Rapid responses January 9, 2013 Commuting reality [Re: Further efficiencies are critical to making London’s railways thrive, yesterday] The current proposals for rail improvements are distinctly short sighted. Britain’s railways were built in Victorian times to take travellers from one city centre to another. But this no longer reflects the travel pattern of today’s rail users. The figures reveal a [...]
Further efficiencies are critical to making London’s railways thrive January 8, 2013 COMMUTERS finally have some welcome news. Just a week after inflation-busting fare increases came into effect, rail industry leaders have announced Britain’s biggest investment in infrastructure since the Victorian era. Look around any train or station serving London in the morning peak and the case for improvements is overwhelming. Many are packed or overcrowded. Londoners [...]
The simplest ideas can offer the deepest insights into how markets work January 8, 2013 TRAGEDY struck at a mid-week game played during the holiday season in Football League Division Two. The pies ran out in the home supporters’ bar. The incident may seem trivial to those not involved, but it illustrates some important themes in economics, which have even gained their inventors the Nobel Prize. It turns out that [...]
Were MPs right to cap the benefits rise at 1 per cent? January 8, 2013 Yes Ryan Bourne THE government is struggling to control borrowing and this is partly due to a 5.9 per cent increase in net social security payments this financial year compared with last. Many benefits were uprated by 5.2 per cent for 2012-13 because of high consumer price index inflation in the previous year, when average [...]
Rapid responses January 8, 2013 Planning inflation [Re: Daft planning rules are pushing up the price of food in shops, yesterday] While it is always good for an article about planning policy to focus on commercial property rather than housing, and while the academics cited may have delivered interesting papers, let’s not use this work to justify more fiddling with [...]
Coalition tinkering on family tax and pensions is too little too late January 7, 2013 THE foreword to the coalition’s mid-term review could have been written in the early 1970s. Perhaps this is not surprising. Policymaking tends to lack a sharp edge in coalition. Compromises must be made, and this can lead to bad decisions. Changes to student fees are a prime example. Most students will pay a lot more [...]
The dynamics of QE have set the Bank of England on an unintended journey January 7, 2013 SINCE the financial crisis, the Bank of England has made use of some highly controversial monetary policy measures to help the UK economy recover. The most recent was the chancellor’s decision to claw back £35bn of the interest payments the Bank of England made from its holdings of government bonds. This took several economists by [...]
Basel III extension is a pointless tonic to a deeper disease January 7, 2013 WHAT should discipline how much cash a business keeps aside to service its debts – what we might call its “liquidity buffer”? The answer’s pretty obvious: how much the debts are; how often they fall due; to what extent they can be called up early; how secure are the inflows from a business’s cash-generating activities [...]
As Gérard Depardieu flees to Russia, will the 75 per cent tax rate damage France? January 7, 2013 YES Emmanuelle Savarit François Hollande’s policy of a 75 per cent rate of income tax for top earners is already a disaster for the country’s image, and it will have a negative impact by reducing France’s economic competitiveness. France needs entrepreneurs and risk-takers to create wealth. Heavy taxation is unfair on talented people who create [...]
Rapid responses January 7, 2013 Broadband policy [Re: Think tank slams plan to splash out on UK broadband arms race, yesterday] This is an essential look at the UK’s costly and ineffective broadband policies. But it fails to recommend immediate policy changes that would result in much-needed, competition for fixed line and mobile internet access. Allowing wholesale internet service providers [...]