Prophets and loss: why forecasts fail September 26, 2011 “IN 1984, the Economist asked sixteen people to make ten-year forecasts of economic growth rates, exchange rates, oil prices, and other staples of economic prognostication. Four of the test subjects were former finance ministers, four were chairmen of multinational companies, four were economics students at Oxford University, and four were London dustmen. A decade later, [...]
To understand the future of oil, ask the right question September 26, 2011 “WHY CAN’T WE predict the price of oil? That’s the wrong question. What we should ask is, in a non-linear world, why would we think oil prices can be predicted. Practically since the dawn of the oil industry in the nineteenth century, experts have been forecasting the price of oil. They’ve been wrong ever since. [...]
Defending wholesalers September 26, 2011 Wholesalers are the middlemen that oil the wheels of commerce – integral for national and international economic coordination, and crucial for the growing wealth of nations. Particularly maligned when supplies are disrupted, wholesale businesses are also vital to the recalculation necessary to deal with change. ECONOMIC COORDINATION Complex economic coordination is a wonder of human [...]
WORKING WITH INSURERS CAN CUT OUT FRAUD September 26, 2011 UK CLAIMS FRAUD & INVESTIGATIONS MANAGER, ZURICH INSURANCE DAY in day out, we hear about the impact of fraud on the personal insurance market. The industry-led Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) was formed to work on this area specifically and their hard work, alongside insurers has really helped to bring the issue to the forefront of [...]
The euro rollercoaster isn’t over: The new plan to save it is a complete non-starter September 26, 2011 THERE was quite a bit of excitement in the media and financial markets over the weekend. The hot news was that Eurozone leaders, on the sidelines of the G20 summit, forged a new grand scheme to save the embattled euro. The plan, we were told by some, would be announced “within days”. Alas, details are [...]
Red Ed needs the speech of his life to survive today September 26, 2011 IT IS RARE that a party leader of just twelve months standing is faced with making a speech that is considered to be make-or-break for his future prospects. But that is exactly the position facing Ed Miliband as he delivers his Labour conference speech in Liverpool today. A strong summer performance on phone hacking cannot [...]
Creating the right jobs is harder than it looks September 26, 2011 BARACK Obama realises that the key to keeping his own job is to start creating them for other people. The US unemployment figures are high (above 9 per cent), sustained (the recession officially ended almost two years ago), and deepening (half of the unemployed have been out of work for more than 6 months). His [...]
RAPID RESPONSES September 26, 2011 Rating the OBR Dagong Global Credit cut the UK’s credit rating in May. The cut came with a revision of the UK’s growth forecast to 1.3-1.5 per cent this year, rather than the 1.7 per cent predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The IMF just revised its UK growth forecast to 1.1 per cent, [...]
MARKETS NOT HAPPY WITH FED’S TWIST September 26, 2011 ANYONE hoping that last week’s FOMC statement would help to calm markets has been bitterly disappointed. On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve announced that it plans to sell $400bn of short-term debt and buy $400bn of longer-dated Treasury bonds. This operation is designed to put a lid on longer-term interest rates while keeping the size [...]
Kicking the Eurozone can down the autobahn September 26, 2011 YESTERDAY saw more volatility in the markets – triggered by a mixture of the weekend’s announcements and by bargain-hunters going shopping in the equity markets hoping to snap up stocks that they saw as being oversold. At the weekend, Christine Lagarde led an IMF summit, warning that the $384bn (£248bn) earmarked as an emergency bail-out [...]
