The iPhone5 may be boosting GDP by even more than JP Morgan predict September 18, 2012 APPLE’S iPhone5 has already smashed sales records. More than 2m online orders were placed on the first day that consumers could make purchases over the web. So it’s little wonder that JP Morgan has estimated that iPhone5 sales could add as much as 0.5 per cent to American GDP. These numbers have attracted criticism. After [...]
Ten golden rules of investing September 18, 2012 Unless you need your money back soon, you should think long term and avoid getting caught up in the daily noise of markets. This is for two reasons. First, it makes sense to align your own investment time horizon with that of the companies in which you invest. You’ll find that all good companies – [...]
As doubts grow about a BAE-EADS merger, could it prove a danger to national interests? September 18, 2012 YES Ben Wallace As things stand, the UK government is going to be asked to approve a deal that sees the majority of Britain’s defence industrial base being taken over by a company half-owned by the German, French and Spanish states, with a headquarters in France, and a German chief executive. All the big defence [...]
Rapid Responses September 18, 2012 Occupy a year on [Re: One year after the start of Occupy Wall Street, has the movement had any positive impact?, yesterday] Sam Bowman is correct that the Occupy Movement asked the right questions about the close relationship between big business and governments. But its answers weren’t always asinine. There was a strong free market [...]
Scrapping dysfunctional GCSEs will return rigour to British classrooms September 17, 2012 CONSIDERING the howls of outrage that greeted this year’s GCSE results, the reaction to Michael Gove’s new English Baccalaureate Certificate has been surprisingly muted. This is not altogether surprising: GCSEs are corrupt and corrupting, and it’s hard to find a teacher with anything good to say about them. Under New Labour, ministers showed little evidence [...]
Fiscal stimulus: Too much of a good thing can prove a country’s undoing September 17, 2012 IN THEORY, when the economy is performing below its potential, governments can get things moving with a well-designed fiscal stimulus. Sadly, in practice, a stimulus is rarely well-designed, and even their greatest advocates are forced to ignore history and argue that “this time will be different”. Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has admitted that the [...]
Ten golden rules of investing September 17, 2012 IT IS often tempting for companies to expand capacity or even invest in areas outside their core area of expertise. One should be very wary of such ambition, as it naturally means a reduction in focus on core capacity, let alone the implications for balance sheets. A focus on the top line tends to be [...]
One year after the start of Occupy Wall Street, has the movement had any positive impact? September 17, 2012 YES Sam Bowman Occupy asked the right questions. The Great Recession ravaged the people at the bottom of society, while governments have spent trillions of pounds protecting the ones at the top. Some have called Occupy anti-capitalist, but its target has mainly been the incestuous relationship between big business and the state. Rightly so. We [...]
Rapid Responses September 17, 2012 Economic renewal [Re: Welcome to the New Normal: Pay can go down as well as up, yesterday] This article is right. Politicians must grapple with a new reality – the UK is unlikely to see real wage growth again unless it faces up to some extremely unwelcome truths. However, a painful process of stagnant wages [...]
We need a national plan of action to rebuild trust in British business September 16, 2012 IT IS hard to pick up a newspaper or listen to the news without hearing another in-depth analysis of the reasons behind this downturn, and dire predictions about UK growth prospects. With the benefit of hindsight, I think we all underestimated its depth and length and were too optimistic about the global economy bouncing back. [...]