HSBC's Hong Kong move shows us how to adjust to a changing world

But without reading too much into either, they are both in their different ways part of the same trend. Geoghegan is relocating to the other side of the globe because the bank wants its key executive at the heart of the region of the world that is destined to become its economic powerhouse, the better to make sure that the bank gets its share of the action. Sterling is falling, as indeed the dollar will fall, because the balance of economic power is tilting away from the West.

These things take years but if the forecasts for economic growth are even half right, the effect will be dramatic. The G7 countries, which in order of size are the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, as recently as 2003 accounted for two thirds of the world output while China and India contributed 25 per cent.

By 2050, which is well within the working lifetime of someone leaving university today, India and China will account for well over half the world's output. The G7 share by that time will have shrunk to about 25 per cent. And these projections are based on normal growth figures, not the anaemic numbers produced this week as we moved out of recession.

This has fascinating implications for Britain's place in the world, because it means that even if we maintain our relative position within G7, performing neither significantly better nor massively worse than our peers, our share of world output by 2050 will be somewhere between one per cent and two per cent. We will barely figure on the economic map. In terms of economic might, we will rank in the world about where Holland and Belgium are today, just a little ahead of the Philippines.

There is nothing wrong with that, given that the country should still be prosperous enough in absolute terms. But life will be quite different once we have become an economic afterthought, a rounding error in the global growth story as viewed from Beijing.

We need to recognise this and talk about it. We as a nation badly need our HSBC moment where we understand that this fast-changing world is not going to adjust to us. We have to adjust to it.

Beauty of boutiques highlighted by the big banks' abuse of public trust

If all financial advisers were as clear-sighted as Towry Law's Andrew Fisher, then the reputation of the industry would be several notches higher, and it might not have become the target for some of the most radical industrial restructuring of an industry yet attempted by the Financial Services Authority.

For years, Fisher has been telling the industry that he can't see how his industry can claim to offer "independent advice" when it is living off the commissions paid by the firms whose products it sells. People will always suspect that the recommended product will be the one that pays the highest commissions.

Such comments did not make him popular with his peers but the Financial Services Authority seemed to agree as did his customers. His fee-charging advisory business has become one of the fastest-growing in the country.

The FSA's attack on commissions may in the end turn out to be less draconian than it would have liked, and fall short of a complete ban because of complications with European law. Businesses that pay commissions in mainland Europe cannot be banned from paying commissions here. But the upheaval in the IFA community will nevertheless be profound. It seems likely that many IFAs — particularly the large number who are over 50 — will choose to sell out rather than change. Significant rationalisation seems inevitable.

That provides yet more opportunity for Fisher, who has an eye for acquisitions — witness his recent purchase of the UK arm of Edward Jones, a US neighbourhood stockbroker. And it helps explain the rationale of the deal announced yesterday whereby a US investment house called Asset Management Finance is to inject a tranche of mezzanine cash into the group to finance its continued expansion.

That also illustrates a tangential point. Towry Law's adviser on the refinancing was Hawkpoint, and this was just the latest in a series of successful deals and restructurings the investment banking boutique has put together — including, incidentally, advising the Iceland government on a way out of its debt morass.

The longer the big investment banks continue to squander the respect and trust of the public, the more the boutiques become the advisers of choice to UK corporates.