Disappointing data from US, UK and Germany raises concerns over the global economy

Our economic health is much more subject to conniptions in China and the US than before the GFCAustralia’s economy has long been linked with that of the United States. While we are now much more dependent upon China, the increasing heated trade war between those two nations is a great danger to not only our economy growth, but also the projections for budget surpluses so desired by the Morrison government.On 2 March last year, Donald Trump, perhaps fresh off of watching yet another 10 hours of Fox News, decided to take to Twitter to share with us his economic wisdom.When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!Related: Trump adds a dismal dimension to the US-China trade dispute | Jeffrey Frankel Continue reading...

Debt held by public is expected to reach 95% of GDP in next 10 years, the highest level since just after the second world warUS federal debt will top $1tn next year even as Donald Trump explores tax cuts and other giveaways that are only likely to increase the deficit.According to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday the US national debt is growing faster than expected and will reach $960bn for the 2019 fiscal year, which ends 30 September, and $1tn for the 2020 fiscal year.Obama is the most profligate deficit & debt spender in our nation’s history. Doubled debt (cont) http://t.co/O4hKAX2iUm Continue reading...

President launches new attack on Jerome Powell, the man he picked to run US central bankDonald Trump has stepped up the pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates with his most personal attack yet on Jerome Powell, the man he handpicked to run the US central bank.Ahead of a crucial speech by Powell in Jackson Hole on Friday, the US president compared the Fed chairman to a golfer who was unable to putt and said he had let the country down.Doing great with China and other Trade Deals. The only problem we have is Jay Powell and the Fed. He’s like a golfer who can’t putt, has no touch. Big U.S. growth if he does the right thing, BIG CUT - but don’t count on him! So far he has called it wrong, and only let us down.........We are competing with many countries that have a far lower interest rate, and we should be lower than them. Yesterday, “highest Dollar in U.S.History.” No inflation. Wake up Federal Reserve. Such growth potential, almost like never before!So Germany is paying Zero interest and is actually being paid to borrow money, while the U.S., a far stronger and more important credit, is paying interest and just stopped (I hope!) Quantitative Tightening. Strongest Dollar in History, very tough on exports. No Inflation!.........WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE? Continue reading...

UK borrowing is rising faster than expected this year, as government spending outpaces income

Changes in capitalism’s structure have moved faster than the policies required to domesticate them, and liberal democratic governments are scrambling to catch upIs contemporary capitalism compatible with liberal democracy? The glib answer, though not wrong, is that it had better be. There are no known examples of fully socialized economies with a liberal democratic regime. The more considered answer is that it can be, but only with the public policies that make it so.The relationship between liberal democracy and capitalism changes over time, as do the policies needed to make them mutually supportive. Not for the first time, changes in the structure of capitalism have lately moved faster than the policies required to domesticate them. Liberal democratic governments are scrambling to catch up.Completing secondary education and receiving at least some post-secondary training is now economically essential. To make this necessity a reality, public policy will have to do more—from pre-school to college--to break the link between family background and educational attainment.Public policy should do more to resist growing regional disparities. Traditional regional subsidies are the equivalent of blood transfusions, keeping patients alive without restoring them to health. Instead, governments should ensure that all regions have the building blocks of economic growth—education, transportation, finance, information, and infrastructure.In most advanced societies, economic concentration is increasing, limiting competition, innovation, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Europe has taken the lead in resisting these negative trends, and other market economies should follow suit. Consumer prices are no longer an adequate guide to anti-trust policies, if they ever were.Wages for lower-skilled occupations in advanced economies will be limited by wages for these jobs in less-developed societies. Higher productivity helps, but not enough. Public policy must step in, with higher minimum wages, increased wage subsidies, and universal opportunities for workers to share in rising business productivity and profits.The excesses of globalization must also be reined in. Capital mobility should be limited when it imposes intolerable costs on jobs, wages, and social stability in advanced economies. Trade rules should not give advantages to state-controlled economies at the expense of market economies.William Arthur Galston holds the Ezra K Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

Climate emergency and population growth blamed for deteriorating water quality, with ‘cocktail of chemicals’ changing as countries become richerThe planet is facing a mounting and “invisible” water pollution crisis, according to a hard-hitting World Bank report, which claims the issue is responsible for a one-third reduction in potential economic growth in the most heavily affected areas.The study, which assembled the world’s largest database of water pollution, assesses how a combination of bacteria, sewage, chemicals and plastics suck oxygen from water supplies and transform water into poison for people and ecosystems.Related: ‘Nothing to worry about. The water is fine’: how Flint poisoned its people Continue reading...

