Justice department charge for mis-selling scandal in US puts bailed-out bank on course for ninth consecutive annual lossThe chancellor has ruled out reducing the government’s stake in Royal Bank of Scotland after it took a £3.1bn hit towards the cost of a bond mis-selling scandal in the US.The charge for the latest regulatory failure will push RBS to its ninth consecutive annual loss and was blamed by Ross McEwan, the bank’s chief executive, on the bank having “lost its way” into the run-up to the 2008 crisis. RBS has already incurred £50bn of cumulative annual losses since taxpayers pumped in £45bn to keep it afloat.Related: RBS investors call for governance changes to improve transparency Continue reading...

TUC chief warns against government complacency as economy expands by 0.6% in the final three months of yearBuoyant consumer spending kept the UK economy growing at the brisk pace of 0.6% in the final quarter of 2016, marking a strong finish to the year despite the Brexit vote.The initial estimate for fourth-quarter GDP from the Office for National Statistics matched the 0.6% growth recorded in the third and second quarters. It was a touch better than the 0.5% rise expected by City economists. The pound hit a fresh six-week high of $1.2673 just before the data was released.Related: UK GDP growth shows consumers spending despite Brexit worriesRelated: Britain's economy beats forecasts with 0.6% growth in the last quarter - live updates Continue reading...

George Osborne has been proved wrong in his forecasts of doom – the economy has stayed afloat thanks to the service sectorIt was supposed to be the moment of truth. Had the economy performed as George Osborne predicted it would in the fevered days before the referendum, late January 2017 would have been the moment when official data showed that output in the UK had contracted in both the third and fourth quarters of 2016 – the technical definition of a recession.Instead, Philip Hammond was in the happy position of being able to use a visit to Microsoft’s UK headquarters in Reading to announce that growth in the final three months of 2016 had been 0.6% – exactly the same as in the previous two quarters.Related: UK GDP figures show solid end to 2016 despite Brexit voteRelated: Britain's economy beats forecasts with 0.6% growth in the last quarter - live updates Continue reading...

British PM could struggle to negotiate good trade deal with president who has pledged to put America firstAppetite for a US trade deal with Britain appears as high in Washington as it is in London, according to interviews with politicians, with both governments anxious to demonstrate there is more to economic populism than simply a desire for protectionism.But despite the political convergence indicated by Donald Trump’s election and the Brexit vote, Theresa May will discover the special relationship still has plenty of cracks and contradictions when she visits the White House on Friday.Related: Theresa May to seek special deal with Trump in White House visit Continue reading...

The cost of government cuts isn’t always visible. But there is no escaping it in Sunderland, where services to vulnerable women are under threatYou’ve read the headlines about the council services facing death by a thousand cuts, from nursery schools to libraries and community transport for disabled school pupils. After a real-terms cut of 40% in core government grants since 2010, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) says we are now at the point where councils are “close to the brink” of insolvency. If further proof were needed, look over to Surrey and its council tax referendum, where a council is effectively admitting to voters it can no longer afford to help elderly residents get dressed, or to keep learning disabled adults safe. This is only the beginning. Local government is estimated to be facing a funding black hole of £5.8bn by 2020. If there is any doubt about the brutal impact of these cuts on the ground, just take a look at Sunderland, which is likely to become the only major city in the UK with no refuges for domestic violence victims.Related: Northumbria police chief leads fight against cuts to women's refugesUnless Phillipson is told that the funding will be protected, it will mean closed signs on Sunderland’s refuge doors Continue reading...

Chris Patten says Britain has prioritised trade deals with China over defending freedoms guaranteed in 1997 handoverThe UK is guilty of a dereliction of its duty to Hong Kong and is “selling its honour” to secure trade deals with China, the territory’s former governor Chris Patten has warned.He said Britain had let down pro-democracy activists who have been fighting to maintain freedoms guaranteed to Hong Kong as part of the deal to hand the territory back to China after more than a century of British rule.Related: Hong Kong human rights situation 'worst since handover to China' Continue reading...

