Ireland shows austerity does work September 20, 2011 IRELAND has experienced more austerity than most during its troubled history. Its 2011 budget was no potato famine, but tough nonetheless. Social welfare payments were cut by an average of four per cent – the first cuts since 1924 – and public sector pay was slashed by between five and ten per cent. Last month, [...]
Scandal dents Swiss bank’s reputation September 16, 2011 THE three keys that make up the UBS logo symbolise confidence, security and discretion. After yesterday’s news, that logo needs to be redesigned. Although the $2bn hit is likely to wipe out third quarter profits (estimated at $1.5bn by analysts), the loss itself will be manageable enough. UBS lost $1.32bn in the second quarter of [...]
Gatwick Express faces strike action September 16, 2011 GATWICK Express passengers could be facing ongoing disruptions, after it was announced that rail workers on the line are to be balloted for industrial action in response to the threat of job cuts. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has confirmed that it is prepared to lead its members to strike action in response [...]
Gatwick Express faces strike action September 16, 2011 GATWICK Express passengers could be facing ongoing disruptions, after it was announced that rail workers on the line are to be balloted for industrial action in response to the threat of job cuts. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has confirmed that it is prepared to lead its members to strike action in response [...]
PUBS WAR CAN WAIT AS JOE LEWIS EXPECTS NEW GREAT-GRANDCHILD September 14, 2011 ALL EYES remain on financier Joe Lewis, whose surprise appearance in London on his superyacht Aviva ten days ago has been satisfactorily explained by this week’s hostile move to take control of pub chain Mitchells & Butlers. Case closed. Or is it? As ever with the enigmatic Bahamas-based billionaire, the truth is rather more surprising [...]
French bank funding fears are here to stay September 13, 2011 In case you were wondering, the French word for seesaw is “balencoire”. If yesterday’s yo-yoing of French bank share prices is anything to go by, it should come in handy. Just don’t ask what “les plans de sauvetage du gouvernement” means – it doesn’t bear thinking about. Shares in BNP Paribas closed up 7.2 per [...]
Reaction | Focus on Vickers September 12, 2011 THE BUSINESS LEADER CONFEDERATION OF BRITISH INDUSTRY DR NEIL BENTLEY “The UK is going it alone on ring-fencing, so the government must rigorously examine how and when to implement these proposals, otherwise it risks damaging businesses and threatening growth. The Commission is right to recommend a flexible approach to ring-fencing and suggest a reasonable time frame for [...]
Rising copper prices hit commuters as thieves steal cables September 12, 2011 LONDON commuters yesterday suffered severe delays on the train network following the theft of copper-based signal cables in Guildford, Surrey. The incident, believed to have taken place on Sunday night, disrupted the journeys of hundreds of thousands of rail customers travelling on South West Trains between Hampshire and London Waterloo. There have been three further [...]
Banker bashers rejoice: financiers lose livelihoods September 1, 2011 THERE are two very common misconceptions about the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In our special feature on pages eight and nine, we demolish the first: that it is business as usual for banks. The second is that very few bankers lost their jobs as a result of the crisis. Nothing could be further [...]
Without founder Apple will lose edge August 25, 2011 ONE of the rooms in my father’s house is full of old Apple products, a kind of museum of Macs gone by. Those made between 1985 and 1997 – the period of Steve Jobs’ exile – are rubbish. The worst, such as the Newton, an early tablet computer, are so bad that they are pristine, [...]