The British pound, Greece and data privacy

This week, we look at media comment on the British pound, which fell after polls showed the election may result in a hung parliament. We also look at the role of banks in Greece's debt crisis, as well as at data privacy problems.

Sinking hopes

The value of the British pound fell by 1.7 per cent after a recent poll showed that no political party was likely to win an election majority. But it is not just the fear of a weak government that is worrying investors, writes the Financial Times.

... In truth, a bigger source of uncertainty than the prospect of a hung parliament is the fact that ... neither of the main parties has set out a credible deficit reduction plan. Investors do not yet know whether either main party has the political stomach to take the necessary action, and voters do not yet know what their options are.

Swapping blame

Goldman Sachs is being investigated for making credit default swap deals with Greece and other foreign countries. But problem doesn't lie with banks, writes The Wall Street Journal. in the early years of getting the euro going, many members made CDS deals, and "everyone was only too eager to look the other way".

... There's no small irony in the fact that the same governments that once took advantage of derivatives peddled by international financiers to help conceal their true financial condition are now claiming to be the victims of the same banks' dealings in the derivatives market. But the blame-the-bankers theme in the ... sovereign-debt panic is of a piece with the banker-baiting that came in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Once again, our political class has been all too eager to find someone else to blame for its own economic mismanagement.

The exabyte era

This year, an estimated 1,200 exabytes of digital information will be created, transforming the way we live and work. However, data theft and other digital privacy problems are also increasing. The solution to this problem, writes The Economist, is to increase transparency in three ways:

First, users should be given greater access to and control over the information held about them, including whom it is shared with. ... Second, organisations should be required to disclose details of security breaches. ... Third, organisations should be subject to an annual security audit, with the resulting grade made public...