A truly useful, if less than sexy, resource for the novice investor May 5, 2011 HOW TO BUILD A SHARE PORTFOLIO BY RODNEY HOBSON Harriman House, £16.99 Phillip Salter IF you own a handful of UK shares but lack a strategy beyond: “I like to shop at Tesco, so I bought a few of its shares,” this book will help you build a financial future upon more secure foundations. Written [...]
Britain must vote No to AV tomorrow May 4, 2011 FIRST it was wedding bells that drowned out campaigning for tomorrow’s referendum – and then it was Osama bin Laden’s death. But the vote on whether to change our voting system is nevertheless a hugely important moment for Britain’s democracy. We urge all of you who care about the way we are governed to take [...]
EU is set for its own sub-prime crisis April 18, 2011 HUMAN beings have an infinite capacity for self-delusion, especially when it comes to matters financial. I still remember how, in late 2006 and early 2007, all too few investors, financiers, commentators and regulators wanted to believe that the US property market was in the early stages of a crash or that there was anything to [...]
How to be the perfect interviewee March 30, 2011 GET THE JOB YOU REALLY WANT BY JAMES CAAN Portfolio Penguin, £12.99 IF YOU were going to create a parody of an inspirational business book, it would look a lot like Get The Job You Really Want (the “really” is actually underlined on the book’s cover). It has all the hallmarks of an inspirational business [...]
Cutting spending through the ages March 28, 2011 BEWARE, dear reader: this is a trick question. Which Chancellor of the Exchequer cut spending the most in a single year? Was it George Osborne in his Budget last week, which if this weekend’s protesters are to be believed is pushing through the most “reckless” reductions imaginable? Or was it the great Tory chancellor Nigel [...]
Why we shouldn’t bail out Portugal March 25, 2011 HERE’S a heretical thought: let’s not bail out Portugal. The near-bankrupt country has just seen its Prime Minister resign after losing a key vote on his government’s fourth austerity package in a couple of years, while Fitch has just downgraded the country’s credit rating. Yet the talk now is of a bailout – even though [...]
Moody’s cuts Spain’s debt rating March 10, 2011 Rating agency Moody’s has downgraded Spain’s sovereign debt rating by one notch and warned of further cuts to come. The cut in the rating – to Aa2 from Aa1 – drove the euro to session lows against the dollar, while the premium investors charge for Spanish ten-year debt instead of German Bunds expanded to its [...]
Cameron needs to act – not just talk March 7, 2011 ON the face of it, David Cameron’s pledge yesterday to “take on the enemies of enterprise” was a breakthrough. It was great to see the prime minister at last get off the fence and criticise the officials and bureaucrats that have done so much to halt progress and job-creation in Britain. He joked that even [...]
Time to tackle our terrible tax code March 3, 2011 AMAZINGLY, the world’s fastest talker can speak 637 words aloud a minute. Yes, seriously. The record-holder is a Londoner called Steve Woodmore, who has featured repeatedly in the Guinness Book of Records. Tolstoy’s War and Peace comes in at a hefty 1,204 pages; it would therefore take 12 and a half hours for our record-holder [...]
Yes, Minister: when reality is like TV February 7, 2011 SOMETIMES, fiction is the best guide to reality. I have been rewatching Sir Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s brilliant Yes, Minister, one of Britain’s best-ever and much-loved sitcoms. It depicts the warped relationship between a wannabe reforming politician and his civil servants, who spend all their time thwarting him and gradually turn him into a pathetic [...]