Strong governments must be prepared to upset the markets (a bit) Opinion The bond markets are a potent opposition, but governments must be prepared to take risks if they are ever to reap rewards, says Charles White-Thomson With a large majority and an election years away, the Prime Minister and Chancellor likely don’t feel the need to worry too much about what the electorate think. But one [...]
If I were the CEO of UK Plc, I ‘d be slamming the panic button right now Opinion How to heal our country? Start treating it like a privately owned company, says Charles White-Thomson At the annual Ayn Rand lecture yesterday evening in Drapers’ Hall, at which I gave the keynote lecture about the ‘importance of national honesty,’ one individual asked me perhaps the most pertinent question of the evening: how can we [...]
The bond markets liked the Budget – and that’s a worry Charles White-Thomson Hunt’s Budget and Reeves’ Mais lecture showed they are vying to be Captain Sensible, but if we want to break the doom loop of low growth, high taxes and big spending, we should expect some friction with the forces that benefit from the status quo, says Charles White-Thomson What concerns me most about the recent [...]
Bank of England has lost the delicate touch monetary policy needs November 8, 2023 After decades of cheap debt, the swing towards high interest rates was a wrecking ball for monetary policy, writes Charles White Thomson
Weird Barbie should provide some unlikely inspiration for the Bank of England July 28, 2023 Weird Barbie would break up the groupthink of the Bank of England economists.
We’re living with the impact of a decade of a Goldilocks approach to interest rates March 27, 2023 We are in an hangover era of monetary policy, recovering from a period when bad news was considered good news by investors. We must work to change that outlook, writes Charles White-Thomson
Interest rate hikes are a hard lesson for investors who relied on central banks bailouts June 20, 2022 In May last year, I wrote in this newspaper about the risks of moral hazard and the pandemic, with a generation of investors who had developed a skewed sense of risk. After the unprecedented level of central bank intervention, many believed policymakers would always ride to their rescue, providing portfolio safety nets with cheap money [...]
Moral hazard: Covid has created a generation of investors with a skewed sense of risk May 14, 2021 The financial industry has a penchant for complex terminology. Contango and backwardation, to name two – are designed to describe a particular event or scenario in ‘finance’ speak. Moral hazard is another one. The use of two surprisingly normal words creates an opaqueness that is hard to puncture. Moral hazard is thrown around a lot. [...]
