Great news, the pound is at its highest level for nearly 30 years! Britain is riding high against other countries with failing economies!

We really do have confused views on currencies. When the UK has devalued it has been an occasion for national shame, with the chancellor resigning. Weak currency bad, strong currency good has been the belief ever since sterling converted at four dollars: governments have thrown fortunes at trying to maintain the pound’s value and their own credibility.

But the winner in this currency equation is the country with the weak exchange rate. The losers are those with strong currencies. A high dollar rate might be nice for people planning a holiday in Florida or a shopping trip to New York but it is a curse for UK manufacturers trying to export to the US and other countries with a weaker currency.

And a strong pound encourages cheap imports that deliver UK manufacturers a second blow.

When the newly-launched euro went into free fall in its early years, Britain laughed smugly at the countries across the Channel, but it was the Continental competitors who had the trading advantage and the UK exporters that suffered.

Weak currencies reflect weak economies, of course, but they are also part of the solution. That’s why nations devalue. Black Wednesday was the start of the UK’s revival, not the end of Britain’s credibility. A strong pound helps no-one.

Instead of rejoicing at a near-30 year peak for sterling, remember November 1967 – the 40th anniversary of Harold Wilson’s devaluation. Stop trying to be macho about the pound.

Any business executive who thinks house prices matter only to mortgage lenders and housebuilders need only look at the US. Property values are the driver of consumer spending and when confidence in the market falls, the whole economy turns down.

The UK housing industry has finally abandoned its optimistic and admitted the boom is over, sales are taking longer and happen at prices further below asking price, and repossessions will soar. The 20 per cent fall in new mortgage applications shows how demand has dried up – put off by higher interest rates, but deterred too by warnings that the boom is over. It is a circular argument that makes itself come true.

Other recent reports warn that house process will rise to 10 times income because of supply shortage. Nonsense. People can pay only what they can afford and buyers cannot pay that and banks would not lend it. Affordability is a natural brake on prices – and on buying.

Commentators like to say prices are unaffordable. So who buys then? If a home sells, it is affordable. Yes, purchasers have been stretched – but that happens at the top of a cycle, and we are now almost certainly past the top.

The snag is that while falling prices will make homes more affordable, buyers will still be reluctant to buy. Why purchase a property whose value is falling? We must go through the downward stage of the cycle, therefore, before most buyers come into the market. Even then, past bad memories will make them slow to return. Existing owners’ confidence will be eroded, meanwhile, by seeing their main asset falling steadily in value. So everyone loses – whether or not they are owners, whether or not they are in the housing business.

It is too late to prevent the cycle turning, but whatever business you are in, do not underestimate the damage that will result from a housing downturn.

The envy of directors’ pay packets is matched only by the directors’ enthusiasm to increase their remuneration. In the year to June, FTSE 100 chief executives’ total earnings rose by an average 16.1 per cent to £3.17m, doubling their pay over five years. It is not surprising the poorer public targets their leaders as fat-cats.

Calling for caps on executive pay is ridiculous, of course – and unnecessary when the chancellor can adjust the tax regime to take a greater share on the capital gains created by options.

It is right that chief executives are the best paid people in business but it is still right for others to query – and boards to defend – the differentials. They not only receive high pay but high pay rises.

And the latest IDS data shows how big rises cascade down from big jobs to small. FTSE 100 finance directors’ earnings rose faster than their bosses’ at 19.8 per cent to £1.6m; earnings of FTSE 250 companies’ chef executives jumped 27.2 per cent to £1.43m.

The argument that top companies must pay international rates evaporates at smaller firms whose executives would never go abroad. But while top companies pay good executives well to stop them going into private equity or overseas, poorer rivals increase the pay of their second-rate bosses. Bonuses devised to reward spectacular performance become standard in time.

High pay is something to aspire to. But beware the backlash – especially when profits don’t keep pace with pay. Tenure in the boardroom is getting shorter and the price of high pay can be attacks from shareholders as well as trade unions and chancellors.

Would Michael Bright be in prison for fraud if Independent Insurance had not gone bust? Once the insurer failed, the forensic accountants crawled all over it, found the black hole that caused the insolvency and charged the key executives. But if the questionable accounting had not been enough to bring down the company, would there have been a fraud trial?

Plenty of companies take an optimistic view of business and get away with it. Some take a similar view and get caught out, but the companies – and often the executives – survive even if the share price is decimated. But when a company goes bust, over-optimism is likely to be branded as criminal.

Bright’s sin was to note the big claims against the company on a whiteboard until they crystallised rather than provide for them in the accounts. An optimist says that is because they might go away; a prosecutor calls it deliberate non-disclosure. But if Bright’s optimism had been well placed he would be lauded.

Other than inflating his share price, pay packet and ego, Bright did not gain personally from the deception. When the pin hit the balloon, the shares were worthless anyway.

Insurance is about risk, of course, and Bright assessed Independent’s wrongly. But no pessimist ever went into business and if every contingency was provided for, most businesses would appear insolvent. How many other directors – from dot.com companies to banks – should now be asking whether they would face jail if their optimism turns out to be misplaced and their company fails?

Independent was not Enron, but British business should take it as a warning. A mistake big enough to bring down the company could mean up to 10 years in prison.

It really doesn’t matter what the exams are called so long as the certificate has value. Employers who have had to work out how GCEs compare with GCSEs or NVQs will now have diplomas to trade off against A-levels. But if the new qualification can raise educational standards and provide a measure of practical skills, it is worth the added complication.

The big problem with the existing system is that despite more students getting higher grades, employers can see that they are less well educated than previous generations. And what is taught is increasingly less relevant to the workplace.

