How Britain can unlock private capital for infrastructure April 8, 2014 WALK into China’s state planning agency in Beijing and you can pick up a 40-page guide to potential investment opportunities in the UK. That may seem like a small thing in itself, but it's yet another smart move by a commercially-savvy Treasury team bent on banging the drum for inward investment. Chinese investors have never [...]
Letters to the Editor – 08/04 – Stamp duty reform, Crowdfunding rules, Best of Twitter April 7, 2014 Stamp duty reform [Re: Why it’s time to focus on the real cost of the housing crisis, yesterday] The government should switch payment of stamp duty to when someone sells a property, not when they buy. First-time buyers could use the money towards a deposit, and those in the middle of a chain would not [...]
How QE has harmed the economy April 7, 2014 LET ME begin with a confession. I admire former Fed chair Ben Bernanke for undertaking quantitative easing (QE) back in 2008. It was a brave decision, which involved taking a bold step across an unknown monetary horizon. It was also the right decision for the time, as it prevented the money supply from collapsing – [...]
The real reason you should be depressed by political soundbites April 7, 2014 POLITICAL sound-bites can be excruciating. They hang around for a year or two before disappearing when they become untenable. Who can forget Labour’s “too far, too fast”, or the Conservatives’ “global race”? With just over a year to go before the general election, you’ll be depressed to hear the current offerings look entrenched. The Conservatives [...]
It’s a national scandal that Britain is driving away foreign talent April 7, 2014 THE NEWS that the number of overseas students at UK universities has fallen for the first time in almost 30 years is little less than a national scandal. When migrants are responsible for founding as many as one in seven UK businesses – according to the Centre for Entrepreneurs – and our companies struggle to [...]
India votes: Just three hurdles stand in the way of economic renaissance April 6, 2014 IT’S A heretical truth, but most elections don’t matter very much. This year, for example, for all the bells and whistles, the Turkish presidential contest, the European parliamentary elections, and even the US mid-terms will change little, leaving unaltered their governments’ economic and political trajectories in the world. In the case of Turkey, the recent [...]
City Matters: Why we need to reward the City of London’s hidden talent – for doing good April 6, 2014 FOR THE last three decades, the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards have recognised outstanding corporate community partnerships by businesses across the capital. London is one of the world’s leading financial centres and is home to some of the most innovative and dynamic businesses in the world. Many of these companies utilise the skills and enthusiasm of [...]
Letters to the Editor – 07/04 – The establishment, Best of Twitter April 6, 2014 The establishment [Re: It’s not just Clegg who’s lost contact with reality – it’s the whole establishment, Friday] Great article. This is the reason why the other leaders don’t want Nigel Farage in a pre-general election TV debate. They would all lose. They are completely disconnected from the real world, and think they know better [...]
City & Gild: Brands can reflect economic green shoots as well as they do the spring weather April 4, 2014 It’s official, I’m getting excited – and as someone who models himself on Geoffrey Palmer in Butterflies, this is Big News. What’s the occasion, I hear you cry? Just look around – as the gloom of winter recedes the green shoots of brighter days can be seen everywhere. The sack-cloth and ashes of baggy jumpers [...]
Letters to the Editor – 04/04 – Royal Mail IPO, Soccer geography, Best of Twitter April 3, 2014 Royal Mail IPO [Re: Pricing Royal Mail: Welcome to the free market, Wednesday] Simon Walker is entitled to his view that the Royal Mail pricing needed to be cautious, although there could have been few who looked at the valuation at the time and did not spot that money was being given away. In such [...]