The IMF is playing with fire by giving intellectual backing to punitive taxation October 14, 2013 SOMETHING is going wrong at the IMF. Its traditional role as a stabilising force for countries in deep financial difficulty is being undermined by internal ideological disputes. This manifested itself most obviously in the debate over “austerity” measures, especially in the UK. Just as growth began to return, the IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard told [...]
Reform oppressive air passenger tax or watch business drift overseas October 14, 2013 AIR PASSENGER duty (APD) in the UK is the highest air passenger tax of its kind in the world today, and it’s still rising. After a 8 per cent hike in 2012 and a further increase in 2013, it’s due to go up again in 2014. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects APD to raise [...]
Letters to the Editor – 15/10 – Energy prices, Best of Twitter October 14, 2013 Energy prices [Miliband’s policies have already damaged Britain’s economy, yesterday] The barrier to new entrants is scale. We have arrived at a “Big Six” because you need at least 4m customers to recover the investment in registration, trading and billing systems. Today, the only competition that exists is on price, and the only way to reduce [...]
3D printing shows promise but a new industrial revolution will have to wait October 13, 2013 BY LUCK or coincidence, many of the patents involved in “additive” production technologies (or 3D printing) – invented in large part by S Scott Crump – expired in 2009, just as the financial crisis was refocusing attention towards manufacturing and “rebalancing” the economy. Now 3D printing is rarely out of the news. It’s seen as [...]
City Matters: Cementing ties with the Islamic world should be a key priority for London October 13, 2013 LATER this month, London will play host to the first World Islamic Economic Forum to be held outside the Islamic world. This singular event reflects the increasingly strong partnership that the UK wishes to build with the Islamic world, and also London’s role as a centre for Islamic finance – a global market worth around [...]
France will stay the lame duck of Europe if voices for reform remain mute October 13, 2013 VISITORS to France are often impressed by its network of fast trains, and its miles of half-empty motorways. They are right to be. The French had their HS2 debate decades ago, and the railway buffs won. As a result, the World Economic Forum ranks France fourth for infrastructure in its global competitiveness survey. (Airports are [...]
Letters to the Editor – 14/10 – Public sector pay, Emissions taxes, Best of Twitter October 13, 2013 Public sector pay [Re: Wages in public sector still beat private sector, Friday] It is hard to believe this has not been properly tackled. As long as public sector pay outstrips the private sector in any part of the country, the goal of the best and brightest young people will be to work for a [...]
Misguided energy policies have put Europe on a path to economic decline October 10, 2013 DESPITE rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, global climate temperatures have remained flat for the past 15 years, if not a good deal longer. And the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was last month forced to admit that its own climate models have grossly overestimated climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2. So why are some [...]
The Long View: Behind the debt ceiling madness lurks the insanity of an uncontrollable state October 10, 2013 THE WORLD has gone mad. No, really. If ever there was a time for even the most sanguine of political analysts to throw up their hands in horror, this is it. Despite minor signs of reconciliation, the leaders of the world’s most powerful country are still steering it towards default pell-mell. The scale of this [...]
Our economic boomlet won’t last if monetary policy remains loose October 10, 2013 THE ECONOMY has rebounded strongly in 2013, surprising the pundits but vindicating “monetarist” optimism. George Osborne, among others, suggests that the economy “is turning the corner”, implying a return to “normality”. Normal, of course, is subjective, but to the average person it probably means an environment in which the economy grows steadily, inflation is contained, [...]