A diploma that recognises practical skills is thus welcome. It is in the employers’ short-term interests that English, maths and IT are core components of the new curriculum, but it is in the students’ own long-term interest that they emerge with such key skills.

It may be politically expedient to postpone the review of A-levels’ future until 2013 even though the new diplomas start in 2008, but it is also sensible. Running the two exams in parallel will allow employers to compare their value.

The diplomas must not be allowed to become a second-rate qualification however, recognised by employers while universities continue to prefer A-levels. It is imperative that diplomas are not simply handed out to those unable or unwilling to sit A-levels but that they set a standard at least equal the existing exams.

The maverick British Lord Chief Justice, Lord Denning, stated that however big they are, no-one is above the law. Microsoft has discovered that despite its size, the European courts are even mightier. It has given up the fight to protect its own intellectual property.

Bill Gates built a big company by innovation, beating his rivals by designing better products that business and the public chose. And his reward? To be told to hand over that advantage to his less innovative competitors so that they can catch up.

US competition authorities ordered Microsoft to license its products to competitors but at a price the rivals were reluctant to pay. That shows what the innovative advantage was worth. However, the EU regulators believe Microsoft’s intellectual property should be shared out for almost nothing – one-off fee of just £7,000. When royalties are payable, the EU ordered a cut from 5.95 per cent to just 0.4 per cent.

Gates’s company has resisted this theft of its enterprise for a decade but has now given up after hefty fines, fines for resisting the fines and with new fines being clocked up each day. The £1bn Microsoft has set aside for fines is small for a mighty corporation but the principle is large: design something really good and you must share it with your inefficient rivals.

Why should entrepreneurs bother if that is the message? What reward is there for taking risk? The drug companies have already seen pressure to share their successes; other companies should worry that patents no longer offer protection.

Competition regulators argue that the greater good is better served if more companies can offer a winning product, bringing down prices. That is back-door nationalisation though: confiscation of private value for the public good.

British companies used to seek listings in New York and London to demonstrate their international credentials. They hoped an American share quotation would bring in new investors – especially those used to paying higher price-earnings ratios.

The downside – other than discovering little US interest in UK shares – was having to subscribe to both American and British regulation and accounting standards. And since rules were tightened after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, UK companies such as Cable & Wireless and British Energy have decided it is not worth the hassle and cancelled their US listings.

It is no surprise therefore that the fund management company Invesco has decided not to continue with its duel listing. The surprise is that this British company plans to scrap its London primary listing and keep the New York Stock Exchange quotation. Indeed it is prepared to abandon its UK registration and re-register in the Bahamas to make the change.

Does Invesco really think the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, the Securities & Exchanges Commission and US Gaap really better than UK governance? Or does it simply think American investors will rate its shares more highly than the City. And what should its unit trust and ISA customers and pension fund clients think of this vote of no-confidence in the London Stock Exchange?

Can we rely on HM Revenue & Customs? On three consecutive days in the first week of October the tax agency had to admit to mistakes.

One day it admitted to an error in both the booklet and CD-Rom versions of CA33 (2007) regarding Class 1A National Insurance contributions on car and fuel benefits; another day it had to amend the inheritance tax forms IHT200 because of a calculation error in box WS20. And between those two admissions it confessed that electronically-filed PAYE returns (P35 and P14s) have given rise to incorrect penalty notices.

“Initial findings are that significantly fewer than 8 per cent of all penalties are affected,” the taxman says on the PAYE notices - but that is potentially a large number of employees and their companies.

Perhaps HMRC is having an unusual run of bad luck, but people and companies deal with the tax body because they have to, not because they want to. If it is to have the respect of its compulsory customers then it has to safeguard its reputation.

Imagine a finance director who made so many errors on his company’s tax form! The sooner HMRC finds out more about the PAYE errors – and corrects them - the better for everyone including itself.

What has corporate democracy got to do with the European Union? Nothing now, it seems: the EU’s internal markets commissioner has given up hopes of introducing ‘one vote, one share’ to Europe’s companies.

A large number of the Continent’s large companies do not share Britain’s desire for good corporate governance and allow such voting distortions as golden shares, caps on any single voter, limits on foreign stakes or even extra votes for loyal shareholders. High-voting or no-vote shares are still prevalent too, usually to keep founding families in control after they have brought in outside investors.

UK companies have largely shed such habits but – while one-vote per share seems a fair ideal – surely it is a matter between company and shareholder rather than another area for EU interference?

If shareholders value voting rights then those privileges will be reflected in the share price. If the shares are cheap enough investors may be willing to forfeit their rights, but if the company finds its shares held back it will be encouraged to enfranchise the shareholders.

While the EU found that 44 per cent of its sample of European companies have some curb on voting it conceded that there was little impact on performance. The truth is that most investors are happy to collect their share of dividends without worrying whether they have their full quota of votes.

London companies are having their cashboxes raided again. Besides paying their business rates, as well as financing the 2012 Olympics, the capital’s companies are to be made to pay for Crossrail, the planned east-west train service.

Companies such as BAA, Heathrow’s operator, and Canary Wharf are making payments of several hundreds of millions because the trains will serve their sites. But all other large companies – perhaps all businesses – will face a 3 per cent levy on their rates to help finance the £16bn project – even if they are in north or South London and thus never benefit from the trains.

If Crossrail’s gains are so good the service should be paid for by users’ fares. If it means an easier journey to work, passengers should be prepared to pay; if employers find it easier to retain staff, they may pay more wages. But if the benefit is not worth paying for, why spend £16bn on the line?

The fares will finance only the operating costs of Crossrail. Why should business and the taxpayer finance the infrastructure? Why is it that, when it comes to transport, normal business economics are abandoned?