The Long View: Angelina Jolie shows us a glimpse of our future – if regulators let us have it November 29, 2013 How do you regulate the future? We live in an age of miraculous, disruptive technologies, yet one of its great challenges is how to keep the lumbering process of regulation from putting the brakes on human inventiveness. Take genetic testing: this week 23andMe, a pioneering US firm that offered to scan your genetic code for potential [...]
Our innovative Heathrow plan could expand capacity without huge costs November 28, 2013 IN JUST three weeks, Sir Howard Davies and the Airports Commission will publish a shortlist of ideas to solve a problem critical to Britain’s future success – how to enhance our airport capacity. We hope that our innovative Heathrow Hub concept – which is unconnected to any proposals from the current airport owners – will [...]
The Funding for Lending pivot may take the gloss off Osborne’s economy November 28, 2013 THE ANNOUNCEMENT that the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) is being redirected away from mortgages is one of the most significant economic policy developments of the year. FLS was launched in the summer of 2012 as a joint Treasury and Bank of England initiative to boost bank lending to the real economy. Unlike 2011’s Project [...]
Letters to the editor – 29/11 – A new Germany, UK savings crisis, Best of Twitter November 28, 2013 A new Germany [Re: Germany’s new coalition will make little change to Merkel’s euro policies, yesterday] The coalition may not cause an explicit change in Germany policy towards Europe, but the consequences of the SPD’s influence on internal economic policy may nevertheless have far-reaching consequences. A national minimum wage and higher pension contribution burdens for [...]
Finance is inevitably complex but its regulators can stop chasing their tails November 27, 2013 FINANCIAL regulation becomes ever more onerous, as it chases its own tail. More and more, regulation mandates “best advice”, codes of ethics, legal punishment for directors if businesses go bust, mandatory offering of simple products, fines for companies if financial products decline in value instead of rise, and caps on charges and interest rates. This [...]
The bank leverage ratio is sensible – but we should be wary of Balkanisation November 27, 2013 MARK Carney and George Osborne, the two most powerful men in the British economy, swapped letters on Tuesday about the tools they needed to create a stable banking sector. They agreed that the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee will consider whether the Bank should be able to set the amount of money UK banks [...]
Germany’s new coalition will make little change to Merkel’s euro policies November 27, 2013 MONTHS after elections were held, Germany’s coalition talks have finally resulted in a deal – a grand coalition between Angela Merkel’s centre-right CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD. Already, it is clear that Merkel will remain Europe’s most important player. Following an election that saw her party win a landslide victory that left it only few [...]
Letters to the Editor – 28/11 – Scots referendum, Bank ringfence, Best of Twitter November 27, 2013 Scots referendum [Re: Financial and economic flaws in the SNP’s plan make the case for Union, yesterday] I agree with Alistair Darling. Currency union requires political union, as demonstrated by the euro experience. It would be foolish to repeat the same mistake here. Meanwhile, Scotland having its own currency would increase the cost of selling [...]
The UK can avoid turning Japanese if we stick to the right economic policies November 26, 2013 FOR MOST of the second half of the twentieth century, Japan was a model of economic success – and the envy of the West. Economic growth was around 9 to 10 per cent in the 1950s and 1960s, and 4 to 5 per cent in the 1970s and 1980s. But the wheels came off following [...]
Against the Grain: We should all be anxious about rising divisions – even if intolerance is falling November 26, 2013 BRITAIN is becoming more sharply divided on ethnic lines, according to a worrying study just published by the think tank Demos. Over the past decade, more than 600,000 white people have moved out of London to areas which are more than 90 per cent white. The effect has been strongest among white Britons with children, [...]