How EU regulation has prevented UK horse meat action February 14, 2013 DAVID Cameron’s enthusiasm for the Single Market must be taking a knock, as the horse meat scandal gallops on. It is, after all, one of the fundamental four freedoms of the Single Market – the free movement of goods – that prohibits environment secretary Owen Paterson from banning imports of suspect meat. But the EU [...]
The Debate: After GDP contracted in France and Germany, can we still be optimistic about the Eurozone? February 14, 2013 YES Christian Schulz The Eurozone’s turning point, Mario Draghi’s European Central Bank safety net, happened before the fourth quarter of 2012 even started. It triggered a chain reaction of improving confidence, which was just too slow to prevent this downturn. Capital returned to the periphery, but Eurozone leaders still needed to prove their resolve to [...]
Letters to the Editor February 14, 2013 Cost of inflation [Re: High inflation is denting recovery: The Bank of England must act now, yesterday] The idea that a weaker pound would somehow promote an export boom is absurd. Most of our exports are either specialised services, which would be purchased anyway, or specialised manufacturing, which tends to require goods to be imported in [...]
High inflation is denting recovery: The Bank of England must act now February 13, 2013 IT’S official. The Bank of England has confirmed in its latest Inflation Report that it is unlikely to get inflation back to target in the next couple of years. On its central forecast, the Bank is not expecting inflation to be back around the 2 per cent level until late 2015 or early 2016. As [...]
Finance education at school is the first step to empowering future consumers February 13, 2013 I AM sure that you and I have at least one thing in common: that one of the most useful skills in our lives is being able to manage money – making sure I live within my means, don’t run up excessive debts, can pay my mortgage, can make sure my savings earn interest, and [...]
Crest Nicholson IPO could herald a new dawn for markets February 13, 2013 IN THE biggest flotation of the year so far, the housebuilder Crest Nicholson has returned to the stock market. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but given that we have now seen a flock of the creatures, it’s clear that the initial public offering (IPO) market is open for business. The backdrop for such transactions [...]
The Debate: Should we blame EU policy for the failure to prevent the current horse meat scandal? February 13, 2013 YES Robert Oulds Food safety and labelling, and therefore the issue of food fraud, comes under the power of the EU. EU law (council regulation 178/2002) clearly states that food producers and retailers, not British civil servants, have the primary responsibility for food safety and quality in the UK. And if a product is judged [...]
Letters to the Editor February 13, 2013 True entrepreneurs [Re: Europe needs to be more relaxed about entrepreneurs getting filthy rich, yesterday] Few people have a problem with people like Google’s Eric Schmidt becoming wealthy if they have been genuinely entrepreneurial – creating something new by effort and ingenuity. But Paul Ormerod doesn’t seem to recognise a difference between Schmidt and many [...]
Tighter regulations won’t restore the City’s reputation for integrity February 12, 2013 FINANCIAL regulation is often defended on the grounds that financial products are complex and consumers do not understand them properly. But that is nothing special in itself. I know little about car repair. When I take my car to the garage, the mechanics start talking Esperanto to me about their plans, followed by “OK?” We [...]
Europe needs to be more relaxed about entrepreneurs getting filthy rich February 12, 2013 PETER Mandelson famously said that he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. As with many aspects of New Labour, he was working firmly in the Leninist intellectual tradition. Some 20 years earlier, the then leader of the Chinese Communist Party Deng Xiaoping stated that “to get rich is glorious”. The Chinese have certainly [...]