The shocks won’t end with the summer The world’s stock markets have had a pretty gruesome August. Listen to most of the financial press and you might think the reasons for this are hideously complicated. Not so. It boils down to the simple truth neatly summed up by Tim Price, director of investments at PFP Group: ‘What is unsustainable by definition
Why Merkel and Sarkozy cannot deflect blame onto Anglo-Saxon speculators Chemistry between the frumpy hausfrau Angela Merkel and the vain little egomaniac Nicolas Sarkozy never looks warm, but their summit in Paris on Tuesday must have been more than usually fraught. The French economy failed to grow in the second quarter, while Germany achieved just
The hard-working bloke in his burned-out shop is the true symbol for our times What horrors. As I write, the FTSE 100 index has dived below 5,000 for the first time since last July, the mood of the London investment community darkened by the sense that civilisation is breaking down. There’s no glimmer of goodness or
The greatest nation? This debt fiasco makes Washington look like a parish council I love America, and if you look at my Wikipedia entry — which I have neither the vanity nor the knowhow to bother to edit — you might suspect that I’ve been brainwashed to say so, because I am ‘a leading figure
Barely a flicker of growth, but Osborne mustfollow his instincts and stick to his guns Cut taxes now, or pile more taxes on to the bankers? Cut spending even faster to compensate for flagging tax revenues, or slow the cuts to ease the dole queues and boost confidence among consumers who still have public-sector jobs?
Another Murdoch lesson: when the iceberg looms, it’s too late to change course The sixth most famous Murdoch in history, after Rupert, James, Wendi and Rupert’s parents Sir Keith and Dame Elisabeth (the latter still with us at 102, and presumably wondering what the boy will get up to next) was of course William McMaster
Murdoch, Balls, Huhne and Satan: is it possible they’re all related? The debate about whether Rupert Murdoch and Satan are one and the same person has distracted attention from the worrying state of the economy. But gruesome statistics and forecasts are stacking up like the blizzard-stricken aircraft in Die Hard II, and waiting on the
Pound shops and possession orders: parables from the post-recession high street One of our fanciest local shops — until it closed, it sold upmarket furnishings and children’s clothes — has its windows plastered with ‘Possession Order’ notices. Rumour says the space has been re-let to Oxfam, against which neighbouring retailers are getting up a petition
Why release emergency oil stocks? Because Opec never does the right thing Observers of oil politics have been wondering why the Paris-based International Energy Agency, which represents 28 member states including Britain, has suddenly decided to start releasing oil from its emergency reserves. What do they know that we don’t? This is a rare move
Tony Hayward’s making the headlines, but Rothschild’s the one they’re betting on Remember Lasse Viren, the Finnish policeman who fell over halfway through the 1972 Olympic 10,000 metres final in Munich only to rise again, sprint past the leaders, and win gold in world record time? Well, he’s got nothing on Tony Hayward, the former
Can capitalism care for the old and vulnerable? The collapse of the Southern Cross care homes group is a big story not just because 31,000 elderly residents are waiting to discover whether they still have anyone to look after them when it’s all over, but because it illuminates a pattern of financial engineering that prevailed
The construction industry looks perky, and this time it’s not building state-funded follies Not exactly Flaming June so far, is it? Up north, we’ve had one day of blazing sunshine — and being northerners, we complained it was too hot. Down south, you’ve had a continuous drizzle of dismal economic indicators. Inflation is up; growth
There’s always another disaster waiting to happen – so keep your eye on ETFs If we learned anything from the recent financial crisis, it is that when a thing looks too good to be true, it is. If a sector is attracting frenzied investor attention and pundits say spectacular growth must continue, it is surely heading
Another rail report chugs past like an empty freight train bound for the sidings Sir Roy McNulty’s report on the state of Britain’s railways chugged by last week like one of those unmarked freight trains that sometimes pass through stations. ‘Stand well back from the platform,’ says the announcer, making us wonder whether the wagons
In the 1983 comedy Trading Places, two unscrupulous commodity brokers wagered that they could take a vagrant off the street and turn him into a successful trader. The film was a hit, symbolic of a more innocent age when interference in ordinary people’s livelihoods by gambling financiers was the exception rather than the rule. What
Like sinister Siamese twins, the words ‘pension’ and ‘scandal’ seem to have become joined at the hip. So perhaps it is no surprise that some very good news — perhaps the coalition’s most important extension of choice during its first year — was largely ignored by the media last month. Most people these days are
A beginner’s guide to investing in commodities The arrival on the London Stock Exchange of the Swiss-based mining and commodities behemoth Glencore, valued at £40 billion, has provided a rare insight into the mysteries of the natural resources world. This remains a relatively little understood sector even though the first commodities trades can be traced
In search of the next ‘trade of the decade’ Imagine you were sitting in St Paul’s at the 1981 royal wedding, waiting for the mismatched bridal couple to arrive and idly speculating about the best way to save up for a wedding present for their first-born, a generation hence. The odds are you would not
Another tale of the Great Seducer and my tip for the woman to succeed him When I was young I knew a man whose opening gambit with any pretty girl was, ‘Hello, shall we go straight to bed?’ He reckoned one in 20 said yes, so if he asked the question 20 times a day,
The latest mis-selling scandal is one more symptom of a deeper problem The payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal is, by common consensus, the worst case of financial mis-selling until the next one. These policies were foisted by banks on personal borrowers, supposedly to cover repayments if they fell ill or lost their jobs or encountered