Letters to the Editor – 14/02 – East London, Scots uncertainty, Best of Twitter February 13, 2014 East London [Re: The Docklands legacy can help fix London’s chronic housing crisis, Wednesday] Andrew Adonis’s proposal for a new Ebbsfleet town seems muddled. The area needs a Thames Estuary airport, bringing jobs and all the knock-on economic benefits. Yet Adonis’s Go East report favours Heathrow expansion – hardly designed to move the economic centre [...]
Of course Scotland can use the pound without a currency union. Jersey does exactly that February 13, 2014 Panama might do well in an informal currency union, but proponents of Scottish independence might prefer an example closer to home. The British crown dependency of Jersey has just such an arrangement with the UK, and has been managing just fine since the pound became its currency in 1834. A publication compiled by the European [...]
Osborne’s claims that Scotland couldn’t use the pound don’t stack up February 13, 2014 Chancellor George Osborne is on the warpath this morning. He's knocking the idea of Scotland using the pound, without asking England's permission. Something that Adam Smith Institute research director Sam Bowman says the English government couldn't stop it doing. Pointing to other countries that do something similar – Panama with the dollar, and Montenegro with [...]
Why forward guidance 2.0 is not only laughable but entirely unnecessary February 12, 2014 AT A recent meeting of the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, I was debating with Capital Economics’s Roger Bootle whether interest rates should rise. His view was that they should not rise yet. I challenged him in the obvious way: “If not now, when?” To this he responded: “Later.” Roger’s form of “forward guidance” is, in [...]
We’re building a virtual ring of steel to tackle the threat of cyber crime February 12, 2014 UTTER the words “cyber crime” and many minds will conjure up an image of an awkward teenager, tapping away in their bedroom well into the early hours. But cyber crime can be much scarier than that. Threats today also come from criminal networks and foreign governments that deploy cyber weapons. Some of these assailants are [...]
When bureaucracy goes wrong: The Environment Agency and onion futures February 12, 2014 THERE is something about onions that brings out the worst in bureaucrats. Orlando Figes’s A People’s Tragedy chronicles the early years of the Russian revolution. Under war communism, the Bolsheviks attempted to exert state control over the entire economy. A long list of vegetables was drawn up, specifying the prices at which they could be [...]
Letters to the Editor – 13/02 – Confused guidance, Scottish sterling, Best of Twitter February 12, 2014 Confused guidance [Re: Carney’s new focus is spare capacity. Here’s what you need to know, yesterday] Having clearly demonstrated that it is utterly incapable of producing credible forecasts for inflation, GDP, and unemployment, the Monetary Policy Committee is now going to determine policy based on something (spare capacity) that is not only unforecastable, but unmeasurable [...]
An independent Scotland should use the pound without England’s permission. Here’s why February 12, 2014 The pound could still be an independent Scotland's best bet. As chancellor George Osborne is set to rule out a currency union with an independent Scotland, a Yes vote might make ignoring Osborne the smart choice. Sam Bowman, research director at the Adam Smith Institute, says that "an independent Scotland would not need England’s permission [...]
Flooding crisis: A case study in the failure of government on all levels February 11, 2014 THE STATE’S many faces have been tearing pieces out of each other as the water level rises around London commuter towns. Who is to blame for England’s flooding crisis? Eric Pickles said it was the Environment Agency, but now thinks everyone should work together. Labour’s Lord Smith, the Agency’s head, has criticised spending cuts. David [...]
Business is under attack: It’s time for companies to stand up for themselves February 11, 2014 THERE was a time when corporate communication was straightforward. The chief audiences were shareholders and analysts. There was a well-established way of reaching them through the financial media. The combination of the financial crisis and technological change has created a new landscape. The crisis brought into sharp relief the negative externalities that business can create. [...]