By Rob Cox The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Separating the roles of chairmen and chief executives is good governance, as a rule. That’s why the practice is standard in the UK and has been gaining ground in the United States. But the logic is undermined by recent events at Citigroup. Chairman Mike O’Neill’s ouster of Vikram Pandit as chief executive last week is looking increasingly like a power-grab rather than a service to shareholders.

An independent chairman serves useful purposes. He, or occasionally she, can provide air cover for management with regulators, politicians and other external constituents, something O’Neill’s predecessor Richard Parsons did with relative aplomb. The role comes with internal responsibilities, too, such as running board meetings and, when necessary, holding a CEO’s feet to the fire. In extremis, a chairman must show an underperforming boss the door.

By Rob Cox and Daniel Indiviglio The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Who is best suited to be the next compromiser-in-chief? That may be the most important question American voters will have to answer when they head to the polls to elect a new president on Nov. 6. A sweeping, bipartisan agreement to reform the tax code, cut spending and ensure the safety of entitlement programs is an essential precondition for stabilizing the country’s finances and getting the economy back on track.

While neither President Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney is willing to cast himself as a softie, the Republican challenger may have a slight edge when it comes to the issue. During his term as Massachusetts governor, Romney was forced to work regularly with Democrats, who overwhelmingly controlled the state legislature. By contrast, the Obama administration’s signature legislative triumphs have been largely party-line victories.

By Rob Cox The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Vikram Pandit succumbed to the most basic rule of thumb: three strikes and you’re out. A trio of Citigroup misfortunes, not all of the chief executive’s making – the bank’s dividend policy, his own compensation and the sale of Smith Barney – eroded the confidence of shareholders, regulators and the board. And they couldn’t have been much fun for Pandit to endure, especially after successfully navigating Citi to stability.

Though Pandit’s departure came suddenly, it’s easy to see why he and the board were ready to go their separate ways. In March, Pandit went to bat for shareholders by asking the Federal Reserve to let Citi pay a higher dividend or buy back more stock. But the Fed decided that would overly weaken the bank’s capital position.

By Rob Cox and Daniel Indiviglio The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Mitt Romney says the first day of his presidency would be exceptionally busy. The former Massachusetts governor has promised to overturn two of his predecessor’s landmark legislative achievements, the Affordable Healthcare Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill; he would approve the Keystone energy pipeline from Canada, introduce sweeping tax cuts and brand China a currency manipulator.

President Barack Obama cannot promise instant action, but he is equally ambitious. In his second term, he says he will impose the “Buffett rule” to ensure the rich pay more tax, cut tax rates for middle class families, stop the “war on women,” prevent a rollback of environmental protection, reform immigration laws and, not to be outdone by his Republican challenger, crack down on China.

By Rob Cox

This column appears in the Oct. 1 edition of Newsweek magazine. The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Almost exactly two years ago this week, Christine Gregoire, the governor of the U.S. state of Washington, was in Vietnam handing out French fries made from potatoes grown in her state at a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Ho Chi Minh City. Gregoire, accompanied by representatives of more than 50 companies from home, was in Vietnam trying to drum up business with America’s former military adversary. But the most important stop on Gregoire’s itinerary may have been a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new deepwater shipping terminal at Cai Mep.

By Rob Cox The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

With a key British regulatory judgment concerning News Corp’s satellite broadcaster BSkyB cleared last week, Rupert Murdoch can focus on cleaving his newspaper empire. Critically for investors, that means it’s time to pick a leader. Wall Street Journal boss Robert Thomson appears in pole position, though his appointment would spark an editorial chain reaction of its own.

Whoever runs Spinco (the least-disparaging name used by its future employees) will have one of the hardest jobs in media. The Times of London hasn’t covered its costs for decades. The New York Post is a perennial cash sinkhole. Inside a vast conglomerate, the profitability, or lack thereof, of some papers was relatively inconsequential. To attract investors to a standalone print business, the red ink can’t flow so freely. In its last fiscal year, the publishing arm saw operating income drop 31 percent.

By Rob Cox and Edward Hadas The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

The latest is 14.1. But Mitt Romney’s tax rate is only one of many touchstone percentages doing the rounds. The U.S. presidential hopeful has also contributed 47, the percentage of Americans he says are dependent on government handouts. Both those numbers have irritated a lot of people. The challenger would prefer that the focus shift to a number which embarrasses President Barack Obama. A good candidate is 8.1 – the percentage of the labor force which is unemployed.

Percentages frame many current debates. The Occupy Wall Street movement contributed the 1 percent of excessively rich Americans and economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff offered the 90 percent ratio of government debt to GDP as a borderline of fiscal ill-health. Investors have decided that euro zone sovereign bond yields below 7 percent, or depending on the day 5 percent, mark the end of the crisis. In China, the GDP growth rate is the magic number – 7.5 percent is the current talisman.

By Rob Cox The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Mark Zuckerberg has now acknowledged that the disastrous halving of the social network’s market value since going public “doesn’t help” employee morale. But it may be more problematic than that. The decline – and the company’s eventual response – may be a self-reinforcing problem for the multi-billionaire Harvard dropout.

Like most of Silicon Valley’s hot companies, Facebook doles out equity to employees. In theory, this helps to create an esprit de corps and align the interests of workers, managers and investors. And it can make lots of employees rich. But a slumping stock can have the opposite effect.