It is time for the BBC to allow its viewers freedom to choose November 12, 2012 WHAT a mess. The BBC, Britain’s most powerful and influential media company, is in crisis; the resignation of its director general hasn’t been enough to halt the chaos. Radical changes are needed to reform, strengthen and preserve the BBC; if Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, doesn’t want to introduce them then he [...]
End of quantitative easing will stop mad monetary recycling November 8, 2012 IT is time for George Osborne to start worrying. The Chancellor will be the biggest loser from the Bank of England’s right and proper decision to halt quantitative easing, at least for the time being. The biggest problem with QE – apart from its increasing lack of impact and the pain inflicted upon savers and [...]
Ten observations on a historic election for the United States November 7, 2012 1 The popular vote was very close: 50.4-48.1 per cent, and a gap of 2.8m votes, against 52.9-45.7 per cent and 9.5m votes in 2008. Obama’s lead was cut from 7.2 points to 2.3 points. However, Obama triumphed in all of the swing states. 2 Many factors destroyed Romney: he was a poor candidate with [...]
Ten observations on a historic election for the United States November 7, 2012 1 The popular vote was very close: 50.4-48.1 per cent, and a gap of 2.8m votes, against 52.9-45.7 per cent and 9.5m votes in 2008. Obama’s lead was cut from 7.2 points to 2.3 points. However, Obama triumphed in all of the swing states. 2 Many factors destroyed Romney: he was a poor candidate with [...]
So much for the election. Now America must regain its mojo November 6, 2012 AS ever, the actual voting was the easy bit. The truly epic task comes next: trying to mend the US economy. Contemporary America is a strange place: in some ways, it remains astonishingly successful; in others, remarkably weak. More than ever, the giant has feet of clay, a tragedy for those of us who love [...]
City jobs bloodbath shows that backlash has gone too far November 5, 2012 IT is time to start worrying about London’s financial and business services industry. The City is in crisis, with job cuts spiralling out of control. As we report on our front page, City-style jobs – investment banking, securities, corporate finance, trading, research, derivatives and forex, fund management (including hedge funds and private equity), insurance and [...]
America’s jobs nightmare requires fresh thinking November 5, 2012 TOMORROW is decision day for Americans, who must choose who they want to see in the White House for the next four years: Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent, or Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger. America will also be voting for a new Congress. This newspaper is not shy of giving its endorsements to candidates in [...]
World’s freest economies managed to avoid banking crisis November 1, 2012 IT is usually claimed that the financial crisis was caused by excessively free markets. Those of us who disagree – and emphasise governments’s role in distorting markets, including by subsidising risk via the moral hazard caused by insane taxpayer guarantees and by fuelling credit and property bubbles via excessively loose monetary policy – are in [...]
David Cameron deserved to be defeated on the EU budget October 31, 2012 IT is hard to know what David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is playing at. His humiliating defeat at the hands of an unholy alliance of Tory Eurosceptic MPs and Labour opportunists was yet another blow to his authority. The rebels’ cause was a good one: Cameron wants to freeze the EU budget in real terms [...]
A corporatist economic growth plan that won’t rescue UK Plc October 30, 2012 IT is impossible not to like Michael Heseltine. He is an astonishingly successful individual, a great entrepreneur, a passionate speaker who genuinely cares about the poor, and a man who almost became Prime Minister. The tragedy is that while his goals are laudable the means he wishes to use to achieve them are generally deeply [...]