As if risk averse lenders were not problem enough UK businesses have long complained that there is too much short term thinking stifling any chance of recovery.
Increasingly we have career politicians with little or no experience of business or life outside Westminster and with little incentive to think beyond the next election, so we get tinkering with taxes and regulation on businesses without a long term strategic vision.
The financial Industry, too, is more concerned with short term rewards (dividends, gains and bonuses) than in long term investments in industries that make stuff or have innovative ideas.
Shareholders and investors have been focused on short term dividends or income rather than investing in the longer term.
We need to encourage money to be invested in the right places and for the long haul.
It seems, some are beginning to agree. At a conference in London on Friday, May 10, called Transforming Finance, academics, campaigners and financiers will gather to develop ways for building a better banking system. http://tinyurl.com/cxnvyyr
Among them will be Catherine Howarth, CE of Share Action, a lobby group which will be emphasising the point about the need to think over the longer term.
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