Grexit will happen much more quickly than politicians think | City A.M. May 14, 2012 CURRENCIES are social constructs. They are only worth something because everybody else believes them to be worth something. That was partly true even of traditional, commodity backed currencies – you can’t eat gold – but it is undoubtedly the case of today’s paper money. We accept notes and coins – or digital claims to them [...]
Coalition behaving as if we were in normal economic times May 10, 2012 IT was impossible not to be reminded of Roman history yesterday, as Britain’s politicians argued over the Queen’s speech, fiddling while the economy burnt. Cameron, like a modern version of the ill-fated Roman emperor Nero himself, was busy discussing his plan to set up another five or so quangos, including one to police supermarkets, and [...]
It sometimes appears as if the euro was designed to fail May 9, 2012 REMEMBER those debates about whether the Eurozone was an optimal currency zone? Everybody knew it wasn’t when the euro was launched, yet the EU’s politicians disregarded the economics and went for it anyway. They then compounded their recklessness by expanding the Eurozone’s size, bringing together increasingly disparate economies under the European Central Bank’s one size [...]
Rein in back pain May 8, 2012 It is second only to stress on the list of reasons for long-term absence from work, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Four out of five of us will suffer from it at some point in our lives, yet few of us take active steps to prevent it until it is [...]
Mervyn King should have hiked rates to deflate the bubble May 3, 2012 SIR Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, is not one for mea culpas. His speech last night was an extraordinary defence of his record in office – and a largely unfair attack on his detractors, ignoring their intellectual arguments and questioning their motives. He did admit that he should have done more [...]
Redundant need not mean obsolete if managed calmly May 2, 2012 REDUNDANT isn’t the kindest of words. Synonymous with unwanted, inessential and obsolete, a redundant employee can be forgiven for feeling negative. Redundancy itself is often just the terminal act of a long played-out drama, the culmination of months of anxiety as the final curtain falls. But such understandable feelings need not reflect impending disaster. A [...]
Why Boris Johnson is by far the best choice for Londoners | City A.M. May 2, 2012 TOMORROW is decision time for Londoners. Our great city is at a crossroads: it must choose who to elect as its mayor at a time of extreme economic uncertainty and just months before the Olympics, when the eyes of the world will be on London. Having carefully examined all the candidates, this newspaper believes that [...]
It’s time for supporters of the single currency to apologise May 1, 2012 SOME of the stories coming out of the Eurozone are heart-breaking. Greece’s retail sales are down 13 per cent over the past year, a tragic and all too painful collapse for millions of families. Economists sometimes compare the UK’s recession with the great depression: while technically true in various narrow, statistical ways, such a parallel [...]
Secret collapse in corporate profits is hurting UK’s recovery April 30, 2012 IF you repeat a myth often enough, it eventually becomes the received wisdom. That is as true in the City as it is politics. Take the supposedly well-established “fact” that profits are booming despite the recession. That is certainly the story in America and in emerging markets. But while most large UK-based quoted firms are [...]
A recession made in Downing Street – but not caused by cuts April 26, 2012 IS this a recession made in Downing Street? In part, yes. Obviously, Gordon Brown is the main culprit. It will take years to recover from his mismanagement of fiscal, monetary, tax and regulatory policies, as well as from the global, cheap money bubble. But George Osborne can no longer escape blame either. His desire to [...]