confused. Today's Spectator leader tells us that "Internationally, Obama's victory will rout lazy Anti-Americanism" - 6th November 2008
 * Ross and Brand deserted - Why have no heavyweight comedians ridden to the defence of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross? - 31st October 2008
 * Bankers plead poverty - They still don't get it. Read this report in the FT today on banking bonuses and the (belated) political pressure for them to come down - 30th October 2008
 * Rich as Rothschild? - There are so many ironies in the three-men-in-a-yacht story and they have been pored over elsewhere - 21st October 2008
 * All you need to know about the meltdown - I'm open-mouthed in admiration at the quality of this broad explanation of the financial crisis from the broadcaster and Sunday Herald journalist Iain Macwhirter - 17th October 2008
 * Time for Cameron to make his mind up - The Evening Standard's Paul Waugh has spotted a gem in Cameron's speech on the economic crisis today - 17th October 2008
 * Blame governments for this one? Nonsense - There are some who say that playing the "blame game" in a financial crisis on this scale is irresponsible - 15th October 2008
 * Why Manchester United could go bust - I've held off long enough. It's an emotional wrench to suggest that the football club you support is going to go bust. But that, I believe, could be the fate that lies in store for Manchester United - 26th September 2008
 * Sarah props up Gordon - There have been plaudits from here about how wonderful Sarah Brown was in her introduction to her husband's conference speech: "She gives him warmth", "she's truly his greatest asset," etc - 23rd Sepember 2008
 * Son of Tarzan - Many people here at the Labour conference are wondering why David Miliband's speech was so lacklustre - 23rd September 2008
 * Crime and punishment, Sun-style - The Sun does its bit to encourage a thoughtful public debate on penal policy this morning with its publication of pictures of women prisoners at Holloway Prison participating in a Halloween fancy dress party - 12th September 2008
 * A reminder of the bad old days - I've been turning over in my mind what it is about the whole Policy Exchange "shut down the North" kerfuffle that is so toxic for David Cameron - 15th August 2008
 * No, no, no, Harriet! - Harriet Harman's abiding commitment to gender equality over the years has been laudable, but I think she made a mistake in her interview with Woman's Hour today - 30th July 2008
 * The Big Question: What can we learn from previous stock market panics? - Ben Chu and Michael Savage, 23rd January 2008

