Where’s the export recovery gone?
10 Mar 2010 [0 Comments | 127 views]
The cheap pound should have started making its impact by now. And yet the latest trade figures don’t bring even a hint of promise.
Mind you, there are those who say the euro is the currency that is about to suffer. Parity with the dollar is on the cards.
Here is a question for you. If the [...]
Monday’s digest – China looks to welfare, Manchester United looks at leverage, and the BCC looks at the UK’s tax on jobs.
8 Mar 2010 [0 Comments | 199 views]
It’s all kicking off in China. Maybe at last the economy behind the Great Wall is starting to see things the Western way.
Well, at least partially, anyway.
It was the time of the annual state of the nation address from China’s Premier, Wen Jiabao.
As you know, the problem in China is that the economy produces more [...]
Economic indicators point upwards
4 Mar 2010 [0 Comments | 259 views]
Okay, we all know it may not last, but take some pleasure from good news, even if deep down inside we think it will be a transient pleasure.
A string of economic indicators have come in over the last few days, and they all point one way – up.
First off the block was the latest Purchasing [...]
Monday Digest: Manufacturing soars, HSBC is sore
1 Mar 2010 [0 Comments | 155 views]
The UK economy may have only limped out of recession during the final quarter, but if the latest data from CIPS/Markit is any guide, manufacturing is positively booming. The latest Purchasing Managers Index – which is one of the most closely watched of all economic indicators – stayed firm in February, scoring 56.6. Okay, it [...]
UK not the only basket case. ONS stats mislead, and so does RBS profit figures
1 Mar 2010 [1 Comment | 223 views]
Everything seemed to go back to front over the weekend
On Friday, legendary investor Jim Rogers was reported as saying the UK was a basket case. The ONS revised its estimate of the UK’s GDP upwards, and RBS made profits of £5.7 billion.
That Monday morning feeling has bitten deep. For it appears that just about everything [...]
Basket-case UK gets waterproof bottom
26 Feb 2010 [0 Comments | 239 views]
The knives were being sharpened. Jim Rogers was at it, with the legendary investor calling the UK a basket case. On one side of the great divide we were told sterling would crash if the government didn’t slash spending immediately. The other half said sterling would crash if the government slashed spending too soon.
Business investment [...]
Mandy and Osborne in battle of ideas
22 Feb 2010 [2 Comments | 234 views]
So George Osborne reveals his big idea for reducing debt: Privatising the banks and letting taxpayers buy shares at a subsidised price.
The idea does have some merits, but it also has its faults.
Meanwhile, media reports suggest Peter Mandelson is working on a scheme that really does have the germ of a good idea behind it.
So [...]
Economist wars
19 Feb 2010 [5 Comments | 256 views]
Last weekend the Sunday Times thought it was presenting the voice of reason. Twenty economists wrote to the newspaper decrying the government deficit and calling for urgent cuts in government spending.
For the Tories it was like manna from heaven. Of course the economists were right. Across the land wise heads nodded.
Then yesterday two letters were [...]
Pictures at an economic exhibition
11 Feb 2010 [1 Comment | 278 views]
There are some pictures for you today.
The National Institute of Economics and Social Research (NIESR) has published its latest estimate for the UK’s performance for the month just gone. And in the process has updated it’s very pretty graph, which shows how the recession so far compares with the recession of the last century.
But not [...]
Exports spurt turns to export squirt
10 Feb 2010 [1 Comment | 171 views]
The latest trade figures were a tad disappointing. The eagerly awaited export led recovery is proving to be as elusive as flying PIIGS.
But peer into the figures, and there’s something odd. It concerns China, the surging level of our imports from the other side of the Great Wall, and what this says about US paranoia, [...]
