Congestion charge after ten years: It’s time to be bolder February 17, 2013 IT’S exactly a decade since London’s congestion charge was introduced. Its immediate impact was a dramatic fall in traffic volumes, and there are still around 60,000 fewer vehicles entering the central zone every day. But with 23m journeys made on London’s roads each day, congestion is now back to pre-charge levels. Over the next 20 [...]
The three geopolitical red herrings that the markets can safely ignore February 14, 2013 EACH year, Eurasia Group releases its top risks report, where we consider the ten biggest geopolitical threats to markets and economies, judged by probability and potential impact. So what’s on our radar for 2013? The top risk is now found in emerging markets, as the world’s focus shifts back to the developing world and away [...]
Voice of a new political rhetoric highlights the need for intellectual humility February 14, 2013 THERE was an important speech in America this week, and it wasn’t made by Barack Obama. The President’s State of the Union address was, once again, a conventional recitation of the technocrat’s creed: state intervention can solve almost everything, so long as smart people like me make it smarter. Marco Rubio’s speech wasn’t important either. [...]
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 [...]