Our energy crisis, like America’s debt idiocy, is self-inflicted October 8, 2013 IT is easy to laugh at America’s political system, which is once again showing itself to be hopelessly defective as it trundles along towards a possible default. In a development which oozes geopolitical significance, China and Japan, America’s top creditors, yesterday made their displeasure known in no uncertain terms. It is exactly what those of [...]
Our energy crisis, like America’s debt idiocy, is self-inflicted October 7, 2013 IT is easy to laugh at America’s political system, which is once again showing itself to be hopelessly defective as it trundles along towards a possible default. In a development which oozes geopolitical significance, China and Japan, America’s top creditors, yesterday made their displeasure known in no uncertain terms. It is exactly what those of [...]
Energy innovation is stagnating and the implications for growth are stark October 3, 2013 EVERY day seems to bring better websites, cooler startups and niftier smartphones. But there’s one area where technological progress is barely crawling along. Unfortunately, it’s one race we cannot afford to lose. I’m talking, of course, about energy. To get an idea of the problem we face, consider two stories from last week: Ed Miliband’s [...]
Coeure calls for limited national control on bloc’s banking union September 30, 2013 EUROPEAN Central Bank (ECB) board member Benoit Coeure argued in favour of limiting Eurozone nations’ discretion over new bail-in rules during a speech yesterday. Coeure said: “The degree of discretion national resolution authorities will have in applying the bail-in rules… in my view should be as constrained as possible.” Some leaders have dragged their feet [...]
The US is busy reinventing its future – the rest of the world isn’t so lucky September 29, 2013 I'VE always been a John Steinbeck/ Bruce Springsteen sort of American. I share their common mantra, "Aren't things terrible here, but I wouldn't want to be anyplace else." Being clear-eyed about the US's failings, while remaining romantic about it at heart isn't easy. But America's extraordinary capacity to right its ship – to reinvent itself [...]
Current account swapping edges up on seven-day switch system September 26, 2013 THE FIRST 10 days of the new seven-day switching system saw 35,000 current account customers move to a new bank or building society, the Payments Council revealed yesterday. That is an increase of six per cent on the level of switching in an average 10-day period through 2012. New systems were introduced in an effort [...]
Lessons from Italy: What happens when businesses are forced to move abroad September 25, 2013 THE 42 employees of Firem, an Italian heating systems maker, returned from their August holidays to find the plant where they worked had relocated to Poland. Firem is not the only recent Italian escape act. Italy’s entrepreneurs, facing the second-to-worst business climate in the developed word, on World Bank figures, are leaving. And union power [...]
Miliband’s lurch to left is a recipe for disaster September 25, 2013 WE NOW know what Labour’s strategy to win the next election will be: shift to the left, bash business, stoke envy and jealousy, attack the City and come up with a raft of populist policies. It might even work. New Labour is well and truly over, an experiment now deemed an obsolete, almost shameful failure [...]
Miliband’s lurch to left is a recipe for disaster September 24, 2013 WE NOW know what Labour’s strategy to win the next election will be: shift to the left, bash business, stoke envy and jealousy, attack the City and come up with a raft of populist policies. It might even work. New Labour is well and truly over, an experiment now deemed an obsolete, almost shameful failure [...]
Labour pledges to raise UK corporation tax September 23, 2013 IN BRIGHTON ED MILIBAND will today announce a raid on the profits of large UK businesses, as he commits to reversing the coalition’s planned corporation tax cut. The Labour leader will tell his party’s annual conference in Brighton that his government would scrap plans to reduce corporation tax – the charge levied on companies’ profits [...]