Without pass, exporter’s goods could be held up at UK ports and airports after 31 OctoberThe government will allocate customs passes to thousands of businesses over the next two weeks to prevent goods being held up at the UK border in the event of a no-deal Brexit.The chancellor, Sajid Javid, said giving unique customs numbers to 88,000 exporters was part of the Treasury’s £2.1bn of extra no-deal preparations and would “ease the flow of goods at border points and support businesses to trade and grow”. Continue reading...

President tweets demand for 1% reduction and more QE as markets look to central banks to bolster global economyStock markets have been boosted by the growing prospect of more stimulus measures by central banks and governments across the world as Donald Trump heaped more pressure on the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates.Related: Warning signs for global economy: the countries spooking investors.....The Fed Rate, over a fairly short period of time, should be reduced by at least 100 basis points, with perhaps some quantitative easing as well. If that happened, our Economy would be even better, and the World Economy would be greatly and quickly enhanced-good for everyone! Continue reading...

Despite huge profit, BHP’s Andrew Mackenzie is cautious on global outlookThe rise of nationalism and governments that interfere in markets pose a threat to the global economic system, the boss of BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, has warned.Despite announcing a 124% rise in profits to $US8.31bn (£6.84bn), helped by booming iron ore sales to China, Andrew Mackenzie said on Tuesday that there were “a number of things abroad” that were causing concern for the Anglo-Australian behemoth.Related: BHP faces fresh calls to quit Minerals Council ahead of pro-coal ad blitzRelated: G7 leaders need some clear-the-air talks rather than fake smiles | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

The move is in response to a Trump rule stating that groups receiving Title X funding could no longer provide abortion counseling

Bundesbank says summer’s slump in exports is expected to continue into the autumnGermany’s economy is heading into recession after the country’s central bank warned that a slump in exports during the summer was likely to continue into the autumn.The Bundesbank said a downturn in orders for cars and industrial equipment in the second quarter of the year was likely to continue in the third quarter, leaving the economy on the brink of a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.Related: Warning signs for global economy: the countries spooking investors Continue reading...

The US roundtablers’ pledge is woolly. So it’s baby steps for now to stop Capitol Hill forcing more drastic changesMilton Friedman will be spinning in his grave at the heresy perpetrated by the US Business Roundtable. For the thick end of five decades US capitalism has been run along Friedmanite lines – namely that businesses are there to make money for their shareholders. No charitable giving, no diversity awareness. No green audits. Just making money. Period.Now some of the highest paid on the planet have appeared to ditch the idea of shareholder primacy. Sure, they say, shareholders matter but so do a range of other stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers and communities. Workers must be treated with dignity and respect. Businesses will be run sustainably in order to protect the environment. Continue reading...

The US president’s talk of a ‘large real estate deal’ says a lot about his view of the worldGreenland, and more specifically its purchase by the US, is being actively discussed in Donald Trump’s Oval Office. But what exactly is it that makes one of the world’s most desolate places such an attractive proposition?For the president, it is the real estate deal of a lifetime, one that would secure a land mass a quarter the size of the US and cement his place in US history alongside President Andrew Johnson, who bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, and Thomas Jefferson, who secured Louisiana from the French in 1803.Related: Greenlanders: what do you think about Trump's comments about your country?About 80% of the world's largest island is covered in ice. Inuit people first inhabited it by moving from present-day Canada 4,000-5,000 years ago. It was named by Erik the Red when he led a fleet of 25 ships from Iceland to colonise it in 985 AD. Continue reading...

The Beatles kept up their pretence but world leaders must face up to their differences and find solutions to potentially corrosive threatsIn 1975 the French president, Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, had a brainwave. The great powers of the west were reeling from their first postwar recession, which had led to both higher unemployment and rising inflation. America had just suffered the twin blows of Watergate and defeat in the Vietnam war.Giscard thought it would be a good idea at this tricky time to invite the leaders of five other western powers – the US, the UK, West Germany, Japan and Italy – for an informal chat at Rambouillet, a chateau near Paris. And so the modern era of summitry was born. The G6 became the G7 when Canada joined, and for a while it was the G8 with the inclusion of Russia. Continue reading...

