Stockwatch: Rates of exchange
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
In Malcolm Bradbury's 1980s novel Rates of Exchange the hero, Dr Petworth, finds himself in the fictional Eastern European country of Slaka where politicians, public figures and some authors find themselves acceptable one day and officially out of favor the next. Somehow, by the time Dr Petworth makes it down to breakfast each day, the locals in Slaka are already instinctively aware of who or what is now 'in', while they have already forgotten those who are out.