On a lighter note, we say goodbye for the time being to our resident US banker, Herbie. Herbie first started writing home to Mom in 1969. A firm believer that friends are God's apology for relations, he has spent the last 28 years based in London, as far from his mother as possible, though every faithful month his letters home have kept her, and you, abreast of the latest financial happenings. In the process he has chronicled, mocked and satirized most of the key events in the life of the modern capital markets.

Amidst all their other problems, just how well prepared are Japanese financial institutions for the millennium computer bug? After more than a year of debate and the odd testy exchange between banking officials and information officers across the Pacific some real evidence could soon be at hand.

The market, like nature, is red in tooth and claw. It has no concept of ethics, morality or justice. Its agents are predatory and are concerned mainly with their own survival. They have no thought for the good of the system. That doesn't mean the market is bad or that it doesn't work. It means that present prescriptions for emerging economies do not reflect these realities. Nothing highlights more starkly the inappropriateness of the blind application of free market thinking to emerging markets more than the role of hedge funds. By Simon Brady.

Euromoney lost a great mentor and friend on September 1. Vere Harmsworth, the third Viscount Rothermere, died unexpectedly at 73.

Is he Lehman Brothers' most well-born banker? Ajeya Singh will inherit the title 'Raja of Manda' from his father. That will make him quite possibly the world's only investment banking maharajah.