Why it’s no time to be complacent about the UK’s inflation problem November 12, 2013 THE SURPRISE fall in the annual inflation rate in October to 2.2 per cent on the consumer price index and 2.6 per cent on the retail price index is obviously welcome news. However, it’s too soon to be complacent. It also reminds us that inflation has been consistently above the Bank of England’s 2 per [...]
The Greenbelt sacred cow: It pens in the poor for no environmental gain | City A.M. November 11, 2013 GREENBELTS combine the qualities of sacred cows and juggernauts. To question their benignly green and fair credentials is to invite abuse: yet the unstoppable damage they do to societal fairness, housing affordability, the economic efficiency of our cities, even the environment, is devastating. Greenbelts have a mystical quality, in that almost everything we believe about [...]
The Greenbelt sacred cow: It pens in the poor for no environmental gain November 10, 2013 GREENBELTS combine the qualities of sacred cows and juggernauts. To question their benignly green and fair credentials is to invite abuse: yet the unstoppable damage they do to societal fairness, housing affordability, the economic efficiency of our cities, even the environment, is devastating. Greenbelts have a mystical quality, in that almost everything we believe about [...]
Letters to the Editor – 11/11 – Interest rates, House building, Best of Twitter November 10, 2013 Interest rates [Re: The UK’s hawks are right – but so are the Eurozone’s doves, Friday] Interest rates at 2.5 per cent would restore real returns to those with savings and pensions. At the same time, it would kill the corrosively damaging house price bubble – itself the product of supply rationing by the state, [...]
Europe ignores its relative decline – the UK could have a different future November 7, 2013 A NEW strain of gormlessness is infecting Europe. Despite the temporary distraction of a European Central Bank rate cut, it’s the problems besetting America and the Brics that have been noisily and gleefully recounted in European newspapers on a daily basis. These difficulties are certainly real, but their prominent coverage belies the intellectual blind alley [...]
London must learn from New York’s woes and build more homes November 6, 2013 ONE of the perennial myths about this country is that we are somehow uniquely keen on home-ownership and are culturally averse to renting. That’s nonsense: 70.7 per cent of those who live across the EU’s 27 member states are owner-occupiers, against just 64 per cent (and falling fast) in England and Wales. Having risen from just [...]
Against the Grain: It’s time to fight the claim that consumer choice doesn’t improve public services November 5, 2013 DO CHOICE and competition between suppliers improve the quality of outcomes for consumers? The answer may seem so obvious to City A.M. readers that it’s hardly worth asking. But a powerful strand of political opinion is building up to an attack on the concept. The new Labour shadow transport secretary Mary Creagh said last week [...]
Letters to the Editor – 25/10 – Deferred costs, Best of Twitter October 24, 2013 Deferred costs [Re: The global economy sinks under its debts as the real cost of energy rises, yesterday] Tim Morgan’s article strikes at the real issue facing the global economy and all of us. Perpetual growth is almost certainly over. The debt problem of the credit crisis has not gone away, it has simply been transferred [...]
Corporatism, rigged markets and a new ideological showdown October 22, 2013 FORGET the old politics of left versus right. Britain faces a choice between three philosophies – capitalism, corporatism and social democracy – with adherents scattered across all political parties, as the nuclear energy fiasco has demonstrated yet again. Capitalism involves a genuinely private sector that competes for customers: if companies make a profit, they expand, [...]
Corporatism, rigged markets and a new ideological showdown October 21, 2013 FORGET the old politics of left versus right. Britain faces a choice between three philosophies – capitalism, corporatism and social democracy – with adherents scattered across all political parties, as the nuclear energy fiasco has demonstrated yet again. Capitalism involves a genuinely private sector that competes for customers: if companies make a profit, they expand, [...]