Nicola Sturgeon will ask Holyrood to vote on symbolic Brexit motion as talk once again turns to independence referendumNicola Sturgeon’s government is preparing for a fresh constitutional battle over Brexit by tabling a motion calling on Holyrood to reject the UK government’s article 50 bill.Mike Russell, the Scottish government’s Brexit minister, told MSPs the refusal by Theresa May’s government in London to countenance Sturgeon’s demands for a special Scottish deal was pushing the country closer to a second independence referendum. Continue reading...

All the day’s economic and financial news, as shares rally in Asia and Europe after US markets hit fresh record highs

Building experts estimate barrier could cost $31bn, with most of 40,000-strong workforce from Mexican side of borderThe biggest winners from the construction of Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful, powerful” wall along the US-Mexico border are likely to be Mexican cement companies and construction workers.

A public vote to decide which scholarly book has had the greatest impact on Britain has chosen The General Theory of Employment, Interest and MoneyAcademic texts that have shaped our society may range from John Berger’s landmark study of visual culture Ways of Seeing to Germaine Greer’s 1970 feminist classic The Female Eunuch, but when it comes to a vote to decide which was the most influential book for modern Britain, the public echoed America’s Bill Clinton: it’s the economy, stupid.From a list of the 20 texts that shaped our times, curated by leading British academics as part of Academic Book Week, John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was voted the most significant for modern Britain.Related: John Maynard Keynes died 70 years ago. We ignore his wisdom at our peril | Justin Talbot Zorn and Merle Lefkoff Continue reading...

Every twitch in the stock market is taken as a positive or negative sign, but the truth is we do not know what will happen nextWill Donald Trump as president be good or bad for stock markets? Should investors run for the hills in fear of 1930s-style protectionist policies that may damage global trade? Or should they hang around to enjoy the possible fruits of promised tax cuts and massive infrastructure spending in the US?The debate rages fiercely and daily. Each twitch in the stock market is taken as support for one side of the argument or the other. The Dow Jones industrial average in the US has passed 20,000 for the first time because it is anticipating goodies in store; alternatively, it hasn’t moved terribly far since mid December. Both statements are accurate. Continue reading...

Attempts to secure free-trade agreements before UK actually leaves EU could rapidly sour Brexit negotiations, officials warnBritain’s apparent determination to pursue trade talks with countries outside the EU could significantly undermine its efforts to negotiate a favourable Brexit deal and may well be illegal, diplomats and officials have warned.Theresa May meets Donald Trump on Friday to discuss a post-Brexit transatlantic trade deal the president has said he would like drawn up “quickly”, while Australia has said talks this week should “begin to lay the foundations” of a similar pact with the UK.Related: Brexit: government to publish white paper, Theresa May tells MPsRelated: Citigroup plans new operations away from London after BrexitRelated: EU parliament will be 'very difficult' in Brexit talks, says leading MEP Continue reading...

The Dow, which tracks the largest publicly owned companies in the US, finally breaks record after a sudden rise in the past monthThe Dow Jones industrial average finally broke through the 20,000 barrier on Wednesday morning – a historic high for the leading stock market index and one it has been close to breaching since Christmas.The Dow, which first nearly topped 20,000 on 13 December and again on 6 January, when it came within 0.37 points of the landmark, finally broke through after the opening bell was rung on Wall Street by Ashton Poole, CEO of lender Triangle Capital. When the closing bell was rung by executives from InBev, brewers of Stella Artois, traders whooped and cheered a new milestone in the index, which closed at a record high of 20,068.Great! #Dow20K https://t.co/wXFhXBLgagRelated: Dow Jones hits record high – is Trump good for stock markets? Continue reading...

Two former members of the Bank of England interest rate-setting committee discuss the outlook for the UK economyProfessor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and former member of the Bank’s MPC from June 2006 to May 2009Related: How has the Brexit vote affected the UK economy? January verdictRelated: Brexit economy: weak pound stokes inflation as jobs market cools Continue reading...

