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Category Archives: Economics

Run Letter

By now you’ll know that twenty esteemed economists wrote a letter to the Sunday Times yesterday, calling on the government to start the tricky business of cutting the budget deficit earlier than some have advocated. You may be wondering why they didn’t instead write to the Chancellor-of-the-exchequer, since News International’s power over the government’s budget [...]

The Bankers’ Arms

Yesterday’s Newsnight was predictably devoted to the Pre-Budget Report – or Autumn Statement, as I sometimes inaccurately refer to it – wherein Paul Mason reported that he had spoken to some bankers in the City of London and they were livid about the announced plan to tax any discretionary bonus of theirs worth over £25,000 [...]

Not In My Name

In these tough economic times, of plummeting GDP and ballooning public debt, it is only right that all organisations, in both the public and private sector, look to cut costs wherever possible. Actually identifying such elusive efficiency savings is a notoriously tricky business; but if there is one place that can easily trim some unnecessary [...]

Nitty Gritty

The more it
Snows-tiddely-pom
The more it
Goes-tiddely-pom
The more it
Goes-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.
“Tiddely what?” you may well ask, and were you to do so you then would be joining a long and illustrious list consisting of Piglet, Dorothy Parker and myself among others. But this week’s snow has drawn a predictable response from our brainless media whining and opining about how [...]

Take The Biscuit

Last week in an interview shadow Chancellor George Osborne revealed how
the Prime Minister had barely spoken to him since they fell out three years ago over a Parliamentary vote, when Mr Osborne refused to cover for the then-Chancellor by pairing with him.
That’s intended to reflect badly on Gordon Brown, no doubt, but I don’t [...]

Political Economy

I’ve largely kept out of discussions about the current financial crisis, and in a bit I may well wish I had maintained that position. I try not to talk about issues I don’t really understand, and international finance is certainly one of those issues. On the rare occasions when my eyes don’t glaze over at [...]

A Short Post About Inflation

I have forgotten more about economics than I ever knew, and I hope to demonstrate that here today. While many people seem to be losing their heads over yesterday’s rise in the inflation figures, I’m long enough in the tooth to remember a time when such statistics would have been viewed with envy. Certainly inflation [...]

What A Shower

Fund manager Mark Mobius of Templeton Asset Management was interviewed about investing in emerging markets on the BBC’s Working Lunch programme last week. The interviewer, Nik Wood, began by asking just what an emerging market is.
It was actually the IFC, the International Finance Corporation at the World Bank. They were struggling with what to do [...]

Pump It Up (When You Don’t Really Need It?)

The BBC managed to get awfully excited by yesterday’s inflation figures; both Five Live and Newsnight led on the news that the Consumer Price Index had risen, from 2.1% to 2.2%, while the more widely trusted Retail Price Index had also gone up, from 4% to 4.1%. Cue doom and gloom all round.
But is that [...]

Terry’s All Gold

Yesterday Stephen Gerrard joined the fray in calling for some sort of quota system restricting the number of foreign players in the Premier League. What can have influenced his judgment? Could it be the sheer mediocrity of many of the foreigners he has played alongside at Liverpool that has blinded him to the valuable contribution [...]