RAPID RESPONSES November 16, 2011 Ponzi pottiness The German government criticising the UK for not doing enough for the Eurozone really brings to mind a Ponzi scheme. Assume I don’t join a Ponzi scheme because I think it’s a Ponzi scheme but my colleague does in spite of my warnings. When the scheme goes wrong, if my colleague criticised me [...]
Downing Street’s strategic mistakes on Europe put our national interest in danger November 15, 2011 IN THE midst of the European crisis, the government has made a strategic error by advocating fiscal union and economic governance for the Eurozone. The European summit proposals agreed on 26 October do not have any real legal basis and simply reflect the determination of Germany and France to go ahead, whatever the rules may [...]
Risky business: Fresh threats in new bank rules November 15, 2011 A NEARLY unanimous consensus (by governments, the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Banking Authority) is calling for a further increase in the regulatory capital of banks, in particular for those in the Eurozone. The rationale for this is that if banks have more capital they will more easily weather crises and [...]
The fantastical power of the printing press November 15, 2011 WHEN I was nine years old I learned that money is created by the central bank. This gave me a brilliant idea. Why not print up millions for everyone in the country and then we would all be rich. My father put me straight. He explained that money is not in itself wealth. Printing more [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 15, 2011 Jaguar & jugaad I have to agree with yesterday’s Forum article on India’s innovation culture. Having spent three years with a large multinational pharmaceutical company developing businesses in India, it was plain to see that India was turning itself into an innovation powerhouse and it would be a force to be reckoned with. Look at [...]
India’s innovation culture is revealing itself at last – and the West faces a dilemma November 14, 2011 CAN India emerge as an innovation powerhouse? Over the past two decades, India has achieved a dominant share of offshore work, giving Western populations angst about the loss of white collar jobs. The traditional concern in the West has been about immigrants coming onshore to compete for local jobs; now it seems that the effects [...]
Setting a match to the debate on petrol inflation November 14, 2011 INFLATION is now rising faster than wages, and Britain faces a cost-of-living crisis. Astronomical fuel prices are the number one issue in my constituency: they are creating a poverty trap, and are a major brake on economic growth. In real terms, adjusted for inflation, motoring fuel has never been this expensive – except for just [...]
Anchors aweigh: King has to let UK prices rip November 14, 2011 I AM NOT a supporter of quantitative easing (QE), but it strikes me that there is a perverse irony in the way it is debated. Let’s recap the way it is supposed to work. The Bank of England (BoE) attempts to control economic activity through interest rates – a cut in interest rates makes spending [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 14, 2011 Bullion for bears James Conway’s Italian suggestion [Italian gold may be just the job to save the day, last Friday] is too complicated. Italy won’t sell its gold. But Italy’s gold reserves are worth €103bn. Bond issues with 25 per cent to 50 per cent gold collateral would be a confidence booster. The Eurozone holds [...]
Spotify has the music world gripped – but it won’t be a panacea for squeezed artists November 13, 2011 SPOTIFY is taking over the world, wrapping its tentacles around the music industry like the alien flora from HG Wells’s War of the Worlds. Over the summer it finally announced its long (very, very long) awaited expansion into the US. Then came a transformative deal with Facebook, allowing users to log in and share music [...]