The latest monthly Guardian analysis finds a spending slowdown and article 50 jitters pointing to a challenging year• Help fund our journalism by becoming a Guardian supporterThe pressure on the pound from Britain’s vote to leave the EU is stoking inflation, denting household finances and putting a brake on spending, according to a Guardian analysis.Official figures this week are expected to confirm the economy enjoyed a strong finish to 2016 as companies and consumers continued to shrug off the shock of the Brexit vote. But signs of a spending slowdown, corporate jitters around the triggering of article 50 and rising prices point to a more challenging growth outlook in 2017.Related: How has the Brexit vote affected the UK economy? January verdictRelated: 'It's a crisis that keeps on hurting' - experts debate Brexit watch data Continue reading...

How has the economy reacted to the vote to leave the EU? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/series/brexit-data-snapshot">Each month</a> we look at key indicators to see what effect the Brexit process has on growth, prosperity and trade in the UK Continue reading...

Despite spending the world’s second-largest amount on automation, Australian companies are not ready for robots – or for retraining staffA survey of business leaders has found Australian companies are the worst prepared for the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies among selected major economies, despite spending the second-largest amount of money on automation.

Donald Trump is right to dump the 12-nation trade pact – for all the wrong reasonsIn tone and substance Donald Trump is a divider, not a unifier. His grating bombast at last Friday’s inauguration presaged a few days of overbearing, preening speeches that have alienated sceptics and enthralled supporters. The new US president is intent on pressing the buttons of his electoral base by peddling crude nationalism. He’s not building bridges, but walls. Such sentiments lace President Trump’s pronouncements on trade in which he – and his advisers – appear to hold pungent views, infused with a distinctly late-19th-century scent of economic nationalist politics. It’s often forgotten that the Republican party discarded what remained of its anti-slavery and free-trade roots to become the party of protectionism in the 1880s. But not by Mr Trump. Like his predecessors of yesteryear the president views the world as being at perpetual war – whether economically with other nations or militarily with “radical Islam” – and espouses a doctrine that combines protectionism with coercive foreign market expansion to secure regionalised economic integration.Yet on one narrow issue, President Trump is right. Withdrawing the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership is a good move. Conventional thinking is that trade allows nations to gain by doing what they do best and importing the rest. However, recent decades of US-championed globalisation have left a country with record weak productivity and ballooning wealth inequalities, with one in eight working-age men outside the labour force. President Trump stokes and taps this rage at the machine. Barack Obama did make efforts to make elements of trade justice – such as fairer labour and environmental rights – part of the Asian trade pact. But this was undone in the TPP by giving the right to corporates to sue often poorly financed governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations, including environmental ones, contravene the pact’s terms. Continue reading...

Thinktank warns over planned tax cuts and infrastructure investment as Congressional Budget Office says current spending plan will add $10tn to debtDonald Trump’s tax-cutting and spending plans could add another $6tn to the US public debt over the next 10 years, independent budget analysts have calculated, as the Congressional Budget Office warned the US’s current spending plans alone could trigger a financial crisis.

Writer and professor, Ashley Dawson, argues in his new book that capitalism is behind our current mass extinction crisis. But installing universal guaranteed income in biodiversity hotspots may be one remedy.

In the teeth of recession, a spirit of entrepreneurialism can take hold. Firms explain how they found opportunities in tough times“The financial crisis was a great time for startups,” says Vikas Shah, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, and adviser to the UK government.

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

All the day’s economic and financial news, as Donald Trump’s protectionist approach alarms the markets.

Prime minister’s offer of support to five key sectors will exploit post-Brexit lifting of EU state aid rulesTheresa May is to signal an era of greater state intervention in the economy as she launches her industrial strategy with a promise of “sector deals”, a new system of technical education and better infrastructure.The prime minister will publish the strategy at a cabinet meeting in the north-west of England, naming five sectors that could receive special government support: life sciences, low-carbon-emission vehicles, industrial digitalisation, the creative sector and nuclear industry.Related: 'Northern powerhouse' to get £556m boost amid warnings of east-west divideRelated: Hurrah for the industrial strategy. At last Britain has a plan Continue reading...

