From this morning’s Guardian on market reactions to the latest round of stimulus in Japan: Central banks typically buy bonds and other assets in financial markets to generate growth and demand, but that would not be enough to ignite the global economy, investors warned. "Asset purchases will just increase liquidity, but there’s already plenty of
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There’s been a powerful article on the New Yorker web site this weekend. It documents the hundreds of millions of dollars David and Charles Koch have given in the USA to fund those who promote so many of the issues this blog opposes. These are the people behind the Cato Institute that does so much
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I have the following on the web site of Public Finance, sponsored by the chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, this morning: The party conferences are almost upon us. I’ve been invited to them all, and have thankfully got out of most: there is only so much lobbying a man can do before he
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Larry Elliott has argued in the Guardian that house prices have nowhere to go but down. This has to be true. Most first time buyers cannot enter the market right now. Some have suggested that first time buyers will average age 51 at some point in the near future if trends continue as now. I
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From the Guardian, by Theo Hobson: A basic British political division is not between left and right, or liberal and conservative, but between Schlegel and Wilcox. What separates the two families of EM Forster’s novel Howards End is that the Schlegels worry about how to make the world fairer, with occasionally embarrassing consequences, while the
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I note from the Sunday Times (behind a paywall, so no link) that: Kathyryn McKerrow from HMRC’s Business Customer Unit conceded that the Revenue was under pressure to close the “tax gap” – the difference between the tax raised and what is thought to be owed. Until I began work on this issue the tax
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I note I am, according to something called Finance Centres International, the 485th most influential person in the world of offshore. Well, thanks guys. Four questions then. Why is Dan Mitchell 244th? And Paul Krugman 407th? Why am I the only campaigner I can see on the list? And what’s the importance of Tory MP
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George Osborne says unless we cuts we’ll suffer a debt default. Paul Krugman notes the evidence does not back the argument. Ireland has gone for austerity more than any other nation. And these, as he shows, are the margins it is paying on its debt – the higher the margin the greater the risk being
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Sometimes stating the obvious is necessary. We need police. We need laws enforced. And just as much we need their presence in communities – where I suspect they do a lot more simple offering help and direction than they do law enforcement. I am well aware that there are those on the right who think
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