Tough on dirty money? The UK has a way to go October 28, 2020 In 2016, the National Crime Agency estimated that £90bn is laundered via London each year. The UK government’s response was swift, with a commitment to “block dirty money flowing into the City of London”. It unveiled radical plans to “overhaul the approach to tackling economic crime, with greater partnering between the government, law enforcement and [...]
Forget the polls endorsing lockdowns and look at how people actually behave October 28, 2020 Economics is at long last storming the bastions of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). This citadel of epidemiologists and health professionals has for many months resisted the lessons which the so-called gloomy science can bring. In the context of Covid-19, economics is in fact a beacon of hope. This week, news broke of [...]
For the millions in digital poverty, local lockdowns mean utter isolation October 28, 2020 The debate around levelling up and the UK’s North/South divide has been reignited with a vengeance. With Greater Manchester pushed into Tier 3 last week along with Lancashire, and Warrington following yesterday, by the end of this week eight million people will be living under the strictest set of lockdown rules, predominantly in the north [...]
The Trump train hits Pennsylvania: A day in the key US election swing state October 27, 2020 Billy Joel’s 1982 song Allentown tells the tale of disaffected steel industry cities in North East Pennsylvania that were ravaged by deindunstrialisation and globalisation. Joel talks about blue collar workers from places like Allentown and Bethlehem that were left unemployed and pushed to the fringe of American culture in exchange for cheaper labour and products. [...]
Post-furlough job losses hit young and minority workers hardest, study shows October 27, 2020 One in five young people and more than one in five black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) workers who were furloughed during lockdown have since lost their jobs, according to a new report. A survey of more than 6,000 Brits by the Resolution Foundation think tank showed that while the furlough scheme curbed unemployment levels [...]
Microsoft beats revenue forecasts on cloud computing growth October 27, 2020 Microsoft posted a rise in revenue for the first quarter as the ongoing shift to home working helped drive up demand for its cloud computing services. Microsoft reported revenue of $37.2bn (£28.5bn) for the three months to the end of September, up 12 per cent on the same period last year and ahead of analysts’ [...]
Carlsberg raises full-year outlook as beer sales recover October 27, 2020 Carlsberg today lifted its expectations for the full year after posting a better-than-expected beer sales in the third quarter. The Danish brewer said it now expected operating profit to decline by a mid-single-digit percentage, compared to previous guidance of a high-single-digit percentage. It came after the company posted a 2.4 per cent rise in total [...]
Tech bosses to defend key internet law in front of US Senate October 27, 2020 The bosses of the world’s biggest tech giants will tomorrow launch an impassioned defence of a key law, arguing that it is crucial to maintaining freedom of expression online. During an appearance in front of the Senate commerce committee, the chief executives of Facebook and Twitter will defend Section 230, a provision of the 1996 [...]
Music scouting platform Instrumental secures Tencent backing October 27, 2020 A British music scouting firm that uses algorithms to discover new artists is said to have secured fresh investment from Chinese tech giant Tencent. Instrumental is set to announce the strategic partnership, which will see Tencent take a minority stake in the company, as early as tomorrow, Sky News reported. The deal will come as [...]
Decentralised exchanges: Solving the scaling problem October 27, 2020 Cryptocurrency, at its core, was designed as the ultimate financial disruption – requiring no centralised authority. And yet, there is a kind of paradox in the majority of crypto trading volume occuring on exchanges that are centralised. However, we are now seeing the beginnings of a shift towards decentralised exchanges (DEXs) such as Uniswap, Balancer, [...]