Without EU succour, the consequences of going it alone will be painfully feltJohn Bolton might want to tie Britain into the United States’ political orbit, but the relief with which Theresa May’s government greeted European support after the Skripal poisoning and Jeremy Hunt’s reflex request for Franco-German support in the Gulf suggest that the EU and its member states will still be important to British foreign policy even if Brexit happens.But what kind of co-operation is achievable? Continue reading...

They portray themselves as impartial and objective but a survey exposed their biases, unconscious or otherwiseMany economists put a lot of weight on the idea that their profession is unbiased and non-ideological. Over time, the discipline has focused on applying complicated maths to data, as part of a “positivist” movement seeking to claim economics as a “real science” where economists show what they have found, not what they think.Such self-perception coexisted with the critique of less mainstream economists that the profession has an ideological bias, generally rightwing. Markets work, humans are self-interested, the state messes things up, and so forth. The latest salvo from proponents of the latter view, including Ha-Joon Chang, Cambridge University’s prominent opponent of mainstream economics, comes via creative new research. Continue reading...

The EU has opposed brutal animal welfare and rampant tech monopolies. Post-Brexit Britain will be exposed to bothA trade deal with the US would be a defining moment for the UK. It is not an exaggeration to say it would reveal the country’s direction of travel more than any other decision in the aftermath of Britain quitting the European Union.Amid the confusing array of government pledges – more police and more spending on the regions while also cutting taxes for the better off (mostly in London and the home counties) – it is the basics of any trade deal that will set Britain’s course for decades to come.US regulators believe the only test of food is whether it is safe. Beyond this, the state abdicates responsibility Continue reading...

Last week’s upheavals in bond values were an all-too-rational response to a cocktail of economic troublesEvery year the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City hosts a symposium in the Grand Teton resort of Jackson Hole. Some years, guests have little to do but chew the fat and listen to distinguished speakers explain points of economic importance. Sometimes, though, the conclave in Wyoming takes place with a crisis looming. One such year was 2008. This year is shaping up to be another.Global financial markets certainly fear the worst. Share prices slumped last week amid fears that the first recession since the big crash of 2008-09 is just around the corner. The trigger was developments in the bond markets, which is where investors trade the debt that governments issue to cover their spending.Germany has already suffered one quarter of falling growth and could easily be heading for a secondWhat is the yield curve? Continue reading...

London traders were unable to buy and sell shares in Britain’s top companies this morning, as unexplained glitch strikes the City

Current political uncertainty or trade restrictions could shock business confidence, but policymakers are fixated on financeThere’s a hoary old proverb in the financial markets that a crisis happens precisely when the institutional memory of the last crisis has faded: when all the key chairs are occupied by people who aren’t scared any more, the same mistakes get repeated.On that basis, in the face of grim economic news around the world, we ought to be reasonably safe from another Lehman Brothers-type meltdown, or even a repeat of the eurozone crisis. But what might be a little bit more worrying is that there are surprisingly few people left who remember how the normal kind of recession happens.In order to have felt the fear in the 80s, you’d need to be quite a bit older than most of today’s key policy advisorsRelated: Is a recession coming to the US? Here’s what to watch for Continue reading...

From cutting student debts to index-linking the minimum wage, the dream can be rebuiltIt is time to admit that the “American Dream” is dead. Its underlying conditions – strong, consistent economic growth and a meritocracy structured to keep the rich from gaming the system – no longer hold true.Nonetheless, an American Dream 2.0 is still possible, and it will be up to those now contending for the White House to offer a blueprint for making it a reality. For starters, America’s leaders need to explain the problem clearly. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the “pursuit of happiness” a central feature of American life. Since 1776, each generation has sought upward social mobility; and for a long time, many – though not all – met with prosperity.Related: Trump foolishly thinks gold standard will usher in a golden ageRelated: Top US bosses earn 278 times more than their employeesRelated: Trump adds a dismal dimension to the US-China trade dispute | Jeffrey Frankel Continue reading...

From the US-China trade war through to the problems affecting Germany, Brazil, the UK and moreStock markets have taken fright over a number of warning signs from key economies, the latest this week being the inversion of the US bond yield curve and news of a contraction in the German economy. Here is a guide to the trouble spots in the global economy that are rattling investors.What is the yield curve? Continue reading...

