Lionel Barber

Goldman Sachs inspires awe and envy in equal measure. Those who survive the Wall Street investment bank’s annual cull earn fortunes. Leavers join an alumni network that makes the Freemasons look like plodders. The ‘Government Sachs’ roll call includes prime ministers (Mark Carney, Mario Draghi, Rishi Sunak and Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull); US Treasury secretaries (Bob Rubin and Hank Paulson); and central bank governors galore, not to mention two recent BBC chairmen (Gavyn Davies and Richard Sharp).  After the global financial crisis, which Goldman navigated more adroitly than rivals, Rolling Stone compared the bank to ‘a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity’. New York magazine ran a cover story which asked: ‘IS GOLDMAN SACHS EVIL?

The tale of Credit Suisse ought to be Buddenbrooks on steroids. A staid Swiss lender enters marriage with a racy Wall Street investment bank and gives birth to a monster. Scandal follows scandal. CEOs come and go. In March 2023, the bank ends up being flogged to its arch rival UBS for a miserly $3 billion. Inside Credit Suisse, the backstabbing and treachery were more suited to a medieval court Duncan Mavin is well placed to tell this corporate horror story, having written a book about one of Credit Suisse’s most notorious clients, Lex Greensill, an Australian melon farmer turned fintech champion. Greensill Capital, which employed David Cameron as a Whitehall lobbyist and international frontman, turned out to be a house of cards.

The British romance with Germany has always been an on-off affair. At the turn of the century, Kaiser Bill enjoyed brief popularity, based on dynastic ties, until his bombastic militarism set Germany on a path to war. Thirty years on, as Tim Bouverie reminds us in his book Appeasing Hitler, many in the English ruling class favoured Nazi Germany over revanchist France. After the war, Rhenish capitalism, Germany’s social contract between management and labour, appeared to offer a soothing alternative to strike-torn Britain. Then Mrs Thatcher arrived with stiffer medicine. John Kampfner’s Why the Germans Do It Better is a beguiling title because the British have undoubtedly hit a bad patch.