A true march of the makers will turn the tables on our abusive consumer culture and deliver the richer relationship with ‘stuff’ that our economy is crying out forMaterialism has become synonymous with consumerism – wasteful, debt-fuelled and ultimately unsatisfying. But what if we’ve not been looking in the wrong place for happiness, and we’ve just got the relationship badly wrong? Like an abusive relationship, we voraciously acquire things we barely use to fill acres of storage space while underpaid workers sleep in tents outside warehouses that feed our seemingly insatiable desire for more. There must be a better way.This is a vital step if we are to find ways for everyone to thrive while living within environmental meansRelated: The big orange shed that holds the key to Britain’s economic recovery | Aditya Chakrabortty Continue reading...

Growth figures this week are expected to confirm resilience of UK economy. But weaker sterling and higher inflation will dent that, warn economistsOfficial figures this week are expected to provide fresh evidence that the UK economy remained resilient in the face of Brexit uncertainty at the close of 2016 but economists warn Britain is headed for a sharp slowdown this year.

Advances in artificial intelligence mean a second wave of change is approaching – and it is not the low-paid service sector where jobs are most at riskGuy Ryder is an old hand at Davos. The director general of the International Labour Organisation has seen it all: the years when the global business elite is brimful of confidence and the years, such as 2017, when the top 1% of the top 1% is fretful.Ryder detected parallels with 2009, when the global economy seemed to be heading for a second Great Depression. Eight years ago, the attendees were shaken by the banking collapse but showed little contrition. This year, they were alarmed by the populist anger that was evident in Brexit and Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House but couldn’t really understand why it was happening.This second group has sniffed the way the wind is blowing. Studies have shown that technological change rather than trade has been responsible for the vast majority of the jobs lost in manufacturing in the developed world. Put simply, machines have replaced humans. Robots have taken over factories. Continue reading...

Consumption - of cars, flights and more - is how most people measure progress, and campaigners must concentrate on reducing the harm this does. Back-to-nature idealism will surely failUrging people to stop consuming stuff in order to slow the rate of climate change is a gambit that is doomed to fail. It would be helpful if shoppers put off buying a suit or installing a new kitchen, but it’s not going to happen. Demonising those who fly to Barcelona for a long weekend is another tactic that will have almost no impact.It’s not for nothing that economists base many of their assumptions on populations having unlimited wants. Most people strain to acquire stuff that the rich have long taken for granted. Telling them to switch off this desire has never worked and is unlikely to do so now, even when the future of the planet is at stake. Continue reading...

Some in Whitehall were wary about the government showing its hand on industry. But next week’s policy unveiling will provide a welcome focusThe government is this week scheduled to unveil its industrial strategy for Britain. It promises to be a fascinating document. Although this industrial strategy has received far less publicity than Brexit, it could have a more significant long-term impact on Britain then leaving the European Union. But that impact depends on the government not only producing a substantial plan but also sticking to it over years and parliaments, which will not be an easy task.Until Theresa May made her speech on Brexit last week, there were growing fears in the business world that the industrial strategy could be a damp squib. It is understood that there have been splits within government about how detailed the industrial strategy should be – because of fears that it could show Britain’s hand too early in negotiations with the EU on Brexit. Continue reading...

Donald Trump is actually giving Mexican workers more reason to head to the US, not lessIn Mexico it is known as “el efecto Trump”: a barrage of taunts and tweets that rattle the economy and hammer the peso. For the new president, it is part of a strategy to pressure companies to move jobs back to the United States. Mexico’s job will be to suck it up, accept the millions of people Trump has promised to deport, and pay for the proposed border wall.Reality may soon disrupt this vision because Donald Trump, in one of the first great ironies of his presidency, has given impoverished Mexicans more reason to migrate to the US.The more jobs you destroy in Mexico, the more immigrants the American people will have.Think a little!Related: Ford cancels plans for Mexico plant as Donald Trump threatens to tax GM Continue reading...

Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are competent and knowledgable – they just don’t sound like they will lead the type of upheaval that Trump promised“We are transferring power … back to you, the people,” Donald Trump told the nation on Friday. “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth.” Not any more, he pledged.Well, now the work begins, and last week we got the first chance to see the men, Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, most charged with fulfilling Trump’s vow.Related: 'American carnage': Trump's vision casts shadow over day of pageantryRelated: Inside Trump Treasury nominee's past life as 'foreclosure king' of California Continue reading...