Index of Britain’s top 100 firms at six-month low and oil prices fall 3% to below $58 a barrelStock markets in Europe extended their losing streak on Thursday and oil prices fell 3% to below $58 a barrel as mounting recession concerns continued to hit investor confidence.The index of Britain’s top 100 firms dropped more than 1% to hit a six-month low and and stock markets in continental Europe also dipped in response to investors channelling their funds into financial safe havens. However, US stocks staged a modest recovery after heavy sell-offs on Wednesday.What is the yield curve? Continue reading...

Eddie Tulasiewicz of the National Churches Trust, Clare MacInnes, Chris Weeks, Cllr Iain Malcolm of South Tyneside council and Martin Davies respond to an article by Aditya ChakraborttyAditya Chakrabortty suggests churches have gone from many suburban areas (The blackouts summed up a crisis of our public spaces, 14 August). But our research shows that there are around 40,300 church buildings in the UK open to the public and being used for worship – more than the UK’s 39,000 pubs.As well as being places of worship, church buildings benefit the wider community, being used for playgroups, lunch clubs, food banks, and social and cultural activities including concerts and exhibitions. Continue reading...

Beijing has alarmed investors by threatening counter-measures against the US, threatening to escalate the trade war

Consumers are not fretting about Brexit but you can understand why retailers are uneasy over 31 OctoberThose with long enough memories may recall that Viv Nicholson won what was then a small fortune on the football pools in 1961. Asked what she was going to do with the money, she replied: “Spend, spend, spend.” Which she duly did until there was nothing left.The latest official retail sales figures show that the spirit of Viv Nicholson lives on among Britain’s shoppers. Moreover, the spend, spend, spend mentality will be what prevents the economy from sliding into recession, at least for now.Related: Online shoppers and Amazon Prime Day lift UK retail sales Continue reading...

Small rise confounds City forecasts as even troubled department stores record increaseOnline spending bolstered UK retail sales last month, while department stores notched up their first increase this year, as consumers shrugged off Brexit fears.The quantity of goods bought rose 0.2% in July, buoyed by the annual Amazon Prime Day, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures wrong-footed City economists who had expected a 0.2% decline.Related: Spend, spend, spend: spirit of Viv Nicholson lives on among shoppers | Larry ElliottWhat's the problem? Continue reading...

The president’s nominee for the Fed believes pegged exchange rates will fix the US trade deficit. Not soThere are now scores of efforts to psychoanalyse the US president Donald Trump’s nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve board. Some emphasise Shelton’s fidelity as an early adviser to the Trump campaign. Others point to her conversion into “a low-interest-rate person”. Still others highlight her advocacy of the gold standard as insulating US monetary policy from an unreliable Fed.These interpretations all miss the point, which is that Shelton is a proponent of fixed exchange rates. Her belief in fixed rates is catnip to an administration that sees currency manipulation as a threat to winning its trade war.Related: Trump adds a dismal dimension to the US-China trade dispute | Jeffrey Frankel Continue reading...

Poppy Trowbridge on her work as a special adviser in Hammond’s Treasury as it tried to plan for Brexit and avoid crashing out with no deal. Plus, Carey Gillam on how the biotech company Monsanto tried to destroy her reputationParliament is gearing up for an autumn showdown over the possibility of a no-deal Brexit. Philip Hammond, until recently the chancellor of the exchequer, has accused Boris Johnson of shutting down any hope of securing an agreement. But the prime minister’s team continues to argue that Britain must leave the EU by 31 October.It has been quite a journey for the Treasury: from accusations of “project fear” when it warned against any Brexit at all under George Osborne in 2016, to Hammond’s hopes of minimising the damage with an orderly withdrawal, and now, under Sajid Javid, preparing for the economic impact of no deal. Continue reading...

Investors are alarmed to see longer-dated UK and US bonds trading at lower interest rates than shorter alternatives, a possible sign of recession

Slowdowns in China and US add to sense of panic, leading investors to dump shares and buy bondsThe prospect of Germany sliding into recession and sharper-than-expected slowdowns in China and the US sent jittery financial markets spiralling downwards across the world to lows last seen in May.Investors dumped shares and bought safer government bonds, adding to the sense of panic that has grown steadily following Donald Trump’s threat this year of extending tariffs to all Chinese exports to the US.What is the yield curve?Related: Globalisation as we know it will not survive Trump. And that’s a good thing | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

