I was on a business panel on local radio last night, and the opening question was this one: what would we like to see in George Osborne’s budget in a month’s time? It’s a question plenty of people are asking right now. It’s the season to get all your budget ideas out for discussion, and [...]
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The Greek bailout won’t work, and everyone knows it
It’s a “historic day” for Greece, according to Lucas Papademos, as Europe’s finance ministers have finally agreed a second massive cash injection for his ailing economy. In return for yet more budget cutting and even closer supervision, Greece gets €130bn. It’s enough to keep them in the Euro and avoid default. According to Jean Claude [...]
Five myths about the financial transaction tax
Yesterday Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would press ahead unilaterally with a Financial Transaction Tax. Advocates of a Robin Hood Tax were swift to celebrate, myself included. Needless to say, skeptics were equally swift to denounce it as a terrible mistake. There is a shrill paranoia about the financial transaction tax. It is epitomised by [...]
Can a country survive without any armed forces?
In an age of austerity and troubled government spending, one of the great opportunities for cost savings is on military expenditure. Britain has already trimmed its forces budgets and signed some new defense treaties to share resources. Five of our warships are to be decommissioned, and our aircraft carriers will fly US jets or French [...]
Immigration: choose your headline
It’s been a bizarre week for immigration headlines. ‘Immigration does not cause unemployment‘ declared the Independent on the front page. ‘Immigrants are not causing unemployment‘ said the Telegraph, and the Guardian announced that ‘Migrants do not affect jobless levels‘. Meanwhile the Mirror has reported that ‘Every four non-EU immigrants puts a Brit out of work‘, [...]
The Shard and the curse of the skyscraper
In six months time London will be the proud possessor of the tallest building in Europe. The Shard, currently splintering skywards on the South Bank, will stand over 1,000 feet tall on completion. If the architects are to be believed, it will be a glorious monument to London’s ambition. But the ‘tallest building’ game is [...]
Two lessons from Schumacher for stimulating the economy
There are all kinds of things in Schumacher’s writings that are ripe for rediscovery. Here are just two that caught my eye in my recent re-readings as being particularly relevant: The energy connection As a young man, Schumacher studied the problems of his country’s reconstruction efforts after the First World War. Germany’s coal production was [...]
Debtocracy
Debtocracy is a new documentary about Greece’s debt crisis. It’s by Greek filmmakers Katerina Kitidi and Aris Hatzistefanou, and they have posted it on the internet as a Creative Commons film so that anyone who wants to see it can watch it for free (like Yann Arthus Bertrand’s Home). I haven’t watched it all the [...]
Who owes what to whom
There’s a rather nifty little interactive piece on the BBC’s business pages at the moment, showing European networks external debt. Click on each country and you can see how much they owe, and who they owe it to. Here’s Britain’s external debt: Now that you’ve seen Britain’s click across and view Greece. I was [...]
Good news or bad news?
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been struck by a series of good news stories that have accidentally been reported as bad news stories. Here they are: Fewer new cars were registered on Britain’s roads this year. The supermarket chain Tesco has posted its lowest growth figures for 20 years. The British arms company [...]
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