DEBATE: Is the Tesco boss right to call for slashed business rates and an online tax to save the high street? May 15, 2019 Is the Tesco boss right to call for slashed business rates and an online tax to save the high street? Robert Palmer, executive director of Tax Justice UK, says YES. Tesco’s Dave Lewis is right: the way we tax high street shops and online firms isn’t working. The tax system benefits companies like Amazon and Google, [...]
Why Domino’s Pizza sell-off was overcooked May 14, 2019 | City Talk By Graeme Evans from interactive investor. Hungry bargain hunters gobbled up shares in Domino's, correctly betting than an early slump was unfair. After selling 12 pizzas every second on New Year's Day, the rest of 2019 certainly hasn't panned out in the same emphatic fashion for Domino's Pizzaor its investors. Shares slumped as much as [...]
Could Capita’s move to put workers to boards fix capitalism’s crisis? May 14, 2019 Capitalism is being questioned in Britain more intensely than for decades. Some want to destroy it. Others believe that it is the only economic system which works, but want to reform it. I am in the latter camp. Part of the debate around Brexit has centred on preserving workers’ rights, enshrined in EU law. But rights [...]
Economists are united about Trump’s trade folly May 14, 2019 In George Bernard Shaw’s words, if all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion. Scour the pool of practitioners of the dismal science, and you will find supporters and detractors for almost every economic theory, from free markets to socialism. The one exception, however, is protectionism. Whether from the left [...]
London pulls away from rest of UK in wealth, says first paper in major inequality study May 14, 2019 London has been far more economically productive than the rest of the country over the last two decades while earnings in the capital are much higher than elsewhere, a new study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has shown. Read more: Hammond has the cash to end austerity, IFS says The IFS has today [...]
India’s Hinduja brothers top Rich List for third time as Jim Ratcliffe loses out May 12, 2019 Britain’s 1,000 richest people have again had their respective fortunes stacked against each other to determine the most wealthy person in the country, in the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List. This year it was bad news for Jim Ratcliffe, owner of chemicals giant Ineos, who dropped to third place after topping last year’s list, while [...]
Why bombed-out Sainsbury’s leads the FTSE 100 May 10, 2019 | City Talk Hammered since the Asda merger was blocked, our head of markets explains the surge to a three-week high. Rather than fight the decision of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sainsbury (LSE:SBRY) and Asda decided to call off the wedding. This leaves a huge strategic question mark over where Sainsbury's goes next. Not surprisingly, the [...]
The City powers the UK economy – it must not fall into Labour’s hands May 8, 2019 Despite the best efforts of a few valiant voices, the City (and its interests) received a shameful lack of attention during the Brexit debate and has been largely left to fend for itself ever since. Read more: What the next Bank of England governor’s CV looks like However, the race to succeed Mark Carney at [...]
Tensions mount as Trump and Congress face off over Mueller report May 8, 2019 The political battle on Capitol Hill escalated this evening as Congress sparred with President Donald Trump over access to special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Read more: Trump says he knows why China U-turned on US trade deal Trump moved to block an effort by House Democrats [...]
The art of the deal: Five things we learned from Trump’s tax returns May 8, 2019 Hours after one of Donald Trump’s closest White House allies, Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, formally refused the Democrats’ request for the President’s tax returns late on Monday, the cat was out of the bag. Trump’s much-sought after tax returns reveal massive losses throughout the eighties and nineties for the self-styled master of the deal, topping more [...]