It falls to a former chancellor to speak blunt truths from the backbenches because Boris Johnson employs only those willing to embrace denial and deceitFormer chancellors often criticise serving prime ministers but usually when they represent different parties. The case of Philip Hammond is all the more remarkable: only a month has elapsed since he sat in the Treasury and already he is savaging Boris Johnson for pursuing a no-deal Brexit.On that point, the two men might as well be in different parties. Mr Hammond is conservative in an old-fashioned sense of the word – inclined to preserve things; suspicious of ideology; fiscally hawkish. Mr Johnson represents the new style of conservative radicalism – contemptuous of governing conventions, profligate and prone to nationalistic bombast. Both would describe themselves as Eurosceptic, but for the former chancellor that means wariness of the federalising side of the European project. For the prime minister it extends to aggressive severance of Britain’s ties to the continent, without alternative arrangements. Continue reading...

WeWork may have left it a tad late for its IPO unless the central bank makes a swift and decisive cutWeWork, the loss-making US office rental company, is planning a stock market launch next month to fund its global expansion. All the signs on Wall Street on Wednesday were that Silicon Valley’s next big thing may have left it a tad late.On a day when global stock markets took a tumble, WeWork will doubtless be hoping that swift and decisive action by the Federal Reserve can hold off a bear market in shares for just a bit longer. Otherwise the company’s float will be remembered for the wrong reason: as the one that marked the top of the cycle. Continue reading...

Chief executives earned an average of $17.2m each last year and their pay grew more than 1000 % since 1978, survey findsChief executives at the US’s top companies took home $17.2m in pay last year – 278 times the salary of their average worker.Between 1978 and 2018, the average pay of the bosses of the US’s largest 350 companies has grown by 1,007.5%, adjusted for inflation, according to the Economics Policy Institute’s latest survey. Continue reading...

British workers’ pay rose 3.9% over last three months in sharp contrast to slowing economyBritish workers’ basic pay is growing at the fastest rate for more than a decade despite mounting risks to the economy as Brexit looms.In sharp contrast to the broader economic slowdown that has taken Britain to the brink of recession, the Office for National Statistics said annual average pay – excluding bonuses – rose by 3.9% in the three months to June, the highest rate since June 2008. Continue reading...

President asserts that the recent depreciation of the yuan amounts to currency manipulation. Not trueThe trade war between the US and China is heating up again, with the US president, Donald Trump, abruptly announcing plans to impose a 10% tariff on the $300bn (£248bn) worth of imports from China that he had so far left untouched. The Chinese authorities then allowed their currency, the yuan, to fall below the symbolic threshold of seven to the dollar. The Trump administration promptly responded by naming China a “currency manipulator” – the first time the US had done that to any country in 25 years. Pundits declared a currency war and investors immediately sent global stock markets lower.The US assertion that the recent depreciation of the yuan amounts to currency manipulation is not true. It would be more correct to say that the Chinese authorities gave in to market pressure – the immediate source of which was none other than Trump’s announcement of the new tariffs.Related: Global trade disruption is a symptom of a deeper malaise | Mohamed El-ErianRelated: Could devaluation of China's yuan trigger the next financial crisis? | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

Anyone looking around for bad economic news in this ‘silly season’ is spoilt for choiceEvery now and then, August belies its reputation as a sleepy month when nothing happens and throws up an event that shakes financial markets.The Latin American debt crisis began in August 1982; oil prices soared after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990; the Asian debt crisis had its genesis in the same month in Thailand seven years later. Then there are the crises that simmer away in August and finally come to the boil in September: the buildup to Black Wednesday in 1990; the weeks leading up to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Continue reading...

ONS survey reveals increasing job insecurity as Brexit looms and risks of recession mountBritish households are more worried about losing their jobs than at any time in the past five and a half years, according to official figures, in a sign of the pressure on workers across the country.Despite unemployment falling to the lowest point since the mid 1970s, the Office for National Statistics said people’s expectations for rising joblessness in the year ahead have been climbing.Related: UK jobs growth slows amid Brexit uncertainty Continue reading...

Resolving US-China trade war is not enough to ward off what many fear is a looming worldwide recessionIt is only a matter of time until the escalating tensions between China and the US prompt many more economists to warn of an impending global economic recession coupled with financial instability. On 5 August, Bloomberg News said that the yield curve, a closely watched market metric, “Blares Loudest US Recession Warning Since 2007”. And Larry Summers, a former US treasury secretary who was also closely involved in crisis-management efforts in 2008-09, recently tweeted: “We may well be at the most dangerous financial moment … since 2009.”Many economists argue that resolving US-China trade tensions is the best way to avoid significant global economic and financial disruption. Yet, while necessary, this would be far from sufficient.Related: Globalisation as we know it will not survive Trump. And that’s a good thing | Larry Elliott Continue reading...

