What fun when two American icons fall out — open warfare between Goldman Sachs and Rolling Stone, a magazine that used to cover rock music but now seems to interest itself in investment banking (the new rock’n’roll until a couple of years ago, when the music died, so perhaps they’re just behind the curve).

Matt Taibbi, a spectacularly splenetic columnist on the mag, has written a piece claiming that the bank has “engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they’re about to do it again”. Not clear why: it was present, but not necessarily carrying the murder weapon. Goldman, never one to take criticism lying down, as I know, is firing off the odd message to commentators who have reacted to the piece. But, it seems, the bank will not be consulting libel lawyers. “Hysterical in both senses of the word,” is its summary of the piece. “He’s cobbled together every conspiracy theory ever written about us and injected some hyperbole and lots of bad language and called it a story. The magazine has got a much more interesting piece about The Allman Brothers [a guitar band of the early Triassic].”

More on that spat in the world of actuaries about the proposed merger between the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland and the Institute of Actuaries. The rebels, who lost a vote the other day, are led by Ronnie Sloan. It is a familiar name. He tried to get himself voted on to the board of Standard Life as a reformer and gave up only when he found out that it would cost the insurer £1 million. He has also worked with Ros Altmann on pensions reform. “I think that getting compensation for 100,000 people who had lost their pensions is the most important thing I’ve done in my actuarial career,” he says.

• Annika Falkengren, president and chief executive of Sweden’s Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, echoes the thoughts of any number of female executives, I imagine, on CNBC’s The Leaders, broadcast tonight. “Sometimes I think that you can feel a bit unfairly treated by the media,” she says mildly. “Nobody focuses on the shoes of male CEOs.”

• A tale from the world of tax. A professional golfer had forgotten to post his VAT return before a championship. He remembered on the golf course and phoned HM Revenue & Customs. He got the number for Customs & Excise from Directory Enquiries. The tax people told him next week would do, so he stayed on the course, filed later — and was hit by a surcharge. The number he had been given was the Isle of Man Customs & Excise. He won his appeal, but Jeremy Cape, tax partner at Denton Wilde Sapte, who told me, says that Directory Enquiries is oddly behind the times. “The last time Customs & Excise existed in the UK, Charles and Camilla were on honeymoon.

Forever in your debt

In the blue corner Ed Balls

When Ed Balls went into politics, what a loss it was to the Jesuits. An extraordinary row has blown up between him and political columnist (and former colleague) Fraser Nelson over just what is meant by debt. Balls was on the Today programme, saying that the national debt was, in his words, “coming down”. Nelson, understandably, challenged this on his blog.

Balls rang up, “hopping mad”, says Nelson, and demanded the post be taken down (presumably he was, temporarily, out of bully boy flunkies to do the job for him). Debt, explained Balls, is the “ratio of national debt to gross domestic product”, which is forecast in the Budget to start falling in eight to nine years’ time. Only if GDP starts to grow, which it will, and does so at a faster rate than borrowings. Most of us take debt to mean the amount we owe on an overdraft, on credit cards and on mortgages and would believe that the national debt is the equivalent, the amount that the Exchequer owes. Not, seemingly, our would-be Chancellor.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive