City A.M.’s bumper Autumn Statement preview December 3, 2013 As chancellor George Osborne gets set to unveil this year's Autumn statement on Thursday, we've pulled together all the expected announcements, and what others are hoping for. Ladbrokes have 11/5 odds on the speech to run for 45 to 50 minutes (it's scheduled to start at 11.15am). You'll get 6/4 odds on the speech running [...]
Taxes and pension contributions are squeezing workers’ pay December 2, 2013 IT WAS meant to be one of the most basic rules of economics: the more people produce, the more they get paid. It is a long-standing, near-universal relationship that helps to explain why some jobs are so much more lucrative than others. But in recent years many have argued that the link has broken down, [...]
Treasury insists Britons benefiting from growth December 2, 2013 THE TREASURY insisted yesterday that compensation for workers in the UK is still closely linked to output, adding to debate over the cost of living in the lead up to the Autumn Statement. A new paper seen by City A.M. yesterday suggests that in the years since the crisis, the share of output going to [...]
Read my lips: Why the chancellor should commit to a lower tax burden December 2, 2013 TWO CAMPS exist in the Conservative Party on tax cuts. One thinks they should happen now to ease living costs, the other that it’s fiscally premature and imprudent to do them. There is logic in both. The purpose of taxation should be to finance state expenditures in the least distortionary way possible. Since spending is [...]
Letters to the Editor – 03/12 – Heathrow noise, Autumn Statement, Best of Twitter December 2, 2013 Heathrow noise [Re: Our innovative Heathrow plan could expand capacity without huge costs, Friday] It’s not clear to me that the author’s suggestions would limit the number of additional residents affected by Heathrow expansion, or merely dump even more noise on to those of us who already suffer. When the inspector gave the go-ahead for [...]
It’s a tough job but someone has got to do it December 1, 2013 The new boss of recruiter SThree tells Marion Dakers how his diverse business is navigating through the economic recovery AS THE festive party season rolls around again, staff at SThree will be looking forward to the office get-together more than most. Over the last few years, the white-collar recruiter has used its annual bash in [...]
The retail champion who puts fame after business December 1, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks T-shirts and Small Business Saturday with Made in Chelsea’s Oliver Proudlock THE SERGE DeNimes headquarters is a cosy studio-cum-office, located exactly where you would expect for a business whose founder has found fame on Channel 4’s hugely-successful reality TV show Made In Chelsea. I’m hesitant about interviewing Oliver Proudlock, who, when not [...]
Britain’s two nations are continuing to grow ever further apart November 30, 2013 WHEN Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century Prime Minister, wrote of “two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy”, he was of course referring to the rich and the poor. But according to a fascinating report from Deutsche Bank, today’s two nations are what it calls the lands that “fall either side of [...]
Britain’s two nations are continuing to grow ever further apart November 27, 2013 WHEN Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century Prime Minister, wrote of “two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy”, he was of course referring to the rich and the poor. But according to a fascinating report from Deutsche Bank, today’s two nations are what it calls the lands that “fall either side of [...]
There is nothing worse than self-righteousness in business November 21, 2013 REMEMBER the righteous folk telling us that the problem with banking was all those nasty, profit making global corporations, with their horrid shareholders and especially those awful hedge funds? And that the answer was to encourage small, regional co-operatives, with their senior management drawn from a broader cross-section of the community to boost corporate governance? [...]