New Economics Foundation says putting money in workers’ pockets will raise productivityGiving workers more public holidays and raising their wages could boost the strength of the British economy, according to a report.The New Economics Foundation said that driving up the spending power of consumers would give firms a greater incentive to raise their productivity, as they could have greater confidence there would be demand for their products and services.Productivity is an economic measure of the efficiency of a workforce. It typically measures the level of output per hour of work, or per worker. Continue reading...

Chancellor Sajid Javid faces a diverse list of runners but under this government it may not pay to put money on a safe betThe moment is fast arriving when Sajid Javid will choose Mark Carney’s replacement as the governor of the Bank of England, and Westminster is alive with speculation.One of Javid’s first requests on being made chancellor was to be brought up to speed on the runners and riders for the Threadneedle Street race, although the official Treasury line is that an announcement will be made in the autumn.Related: Bank of England: No-deal Brexit could cause 'significant' market turmoil - business live Continue reading...

Brexit-related recession looks ever more likely, and with their poor investment levels, UK firms are worse-placed than many to withstand the shockDowning Street must add the likelihood of a UK recession to its list of possible scenarios after official figures showed that the economy contracted in the second quarter by 0.2%.The prospect of a further decline in GDP in the third quarter, which would make a recession official and might be clearly on the cards before the 31 October Brexit deadline, should dominate the prime minister’s deliberations.UK companies have borrowed heavily since the crash, but most of the money was used to pay generous dividends, rather than being ploughed into new equipment Continue reading...

Johnson may have come to power by legitimate means, but his language and actions in No 10 have been disturbing indeedI continue to recommend re-reading Joseph Heller’s great novel Catch-22 for those of us who want to avoid being driven crazy by this Brexit farce.As we are told that the cabinet is operating on a “war footing” and that frantic preparations are made for the austerity and hardship that would follow no deal, my mind goes back to the shortages I witnessed as a small boy during and after the second world war.With the world economy losing steam, the trade and currency war between America and China could get much nastier Continue reading...

Visitors to Manhattan are finding that several retail landmarks are fading fastThere is a lot to do in Manhattan – but shopping? Maybe not so much these days. Once one of the hottest markets on the planet, New York’s retail sector is suffering.Surveying the empty storefronts on Fifth Avenue, holidaymaker Gill Stewart, from Stokesley in Yorkshire, said she was surprised by the number of vacancies. “We’ve come across a few places that are empty or under refurbishment, certainly many more than we expected,” she said. As the family wondered which direction to go in, Stewart noted that her teenage children, Nathan and Eleanor, weren’t even clamouring to visit the shops. Continue reading...

Brexit uncertainty has acted like a handbrake on business activity and dictating corporate cautionWhen Boris Johnson became prime minister he said the “doubters, doomsters, gloomsters” had got Britain wrong.After that first speech on the steps of Downing Street, the prime minister faces an early test, with official figures suggesting the economy is on the cusp of recession.Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the total value of activity in the economy over a given period of time.Related: The dramatic drop in sterling is only a taste of what is to come | Sam Gyimah Continue reading...

It would be naive to think social and economic decisions do not bear on the timing and numbers of births that couples choose, says Allan G Hill. Plus Roger Plenty points out that having one fewer child saves 58.6 tonnes of CO-equivalent per yearGaby Hinsliff (Journal, 3 August) is right to insist that the ultimate decision on numbers of children is in the hands of women and their partners but ignores the many ways that any modern state already makes so many of the rules regarding sex and reproduction. Just think of all the rights and allowances that determine the length of maternity leave, resuming work, flexible working, equal pay and the like. Then, there are decisions by states to subsidise or not the costs of childcare, including all the costs of education from pre-school to university and college. Throughout, there are rules and regulations about which maternity and childcare services are state- or authority-provided.Couples reproduce in such economic and regulatory environments and it would be naive to think that such powerful social and economic decisions do not bear on the timing and numbers of births they choose. A declining population is not in anyone’s interest, reducing the pool of new talent in the next generation and encouraging an imbalance between those concerned with the cost of TV licences and others eager to see young innovators moving through our age cohorts. Continue reading...