The hawk gets in again King to serve second term
31 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 252 views]
Ask any dove this question; and you are sure to get the same reply. Do you like hawks? No we are terrified of them.But, then again, the truth is most of us are doves. Unless we are prodigious savers, or mainly live off our savings, we like to see low interest rates. And organisations such as the British Retail Consortium seem to twitter away calling out for interest rate cuts as frequently as any bird chirping at nesting time. The tabloids, with their fool's quest to maintain the property bubble, positively squawk out their demands for interest rate cuts, every time bad news hits the headlines.
Yet, yesterday, the Government reappointed the arch hawk.
Bill and Ben: US bills set to rise, but Ben slashes away
31 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 222 views]
nd so the Fed duly obliged yesterday. In cutting the rate of interest by half a per cent, just a week or so after its last cut, it has certainly been the case that this January has seen the Fed try its best to ease the pain of this darkest of winter months. And now [...]
Golden rule about to turn to iron pyrites rule
31 Jan 2008 [2 Comments | 219 views]
Alistair Darling would need to announce fresh tax increases worth about 8 billion in this year’s Budget to keep public sector debt below the Government’s self-imposed ceiling, and to bring about the improvement in the public finances over the next five years that the Treasury wants to see, or so says the Institute of Fiscal [...]
Mortgages fall again, while US nurses need financial resuscitation to buy a home
31 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 223 views]
The Bank of England had more bad news yesterday, but spare a thought for poor old US nurses, house prices across the pond are now so expensive they can’t even get a foot on the property ladder. According to the latest Bank of England report on mortgage lending, 226,000 mortgages were approved for all purposes [...]
Chart of the day
31 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 162 views]
Cure or poison: China prepares to loosen chains on yuan
30 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 196 views]
Be careful with what you wish for, goes the famous saying. All young kids know from their fairly tales that wishes can go wrong, but here is a modern-day fairy tale. It doesn't concern three pigs, rather it concerns billions of pigs, Sleeping Beauty is the world's most populous country, and the big bad wolf, appears to be US paranoia.
For some time now, the US has had this tendency to blame all its ills on China. If only China would allow the yuan to appreciate, goes the argument, we would sell more goods abroad. Meanwhile, many US politicians, with Hilary Clinton in their vanguard, are calling for more protectionism.
Protectionism stands as one of the biggest threats to future global growth. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, not exactly a man known for his free-trade credentials, is worried about it. If we do not want a return to protectionism we have to show transparency," he warned yesterday, while he and his chums Angela Merkel, acting Italian prime minister Romano Prodi and EU president Jos Manuel Barroso, were round Gordon's house in Downing Street for tea and biscuits.
But in addition to the wolf, this fairy tale has another beast:
Will the UK follow the US into repossession horror too in 2008?
30 Jan 2008 [1 Comment | 347 views]
A couple of weeks ago, David Smith, economics editor for The Sunday Times, described much of the talk about what will happen when a million or so people come off fixed rate mortgages this year, as daft. Well, if he is right, then the Financial Services Authority can count themselves amongst the daft. Because yesterday, [...]
IMF downgrades US again, but at least it’s celebration time for Russia and Africa
30 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 177 views]
The IMF is putting on a passable impression of a cat chasing its tail at the moment. Yesterday, it revised its latest estimates for global economic growth this year, and once again downgraded its forecasts for the US. Yet this august economics institution, which is supposed to be ahead of the curve, really only seemed to confirm what most of us suspected at the time when its previous set of projections were released, that they were far too optimistic.
Is the High Street seeing a soft landing?
30 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 123 views]
Well, there was good news amongst the bad from the CBI yesterday.
In the latest instalment in its distributive trades survey, the CBI said the balance between retailers saying sales were up, minus those saying they were down, during the first two weeks of January, was the lowest since November 2006. In fact, 39 per cent of respondents said year-on-year sales volumes rose in the first half of January, while 34 per cent said they were down; that makes, after allowing for rounding, a balance of plus 4.
But, here is the good news,
chart of the day
30 Jan 2008 [0 Comments | 127 views]
