Peter Norman – författare

Plumbers and Visionaries: Securities Settlement and Europe’s Financial Market is a path-breaking account of the history and future of the securities settlement industry in Europe. Written by experienced journalist and author, Peter Norman, this book takes a look at the less visible, but nevertheless critical segment of the global capital markets, following the development of securities settlement across Europe’s frontiers. It encompasses the free-wheeling days of the Eurobond market in the 1960s, through the growing integration of the European Union, to the highly regulated and efficient multi-trillion euro business securities settlement it is today. This book is the story of a financial sector that has grown hugely in importance in the 40 years since Euroclear, now the world’s premier settlement system for domestic and international securities transactions, was created to deal with a settlement crisis that threatened to smother the international capital market in its infancy. Beginning with the settlement crisis in the Eurobond market, this book describes how Euroclear and later Cedel, its arch-rival, were founded to deal with the problem. It follows the challenges posed by cross-border settlement for a growing range of securities when most financial infrastructures operated only within national frontiers. The book demonstrates how securities settlement became an issue for public policy after the stock market crash of 1987 and how the problems of cross-border settlement moved rapidly up the European policy agenda after the euro’s launch. More than a mere history, this book engages with the people who created the modern European securities settlement industry and taps into the often entertaining memories of its founding fathers. This book also focuses on the difficulties and challenges of cross-border transactions which have been identified as hampering Europe’s economic growth. It looks at the present state of the industry seeking a way forward so that the securities settlement infrastructure will better serve a single European capital market.

The Gun That Starts the Race, alternately like a David Lynch film or an episode of The Simpsons, finds the uncanny in the everyday, surprise you, make you laugh and weep (sometimes simultaneously) with recognition at the fleeting spark of our existence. Many of these poems are like archaeological sites between the sturm und drang of people's fleeting dramas, exploring in language playgrounds recently vacated, graves recently inhabited, basements and dark corners where life and death goes on without us.From free-verse lyrics to masterful sonnets, Norman's poems weld form and content together organically. They neither baffle nor condescend. Blending an effortless style to surprising metaphors, and striking images with a restless, roving intellect, they try to get to the bottom of things, while never satisfied there it is no false bottom. Here, Bolsheviks play tennis with Marxist rules; crows, maggots, and spiders go about their business, oblivious to our sufferings; and the Mole Men of Zug break into song.In The Gun that Starts the Race, Peter Norman gives us a world that lives and breathes and endures, and of which we are only a temporary part.

Originally published in 1976. Slum clearance is a particularly significant process because it places the ordinary citizen in a state of extreme dependence on his local authority. The local authority not only destroys his existing environment but controls access to a replacement council house. This book highlights both the control over the life chances of individual citizens which local government can exercise and the potential impotence of citizens caught up in a complex bureaucratic process. It investigates the difficulties faced by individuals in exercising even the rights and choices which are ostensibly provided by the existing structure. The book also seeks to apply theories of urban sociology in exploring the control of access to public housing.The essential objective of this study is demystification of the administrative processes of slum clearance and rehousing through analysis of local authority bureaucracy and its impact on individuals.

Originally published in 1976. Slum clearance is a particularly significant process because it places the ordinary citizen in a state of extreme dependence on his local authority. The local authority not only destroys his existing environment but controls access to a replacement council house. This book highlights both the control over the life chances of individual citizens which local government can exercise and the potential impotence of citizens caught up in a complex bureaucratic process. It investigates the difficulties faced by individuals in exercising even the rights and choices which are ostensibly provided by the existing structure. The book also seeks to apply theories of urban sociology in exploring the control of access to public housing.The essential objective of this study is demystification of the administrative processes of slum clearance and rehousing through analysis of local authority bureaucracy and its impact on individuals.