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The writer is a managing director at BlackRock For the private equity and venture capital firms of Bangalore, 2021 was a fine year. Inflows surged to record levels and a flurry of technology firms achieved “unicorn” status, with capital raisings that valued them at $1bn or higher. As central bank largesse supported markets around the
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The ghostly, vibrato-laden sustains, shrieks and honking low-note groans that Albert Ayler conjured from his tenor saxophone sounded outrageous when they surfaced in the early 1960s. And, as this compelling four-CD box-set audibly demonstrates, they still sound outrageous today. The collection presents two complete concerts from the Fondation Maeght art museum in the South of
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Good morning. I’m not sure what to make of the negative first-quarter GDP number, which was a disappointment, but included a huge shift in the trade balance, which may be noise. But we are seeing slower growth elsewhere, so in any case the report was not wildly anomalous. The employment cost index, out this morning,
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I read Martin Sandbu’s article (“Central bankers should ease off the brakes”, Opinion, April 20) with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. My amusement stems from Sandbu’s heroic assumption that “accelerated inflation in 2021 arose from Covid-related production disruptions”, in effect a negative supply shock. Missing from his analysis is any discussion of excessive monetary
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Is there not a danger that we in the west may be fooling ourselves if we believe, like US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, that Russia will come out of its “special military operation” in Ukraine weakened? History may help with the answer (“US wants Russia ‘weakened’ and orders return of diplomats”, Report, April 26). It’s
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Alice Murray has three complaints about her neighbourhood in Scotland: lamp posts, dog poo and politicians. Standing outside her pebble-dashed house in Springburn, a northern suburb of Glasgow, the 85-year-old bemoaned the poor infrastructure, particularly the rusting street lights. Murray, who voted Labour all her life until 2017 when she backed the Scottish National party
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I am starting to think that the FT’s editors are gongorists because I am constantly needing to discern the meaning of obscure words present in the US edition of your newspaper. “Autarky” appeared on April 22 (Letters); “resile” and “grifters” on April 27 (Letters and Opinion). If your editors believe that “gongorism” might appeal to
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