Rail fares wipe benefit of commuting October 2, 2011 The projected eight per cent rise in rail fares next year looks set to tip the balance of affordability against young professional families and first time city buyers seeking to move out of London. Research from home finders County Homesearch found the combined cost of travel season tickets and mortgage repayments for homeowners in commuter [...]
Branson’s challenge: change banking November 17, 2011 FOR a man who built much of his empire on the back of Boeing jumbo jets, it was fitting to see Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin pay out £747m for Northern Rock. George Osborne was right to sell the Rock – there was no guarantee that holding on would have engineered a better deal for the [...]
The Vickers Report got the causes of the crisis wrong: Its solutions are wrong too November 16, 2011 THE Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) misdiagnosed the causes of the banking crisis, and its prescriptions are therefore equally wrong. That is the blunt message of a report and briefing paper that Miles Saltiel and I are publishing today with the Adam Smith Institute. And yet – there is some merit in the idea of [...]
City AM interview Paul Fisher of the Bank of England February 23, 2012 Senior Bank of England official Paul Fisher was interviewed on Wednesday 22nd February 2012, by Allister Heath and Julian Harris from City A.M. The edited transcript is as follows: Paul, would you like to start with how you see the outlook at the moment? I think it continues to be a story where the outlook [...]
Krawcheck in line for $6m payout as BofA pays off ousted execs October 9, 2011 BANK of America will pay $11m (£7m) to ousted executives Joe Price and Sallie Krawcheck – a large payout at a time when banks face protests over pay, but smaller than the eight-figure packages some executives received before the financial crisis. Krawcheck – a former Citigroup executive who came to Bank of America in 2009 [...]
Krawcheck in line for $6m payout as BofA pays off ousted execs October 9, 2011 BANK of America will pay $11m (£7m) to ousted executives Joe Price and Sallie Krawcheck – a large payout at a time when banks face protests over pay, but smaller than the eight-figure packages some executives received before the financial crisis. Krawcheck – a former Citigroup executive who came to Bank of America in 2009 [...]
BUY November 3, 2011 DIRECTOR OF ESTATE AGENT DOUGLAS & GORDON Q.We’ve been offered a flat but the lease is less than 80 years. Should we avoid buying a short lease? A.The explosion in flat conversions sold off on 99-year leases in the 1980s has meant many of these flats now have leases approaching or below 80 years. In London, [...]
The penny drops at last in Europe November 9, 2011 IN a rational market, risk as well as return is at the forefront of investors’ minds. They demand a high rate of interest to lend to risky companies, individuals or countries – and a low one to invest in safe havens. The problem during bubbles is that investors drunk on excessive liquidity – and who [...]
Inflation: an undemocratic stealth tax October 19, 2011 INFLATION is taxation without legislation, as Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize winning economist, once said. He was spot on. Yesterday’s figures were truly appalling: inflation on the retail price index measure hit 5.6 per cent, the fastest rate for 20 years. On the official consumer price index measure, it reached 5.2 per cent. Over the [...]
Inflation: an undemocratic stealth tax October 18, 2011 INFLATION is taxation without legislation, as Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize winning economist, once said. He was spot on. Yesterday’s figures were truly appalling: inflation on the retail price index measure hit 5.6 per cent, the fastest rate for 20 years. On the official consumer price index measure, it reached 5.2 per cent. Over the [...]