For the record

The incorrect claim in last Friday’s BBC World programme that I am a former Financial Times (FT) correspondent made me think that, for the record, I should correct some other misconceptions about my biography. Below I list the main ones I have come across and outline how I think they arose.

* The claim that I am a former FT correspondent to my knowledge first appeared on the entry for Cowardly Capitalism, my book on global finance, on Amazon.co.uk. In fact I did work for the FT group, as the editor of a specialist newspaper called Investment Adviser, but not as a correspondent for the FT. I have, however, contributed freelance articles to the FT.

* I am not now nor have I ever been a “professional investment adviser” as also claimed on the Amazon.co.uk site (although I think this originated with Wiley, the publisher of Cowardly Capitalism). I did, as mentioned above, once edit a newspaper called Investment Adviser.

* I am not an economist although I have written extensively about economics. I call myself an economics writer rather than an economist.

* I have never written for the Morning Star – a newspaper once linked to Britain’s official Communist party. In fact I worked as a writer for Morningstar; a Chicago-based global company which provides information on investment funds and stocks.