Elastic money is folly – we are facing a breakdown in our entire monetary system November 20, 2011 What is the disease you diagnose in our monetary system? A. We have a strange monetary system. It is inherently unstable. It’s not the natural outcome of market forces. Most people don’t appreciate that the financial system is designed by politics. It’s a fiat money system based on government-controlled money, issued without limit under [...]
We should worry about taxpayers’ exposure to QE November 20, 2011 THE governor of the Bank of England (BoE) has just sent his ninth letter to the chancellor explaining why he and his impressive team on the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) have failed to meet the two per cent inflation target for yet another quarter. The chancellor will no doubt reply that the contents of the [...]
Britain must punch its weight within Europe November 20, 2011 THE political tensions and divided philosophies across Europe have once again returned to the spotlight, following David Cameron’s visit to Berlin last Friday. Strong language has been used on both sides of this debate, but understandably so, given the high stakes. Volker Kauder, of the Christian Democratic Union, made the provocative claim that “suddenly Europe [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 20, 2011 Think global I agree with Matthew Sinclair [The carbon floor price needs to be scrapped]. Introducing a carbon floor price is wrong. With the UK facing the troubling prospect of a decade of stagnant growth, the government must prioritise: rescuing the economy, tackling the chronic level of youth unemployment and putting us firmly back on [...]
Rebalancing the economy is a priority: The carbon floor price needs to be scrapped November 17, 2011 POLITICIANS of all parties are keen that the British economy’s fortunes depend less on the work of City A.M.’s readers. Chuka Umunna – Labour’s shadow business secretary – told Bloomberg this week that under the last government growth “was too concentrated in too few sectors, and in too few regions”. Similar sentiments have been expressed [...]
This tax will not fly: Don’t ground Britain’s growth November 17, 2011 THE chief executives of rival airlines Virgin Atlantic, easyJet, Ryanair and the IAG group – which includes British Airways – do not normally agree to share a platform. That they chose to yesterday morning – outlining their opposition to Air Passenger Duty (APD) – is a sign of how seriously the aviation sector takes this [...]
Democracy is thrown aside in the Eurozone November 17, 2011 THERE is not one elected official in Italy’s new government, but it’s apparently very bad form to mention it. Democratic government has been suspended on the fringes of the Eurozone with barely a whisper. News reports mention in passing that “technocrats” have been ushered in to make sure Greece and Italy reform their economies as [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 17, 2011 Backbone of Rock The UK government has bitten the bullet and cut its losses on Northern Rock and sold it to the private sector where it belongs. It is this sort of decisive action the leaders of Europe need to make to halt the slide of the EU into the economic abyss, but sadly there [...]
The Vickers Report got the causes of the crisis wrong: Its solutions are wrong too November 16, 2011 THE Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) misdiagnosed the causes of the banking crisis, and its prescriptions are therefore equally wrong. That is the blunt message of a report and briefing paper that Miles Saltiel and I are publishing today with the Adam Smith Institute. And yet – there is some merit in the idea of [...]
Greece needs to drop out of the euro to recover November 16, 2011 THE advocates of the EU like to claim that it helps promote democracy, but its record is decidedly mixed of late. Its biggest project, the euro, which no EU country has ever had a referendum on, is toppling democratically-elected leaders at the rate of roughly one a week and replacing them with unelected technocrats. Mario [...]