City A.M.’s at-a-glance guide to the key points of Osborne’s mini-Budget November 29, 2011 UK ECONOMIC OUTLOOK • The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has slashed the growth forecasts it made in March. • Its central forecast for 2011 has been revised down to 0.9 per cent from the 1.7 per cent March prediction. It expects 0.7 per cent year-on-year GDP growth in 2012, instead of 2.5 per cent. [...]
Chancellor’s plans are a mixed bag November 27, 2011 THIS week’s Autumn statement by the chancellor will be like the proverbial curate’s egg: good in parts, bad in others, and as a result not entirely digestible. While bits of George Osborne’s plans rightly focus on liberating companies and individuals, others involve creating special schemes, funds and interventions, many of them gimmicks, and seek to [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 10, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES EXXON SIGNS KURD EXPLORATION CONTRACTS ExxonMobil has become the first of the “supermajor” oil companies to venture into Kurdistan, in a controversial move that will be seen as a huge vote of confidence in the semi-autonomous region of Iraq but could spark a backlash in Baghdad. Exxon, the largest international oil company, signed [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 2, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES LENOVO FOUNDER LIU STEPS DOWN AS CHAIRMAN The man who founded Lenovo and built it into the world’s second-biggest PC maker by sales has retired as chairman, handing over to his chief executive, in a sign of confidence that its recent turnround is on track. The retirement of Liu Chuanzhi came as Lenovo’s [...]
Radical thinking on tax from the US October 25, 2011 WHILE the Eurozone moves ever closer to the brink, the US presidential elections have suddenly become more interesting. Two of the Republican candidates – former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and Texas governor Rick Perry – have kick-started a major debate on tax reform and economic growth. It all started with Cain’s fascinating 9-9-9 plan: [...]
Inflation: an undemocratic stealth tax October 19, 2011 INFLATION is taxation without legislation, as Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize winning economist, once said. He was spot on. Yesterday’s figures were truly appalling: inflation on the retail price index measure hit 5.6 per cent, the fastest rate for 20 years. On the official consumer price index measure, it reached 5.2 per cent. Over the [...]
Inflation: an undemocratic stealth tax October 18, 2011 INFLATION is taxation without legislation, as Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize winning economist, once said. He was spot on. Yesterday’s figures were truly appalling: inflation on the retail price index measure hit 5.6 per cent, the fastest rate for 20 years. On the official consumer price index measure, it reached 5.2 per cent. Over the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 16, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES CHOPPY MARKETS THREATEN EMI SALE Turbulent financing markets could derail Citigroup’s attempt to sell EMI, according to people close to the $3bn-plus auction who warned that the US bank could abandon the sale if it cannot squeeze higher offers from bidders. The bidding process remains fluid, with Citigroup expected to decide within two [...]
GOLDMAN PREDICTS GREAT STAGNATION September 29, 2011 THE GREAT recession is in serious danger of becoming “the Great Stagnation”, according to research published by Goldman Sachs. “Both Europe and the US are remarkably close to the typical stagnation trajectory,” the report said, calculating that there is as much as a 40 per cent chance of major parts of the West experiencing an [...]
US new home sales fall to six-month low September 26, 2011 New single-family home sales in the US fell to a six-month low in August in a sign the crippled housing market will not provide much support for the flagging economy any time soon. The US Commerce Department said sales slipped 2.3 per cent to a seasonally adjusted 295,000-unit annual rate. The reading was in line [...]