Wall St The Week Ahead: Retail figures a clue to Xmas season ahead November 17, 2013 THE guessing game about when the Federal Reserve will start to cut its stimulus will enter a new round this week as stock investors dissect minutes from the last central bank meeting, while retail sales and clues about the consumer will also vie for attention. The minutes for the 29-30 October meeting are due to [...]
A nominal GDP target could help the UK economy cope with the East’s rise November 17, 2013 THE UK economy is now accelerating strongly and, if the traditional correlations with business surveys continue to hold, growth could be 3 per cent or more next year. Furthermore, if unemployment continues to decline as fast as the claimant count has fallen in the past four months, the 7 per cent unemployment threshold set out [...]
City Matters: Business needs bold action from the chancellor to safeguard UK prosperity November 17, 2013 IN TWO weeks’ time, the chancellor will deliver his Autumn Statement, following the first few months of consistently good economic news for several years. The strong positive signs across several areas of the economy make it safe to say that the “recovery has finally taken hold”, as Bank of England governor Mark Carney noted last [...]
Why we can still save the zombie firms hindering the UK economic revival November 17, 2013 AFTER the worst recession in living memory, the UK’s recovery feels decidedly sluggish. While the US and German economies are larger than ever, the UK is still well below its pre-recession peak. Yet insolvencies are at a historic low and many businesses seem to be (just about) surviving. Why is this? According to R3, the [...]
Letters to the Editor – 18/11 – Crazy patents, Space spin-offs, Best of Twitter November 17, 2013 Crazy patents [Re: It’s time for tech firms to end their insane global patent wars, Friday] The mis-use of patents has become crazy. As the economist Gary Becker has said, patents should be a last resort, to be used when market-based methods of encouraging innovation are likely to be insufficient. More worryingly, many companies use [...]
Startup springboks who let the idea come to them November 17, 2013 Annabel Palmer meets Leon Blitz and Brad Fried, lifelong pals behind investment firm Grovepoint MOST entrepreneurs start with an idea – be it reinventing the wheel or simply finding a way to do something better than anyone else out there. The hard part is then taking the first steps – shunning job security for months [...]
It’s time for entrepreneurs to make their numbers heard – for the benefit of the wider British economy November 17, 2013 IN HOLLYWOOD action movies, the hero often battles a room full of villains, defeating them one at a time before rescuing the girl. However, the world isn’t a movie – on planet Earth, when it comes to getting your way, numbers matter. That’s why, in the 1970s, Britain was brought to a halt when the [...]
Entrepreneurship week comes to London: Four events worth watching November 17, 2013 IT’S GLOBAL Entrepreneurship Week, and this year’s theme (Take a Step Forward) is more timely than usual. Despite record numbers of new startups, UK entrepreneurs still find it more difficult to scale or reach the next stage of their development than their peers in the US. Whatever the reasons (and they are much debated), this [...]
Less than the sum of its parts November 17, 2013 FILM THE COUNSELLOR Cert 18 | By Simon Thomson Two Stars GREEDY and ambitious, a successful lawyer ignores the warnings of his friends in the criminal underworld, and becomes involved with a Mexican drug cartel. When a shipment goes missing, suspicion falls on the counsellor (Michael Fassbender), and the perfect life he has built comes [...]
Where to drink November 17, 2013 LONDON bears many nightlife gifts in the run up to Christmas. Pleasure seekers can revel in Mason House, a 5000 sqft high-end nightclub on Argyll Street that has been designed to resemble a Masonic Temple. Guests enter the club through the crypt before arriving in an atmospheric main room fitted with neon installations, banquet seating, [...]
