Crisis fails to dampen deal prices August 22, 2011 PENSION transfer prices have held up despite the market volatility linked to the sovereign debt crisis, experts said yesterday. America’s credit rating downgrade and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis have had little impact on corporate bond yields, which drive the price costs of pension insurance buyouts and buy-ins – known as bulk annuities. Pensions consultant [...]
We need a new capitalist revolution: A young writer presents his provocative manifesto for free markets September 19, 2011 MORE people have climbed out of poverty in the past 50 years than did so in the 500 years before that. Life expectancies across the world have doubled in the last one hundred years. The global poverty rate has fallen from 25 per cent in 2005 to 12 per cent today. By 2015, it will [...]
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 [...]
Miliband to warn on inflation February 27, 2011 LABOUR leader Ed Miliband will today warn of a “cost of living crisis” for middle-earners, who he claims will be hit the hardest by looming inflation. Miliband will argue in a speech this morning that a mix of rising prices, spending cuts and benefit changes will make life difficult for middle-income families. In an effort [...]
America’s solar scandal is a warning: Bankrupt climate policies boost tax, not jobs October 11, 2011 IN SEPTEMBER 2009, the United States Department of Energy gave a $530m (£339m) loan guarantee to the solar company Solyndra. President Barack Obama said at the plant: “It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way, towards a brighter and more prosperous future.” In September 2011, the company collapsed, the jobs which the Vice [...]
Labour party forces vote on VAT fuel hike March 13, 2011 LABOUR will this week force a House of Commons vote on reversing the recent rise in VAT on fuel, in a bid to earn political capital from soaring fuel prices. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls yesterday said the party will use an opposition day debate on Wednesday to call for an immediate reversal of the coalition’s [...]
Yet again the emperor has no clothes September 12, 2011 SURELY not. I mean, the Vickers Independent Commission on Banking couldn’t possibly be a case of the emperor having no clothes, could it? Yet as I read through the 358-page tome, a conclusion I couldn’t quite believe kept staring me in the face. If Vickers had never existed, many of the biggest reforms his report [...]
Petrol prices take political centre stage February 27, 2011 ED Balls yesterday called on the government to limit the impact of surging fuel prices by abolishing the recent rise in VAT on petrol. The shadow chancellor said the move would save 3p a litre, helping squeezed middle-income families to avoid a “cost of living crisis”. He said: “In Britain [petrol prices] have gone up [...]
Barnier leak may hang the Big Four out to dry October 10, 2011 RECENTLY a leaked document from the European Commission’s (EC) Michel Barnier made front pages, including that of City A.M.. The details of what could come to be concrete proposals threaten the Big Four accountancy firms – PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young. The stakes are high: one of London’s, and the UK’s, most successful [...]
20 of the world’s largest donors December 21, 2011 1 BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION US The William H Gates Foundation was created in 1994 to work to improve global health. Created with an original stock gift of $94m (£60.5m), the foundation merged with the Gates Learning Foundation in 2000 to create the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The largest philanthropic organisation in the [...]