One in six UK cigarettes from black market April 19, 2013 MORE than one in six cigarettes smoked in the UK has been bought illegally, costing the Treasury billions in lost tax revenues, a new report claims. Research from KPMG claims that illicit cigarettes accounted for 16.4 per cent of the UK market in 2012, above the EU average of 11.1 per cent. It also claimed [...]
Only real school choice for parents can inspire an education revolution April 19, 2013 IN THE past century, most parts of the economy have seen a fundamental transformation in how things are produced and delivered. Yet schools today function pretty much as they did 100 years ago. The radical progress characterising modern societies simply does not apply to education. And there’s a reason for this. A fundamental difference between [...]
Migration rules pose threat to City April 19, 2013 London depends on its ability to attract the very best talent ACCA COMMENT FOOTBALL has few similarities to the finance profession. But they are similar when it comes to the need to attract the best talent to London and the UK. The future of London as a global financial centre has been a topic of [...]
In defence of One Direction: Why high earnings are no reflection of morality April 19, 2013 THE One Direction backlash has begun. Yesterday, critics reportedly dubbed the boy band’s £25m earnings last year “insensitive” and “grossly immoral”. Not only are millions of Directioners now up in arms, but an economics howler was committed to boot. Criticisms like these forget why it is that people get rich. Earnings are not a reflection [...]
Where next for the yellow metal? April 19, 2013 Gold experts Georges Lequime and Paul Tustain, both speaking at City A.M.’s Active Trader Conference this year, give their perspectives on recent moves in the price, what drives the precious metal, and what will happen next GEORGES LEQUIME FOR the first time in my twenty years as a gold fund manager, and previously sell-side analyst, [...]
Thatcher’s guru F.A. Hayek would have predicted the crisis April 14, 2013 FOR once, Ed Miliband had it right. In his surprisingly statesman-like tribute to Margaret Thatcher, the Labour leader explained the intellectual roots of her policies and political philosophy. It is, equally unusually, worth quoting him at length. “Before the end of the war”, Miliband recounted, “she bought a copy of Friedrich Hayek’s [a Nobel prize [...]
Five myths about Margaret Thatcher that must be refuted April 14, 2013 FAR too much nonsense is being spoken about Lady Thatcher’s time in office. Here is my take on five key myths. MYTH 1: POPULARITY Thatcher won 43.9 per cent of the vote in 1979, 42.4 per cent per cent in 1983 and 42.2 per cent per cent in 1987, landslide results that contemporary politicians can [...]
IMF warns of easy money timebomb April 14, 2013 PRINTING money for years on end risks long-term damage to the economy and parts of the financial sector, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned yesterday. After so much quantitative easing (QE), it will be very hard for central banks like the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve to even begin reversing the extraordinarily loose [...]
Margaret Thatcher: Revolutionary heroine of Britain’s working class April 14, 2013 SHUT your eyes and think of Margaret Thatcher (twin-set, pearls, hand bag, smells nice) and Fidel Castro (combat fatigues, bushy beard, revolver, smells of backy). Which one is the firebrand working-class revolutionary? The answer, of course, is Thatcher. The vile Castro enslaved and impoverished the many-headed in Cuba. Thatcher enriched and liberated them in Britain. [...]
The Old Lady’s staff – gamers and gold bugs April 13, 2013 BANK of England employees spend their worktime playing online games, planning trips to expensive shops and working out how to buy gold, according to data obtained by The Capitalist. We’ve got hold of a list of the top 500 websites visited by central bank employees over the last year – and it reveals their most popular [...]
