RAPID RESPONSES May 29, 2012 Support start ups [Re: Cheap money and more debt won’t help the young, yesterday] While I sympathise with Philip Salter’s concerns about taxpayers’ money being thrown at the government’s start-up loan scheme, some budding entrepreneurs will always need loans. I’d prefer that private lenders provide these loans, but for some reason this is not happening. I’m [...]
London’s developers have a prime role in ensuring its future success May 28, 2012 IF LONDON is to retain its status as a global capital for business in the face of technological revolution and the rise of mega cities in the South and East of the globe, it is vital for property developers to respond to changing business needs. This is not just building new offices that are well [...]
Central banks have plenty of ammo but there’s confusion on how they fire May 28, 2012 WHEN economic crises strike it can take a while for economists to keep up. But one of the confusing outcomes of events since 2008 has been policymakers presenting established policies – such as what is now being called quantitative easing (QE) – as being novel, and policymakers and commentators using different terms to mean the [...]
Cheap money and more debt won’t help the young May 28, 2012 OVER the next three years, £82m of taxpayers’ money – or debt, to be more precise – will be funnelled into a scheme to provide loans worth on average £2,500 to entrepreneurs aged 18 to 24. Cue politicians, business people and other sycophants tripping over themselves to be linked to this intrinsically popular policy. After [...]
Has the time come for military intervention to topple Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime? May 28, 2012 YES Michael Weiss Military intervention in Syria isn’t so much a matter of preference as an inevitability. The Kofi Annan plan has failed, and even Annan himself has stopped just short of saying so. Last Friday’s horrifying, state-orchestrated massacre of 116 people, including women and children, in the village of Houla proves that a “negotiated [...]
RAPID RESPONSES May 28, 2012 Greek insolvency [Re: Eurozone crisis moves ever closer as Greek left gains ground, Friday] I’m not sure you can blame the Greeks for borrowing vast sums on the assumption that they had the same credit worthiness as Germany. The financial system was at fault. Having said that, the point that Greeks now have to reduce their [...]
Forget the Brics: Breakout nations will be the next countries to watch May 27, 2012 NO IDEA has done more to dull thinking about the world economy than the acronym Bric. It lumps together Brazil, Russia, India and China, all with little in common other than that they are the largest economies in their regions. The Bric idea has spawned endless copycats in the last decade, because it was an [...]
European cookie law risks hurting UK tech business May 27, 2012 THE 12 month grace period for the Cookie law is over. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will now start to enforce regulations resricting the storage of personal data. Businesses which use cookies or other tracking techniques to gather information from website users must comply. The Cookie law is a European based law, and is being [...]
The City’s history may be great but its future depends on open borders May 27, 2012 THE CROWDS queuing for a glimpse of Her Majesty’s royal barge will get – for a few hours – a useful reminder of the role geography has played in the success of London as a global trading hub. And the importance of immigration, too. Sunblock and brollies at the ready on Sunday, we will gaze [...]
Would a Greek exit from the euro lead to a wider European systemic banking crisis? May 27, 2012 YES Michael Derks Southern European banks are facing sizeable problems, and there’s huge potential for this to intensify and spread through Europe, possibly to the UK. There are only two effective ways to stop a bank run – the relevant government either nationalises and recapitalises affected banks (far too expensive) or guarantees depositors. Sadly, deposit [...]