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. [...]
EU banking union: Less may be more when devising financial regulation September 16, 2012 THE Eurozone crisis and domestic banking issues have been enjoying a summer holiday, no doubt helped by the Olympics. But they will now move back to centre stage. The European Commission’s proposals for an EU banking union are ambitious and, if accepted, would entail the biggest transfer of national powers since the start of the [...]
Ten golden rules of investing September 16, 2012 YOU DON’T have to understand how silicon chips work to buy a silicon chip maker, but you do have to understand what they are used for, as well as some of the basics of manufacturing process such as the inputs and costs. On the other hand, simple products like mortgages can be wrapped in businesses [...]
Are the coalition’s proposals for employment law reform enough to satisfy UK businesses? September 16, 2012 YES Vince Cable The UK has one of the most flexible labour markets in the world, second only to the USA and Canada according to the OECD. Despite our economic difficulties we have had over 1m new jobs created in the private sector over the last two years. But we know we can do more [...]