Bubble watching: from Chinese debt to US student loans

Fed at sixes and sevens

The markets like QE. You could say that in much the same way as you could say the sun is quite hot – that is to say the sun the star, not the ‘Sun’ the newspaper. But what will happen when QE is finally stopped, even reversed? Yesterday may have...Read More

China stumbles, Eurozone limps

It appears that the Chinese economy lurched backwards again in May. The Eurozone remained firmly in recession, or is that depression? So much for things looking up!

You may know that the Purchasing Managers’ Indices follow a formula, with any score over 50 meaning expansion; under 50 indicates contraction....Read More

UK retail sales fall again, but will they rise with the sun?

Was it down to bad weather or was it more ominous than that? UK retail sales fell 1.3 per cent in April after dipping 0.6 per cent the month before. Of late the news on the UK economy has been okay. Not brilliant that is for sure, but much better...Read More

UK drops from down the international wellbeing league

In 2005 the UK was in fifth place. In terms of household disposable income per head, only the US, Luxembourg, Norway and Germany were ahead of us.

Now look at 2011. According to the ONS, the UK is now in 12th spot.

Then the story...Read More

UK pension crisis in the making: do we need to save more, work longer, or just work smarter?

According to data from the ONS, the number of people aged 65 or over in employment has risen from 890,000 in the first quarter of 2012 to just under a million in Q1 of this year.

According to a survey from NS&I, just under a third of Britain's adults...Read More

Are the stock markets set to crash?

Is it all based on a lie? The central banks in the US, the UK and Japan are creating money. They are going out and – via the mechanism known as quantitative easing – are buying government debt. This forces the price of government debt upwards, making other assets look...Read More

Japan’s miracle cure has been tried before in Britain – and it worked

Here is your starter for ten points. Who was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the UK re-entered the gold standard? Bzzzz. Yes, that’s right, it was Winston Churchill. Now for your next question, who was chancellor in the 1930s, and adopted economic policies not dissimilar from those being applied in...Read More

Economic recovery says Bank of England inflation report.

It’s more of a trickle than a gush. It does appear that the UK economy is on the mend, however. But be warned, even as the ink dries on the computer monitor on which this article is being written, two pieces of news break that change the picture. There...Read More

UK grows on the back of bad old habits

The news on UK plc has been pleasing of late, but two doubts remain. Okay, the UK is expanding again, but it is growing from a very low base and very slowly. Secondly, is it the wrong type of growth?

So here is your starter for ten points: What...Read More

Baby boomers not saving enough

Let's hope you are sitting down because this may come as a shock. It turns out that a lot of Brits are not saving enough.

According to Prudential: “One in seven (14 per cent) people planning to retire this year will depend on the State Pension as they have...Read More

SEIS? never heard of it!

“SEIS makes the tax breaks on ISAs look miserly,” or says Jeff Lynn, co-founder and CEO of Seedrs. “Yet,” he says, “few investors have even heard of it.”

Mr Lynn is not wrong. The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme offers investors 50 per cent income tax rate, even if they are...Read More

Eurozone still in recession, but is that a hint of promise from Greece?

The recession continues, but maybe there were a couple of bits of good (ish) news lurking in the latest data on the economies that make up the Eurozone.

The Eurozone is still in recession. GDP contracted by 0.2 per cent in Q1 of this year, according to data out yesterday. The...Read More

FTSE 100 moves to within an inch of passing millennium high

For the record, the FTSE 100 peaked on December 30 1999 with a score of 6930. It then crashed, almost halving over the next few years. By the middle of the first decade of this century it was back in recovery mode, and by October 2007 hit 6721. Then it...Read More

Debt less of a burden for households

We asked is the debt on your home ‘a heavy burden’, ‘somewhat of a burden’ or ‘no problem at all’. The survey said: UH UHHHHH.

Actually, it was a bit more positive than that. The ONS has been looking at what it calls the burden of property debt in the UK,...Read More