Oil hits new high
28 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 57 views]
Oil surged again yesterday, this time hitting a new all-time high. When we took our daily reading from the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil was valued at $83.14 a barrel, a full dollar higher than the second-highest reading, recorded 9 days ago. The latest surge in oil came about as the senators in the United [...]
Shock to German recovery, inflation starts to soar in the country famous for low inflation
28 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 37 views]
Germans don’t like inflation. You may recall from your history, that during the pre war years, the country suffered from hyper inflation pushing the economy to its knees, and of course then creating an environment ripe for fascism. In France, between the wars, just like in the UK, a bigger problem was high unemployment. And [...]
And OECD gives UK glowing report, but sees room for improvement
28 Sep 2007 [1 Comment | 61 views]
Yesterday the OECD published its latest review of the UK economy. It was good stuff, GDP per capita is now the third highest in the G7, compared with the lowest 10 years earlier. It said the United Kingdom’s welcoming approach to globalisation has contributed to a strong growth performance. The positive note continued to ring [...]
Is the crisis near its end?
28 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 79 views]
Yesterday saw the first set of economic reports since the credit crisis first emerged. Meanwhile, in the US, markets were celebrating another day of gains as the Dow closed in on its all-time high. Cast your mind back to the end of July and the first few weeks of August when the markets saw big [...]
CBI man attacks Bank of England and FSA
27 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 50 views]
The CBI’s top man, Richard Lambert, used to be a member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee. So it seems reasonable to assume he knows a thing or two about our central bank. Yesterday he launched a scathing attack on the government, the FSA and Bank of England. Why didn’t the Bank of [...]
Nationwide dismisses effect of crisis. It’s just a case of removing “froth” it says
27 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 56 views]
Well, we now know what a fickle lot we are. The run on Northern Rock just goes to show how easily the public can panic. Presumably then if one of the big banks, or one of the companies that regularly publishes a report on the housing market, was to start predicting gloom, then panic would [...]
Bank of England money auction does dying swan act
27 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 56 views]
When the Bank of England agreed to inject £10 billion of liquidity into the money markets, many accused it of wimping out. One moment it was saying it did not want to reward banks for their reckless ways and the next it’s printing money like there is no tomorrow. Even the Economist magazine talked about [...]
Is Chinese bank planning to save Uncle Sam’s bacon?
27 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 52 views]
You may recall that when we first started hearing about the US subprime crisis, much of the news related to Bear Stearns, and how two of its hedge funds were set to collapse, so bad was their exposure to subprime. Bear Stearns is the fifth biggest US securities firm. Until problems fell on the company, [...]
Northern Rock gets bidders at last
26 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 55 views]
Debt has value; debt that seems fairly safe, that is not beset with default and payments problems has even more value and, let’s face it, Northern Rock owns an awful lot of debt. Not its debt, understand, but the mortgage borrowers it has lent money to in the past. The problem is this: the gap [...]
US housing woe and consumer confidence plunge to new lows
26 Sep 2007 [0 Comments | 41 views]
Earlier this year, analysts warned that should house prices stop rising, then the result could be recession. Falling house prices seemed unthinkable. And yet, things have got so much worse, but most are still saying recession can be avoided, and now they have started talking about mid-cycle blues. Take a deep breath, here is the [...]
