AUSSIE COULD FALL BEYOND EXPECTATIONS October 4, 2011 VISTING Australia on business I am astounded at the cost everything. For an American, Sydney is now as prohibitively expensive as Zurich. A simple cup of coffee and a mineral water cost more than $12 at any sidewalk café. The high cost of living is a testament to the Aussie’s strong appreciation over the past [...]
Companies don’t pay taxes: we do. A Tobin Tax will cost us far more than it collects September 21, 2011 GLORY be, we are to be saved! As the TUC, President Nicolas Sarkozy, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Parliament agree, impose a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) upon the banks and Europe, or at least the euro, will be saved. The banks shall pay for their errors and kittens will gambol in sunshine once again. [...]
We need banks to fail more often – not less September 19, 2011 THE Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) has spoken, but not too loudly and with no real urgency. Even if its main recommendations are eventually adopted (such as ring-fencing the retail and investment arms of banks and raising capital requirements), few people feel that this will fix the banking sector’s problems. Even if these measures work, [...]
We need a new capitalist revolution: A young writer presents his provocative manifesto for free markets September 19, 2011 MORE people have climbed out of poverty in the past 50 years than did so in the 500 years before that. Life expectancies across the world have doubled in the last one hundred years. The global poverty rate has fallen from 25 per cent in 2005 to 12 per cent today. By 2015, it will [...]
Scandal dents Swiss bank’s reputation September 16, 2011 THE three keys that make up the UBS logo symbolise confidence, security and discretion. After yesterday’s news, that logo needs to be redesigned. Although the $2bn hit is likely to wipe out third quarter profits (estimated at $1.5bn by analysts), the loss itself will be manageable enough. UBS lost $1.32bn in the second quarter of [...]
Yet again the emperor has no clothes September 12, 2011 SURELY not. I mean, the Vickers Independent Commission on Banking couldn’t possibly be a case of the emperor having no clothes, could it? Yet as I read through the 358-page tome, a conclusion I couldn’t quite believe kept staring me in the face. If Vickers had never existed, many of the biggest reforms his report [...]
NEW REGULATION September 1, 2011 • Basel 2.5: The changes to banks’ capital regime introduced over 2009-2010 rejigged the methods that banks must use to calculate the value of their “risk-weighted assets” (RWA) – that is, their total assets adjusted for certain kinds of risk. This shifted banks from a Basel II regime to what the industry calls “Basel 2.5”. [...]
Crisis fails to dampen deal prices August 22, 2011 PENSION transfer prices have held up despite the market volatility linked to the sovereign debt crisis, experts said yesterday. America’s credit rating downgrade and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis have had little impact on corporate bond yields, which drive the price costs of pension insurance buyouts and buy-ins – known as bulk annuities. Pensions consultant [...]
More misery August 17, 2011 STUBBORNLY high inflation and unemployment have pushed Britain’s misery index to record levels, according to official data released yesterday. The misery index – used by economists to estimate the unhappiness spread by joblessness and the rising cost of living – almost certainly jumped to a fresh high last month, as an extra 37,100 people joined [...]
Train ticket prices to rise by up to 13pc August 16, 2011 RAIL commuters will face inflation-busting hikes in ticket prices next year, which could see some fares rise by as much as 13 per cent, following the release of latest inflation figures yesterday. Under the revised scheme, which was set out in the Treasury’s spending review last October, regulated fares such as season tickets will rise [...]