Bottom Line: Beware of history repeating itself February 11, 2014 CAST your mind back to October 2008. As the financial crisis took hold, governments across the world unveiled multi-billion bank recapitalisation plans, while central banks simultaneously slashed interest rates to record lows and the FTSE plunged lower – falling a full 10 per cent in one single session. Over in Ukraine, meanwhile, the hryvnia was [...]
Flooding crisis: A case study in the failure of government on all levels February 11, 2014 THE STATE’S many faces have been tearing pieces out of each other as the water level rises around London commuter towns. Who is to blame for England’s flooding crisis? Eric Pickles said it was the Environment Agency, but now thinks everyone should work together. Labour’s Lord Smith, the Agency’s head, has criticised spending cuts. David [...]
Why wage subsidies are not the best way to help the poorest paid in Britain February 5, 2014 BRITAIN’S tax credit regime was introduced by Gordon Brown in an attempt to boost the living standards of the low paid. But by topping up pay, this effective state wage subsidy has worrying long-term implications for the worst off and the economy. Tax credits suppress natural market pay rises, encourage overmanning (particularly in non-growth sectors), [...]
Tech resentment in San Francisco is ignoring the real culprit: Government February 4, 2014 RENTS are rising, pushing people on low incomes out of the neighbourhoods they’ve lived in for years. Resentment towards the rich is growing, with the most profitable and dynamic industries singled out for the most ire. Talk of a cost of living crisis, driven above all by the cost of housing, is dominating politics. This [...]
Tech resentment in San Francisco is ignoring the real culprit: Government February 3, 2014 RENTS are rising, pushing people on low incomes out of the neighbourhoods they’ve lived in for years. Resentment towards the rich is growing, with the most profitable and dynamic industries singled out for the most ire. Talk of a cost of living crisis, driven above all by the cost of housing, is dominating politics. This [...]
Federal Reserve’s selfishness triggered emerging markets chaos January 28, 2014 IF you want to know what old fashioned, hard-core monetary policy used to look like – the kind that those readers who lived through the UK’s European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) humiliation will remember – look no further than what happened to Turkey, a country at the epicentre of the growing emerging market crisis, last [...]
The grave crises facing Putin’s Russia lay bare its fundamental weaknesses January 28, 2014 CHAOS in Kiev must feel uncomfortably close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian parliament yesterday annulled laws that sought to clear the streets of protesters against Ukraine’s increasingly authoritarian pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s prime minister and government have quit, and the country stands perilously on the edge of deeper conflict – prompted initially [...]
As Miliband also sets sights on the SME vote January 26, 2014 SPEAKING after David Cameron’s keynote speech at the Federation of Small Businesses this morning, Labour’s Chuka Umunna will announce that the party would set up a Small Businesses Administration (SBA) if it wins the 2015 general election. The new forum would work across government departments to promote the small business agenda. “We need government to [...]
Why more young people than ever are living with their parents January 21, 2014 (ONS) Over a quarter of British adults between the ages of 20 and 34 were living with their parents last year – that’s 3.3m people and the biggest increase since the crisis, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Increasing living costs and job pressures carry on preventing people from moving out. [...]
How regenerating failed high rises can gift London thousands of extra homes January 20, 2014 A QUIET announcement, with potentially significant implications for London’s housing crisis, lay hidden in the detail of last year’s Autumn Statement: the government will “explore options for kick-starting the regeneration of some of the worst housing estates through repayable loans.” Is this just another excuse to spend taxpayers’ money? I hope not. It could be [...]