Conservative councillors want to raise council tax by 15%. So why aren’t Labour and the Lib Dems more enthusiastic?The people of Surrey have been invited to show the rest of Britain what they are made of. Sugar? Spice? All things nice? Either way, the leader of the county’s Conservative council, David Hodge, has done something politically bold and worthy of national attention.Related: Surrey confirms plans to raise council tax by 15%Related: Liverpool plans referendum on 10% council tax rise Continue reading...

UK chancellor tells WEF that Britain will reinvent itself if it has to, as Davos ends with comments from veteran diplomat Henry Kissinger

GDP growth improved to 6.8% but only after a 19% increase in public investment and a lighter touch on real estate borrowing

With fears about the Trump presidency, rising debt levels and an unwinding property boom, the world’s No 2 economy is set for an uncertain 2017China’s economy slowed further last year to expand at its weakest pace for quarter of a century, with warnings that it risks losing further momentum in 2017 as Donald Trump’s presidency creates new challenges for the trading superpower.The world’s second-largest economy grew 6.7% last year, according to China’s statistics office, meeting Beijing’s target range of 6.5-7% but the slowest growth since 1990.Related: My new year forecast: Trumpian uncertainty, and lots of it Continue reading...

This week two big banks, HSBC and UBS, honoured their threats about moving jobs from the UK. The grim reality is ‘hard’ Brexit will be tough for many of usThe tumult and the shouting dies. From hysterical prediction slowly emerges the grim reality. Now the prospect comes into view that the remainers’ Project Fear might just have been true after all. They just got the timing wrong.Related: Goldman Sachs stalls plan to move jobs to UK amid Brexit uncertaintyRelated: Is the City of London going to hell in a Brexit handcart? Continue reading...

Study shows all governments need to play a greater role in restructuring mining sector to compensate for automation effectsFrom a distance, everything looks normal at Rio Tinto’s Yandicoogina and Nammuldi mines in Pilbara, Western Australia. Huge trucks trundle along the mines’ reddish-brown terraced sides laden with high-grade iron ore. Back and forth, almost endlessly.Watch for long enough, however, and you’ll see that no-one ever steps out of the cab. No lunch stops. No toilet breaks. No change of shift. That’s because these house-sized trucks are being remotely operated by ‘drivers’ based 1,200 kilometres away in Perth.Related: Mining, manufacturing and fruit picking: can automation save Mackay jobs?Related: Revealed: Rio Tinto's plan to use drones to monitor workers' private livesRelated: Can democracy survive the fourth industrial revolution? Should it?Related: Revealed: Rio Tinto's plan to use drones to monitor workers' private lives Continue reading...

We’ve launched an all-party group, with leading thinkers from across society, to reject the flawed orthodoxy of shareholder value and trickle-down economicsThe debate taking place between the snow-topped peaks of Davos this week will be dominated by one issue and one issue alone, the surge in inequality. In a democracy, anger isn’t abstract. As both the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump show, it turns up on polling day.In the US, new research shows that in the rust-belt states an incredible 40% of those born in 1980 are worse off than their parents. Here in the UK the gender pay gap still looms large – and as the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed, there has been a four-fold increase in the number of men in low-paid, part-time work over the last 20 years. This represents a stark betrayal of the implicit intergenerational contract of the postwar years – that each successive generation would be better off than the preceding one. And that betrayal is by no means confined to the post-industrial interior of the US; it is in danger of becoming the social and economic condition of our age.Related: Bleak trend of low, part-time wages in UK is revealedRelated: It's time to target the top end of town and the obscene profits of the super-rich | Helen Szoke Continue reading...

PM says world’s biggest firms must pay taxes and treat workers fairly, and market forces alone will not deliver for peopleTheresa May has told the world’s biggest companies they need to start paying their taxes and treat their workers more fairly in order to address the concerns of those who feel left behind by globalisation.In a keynote speech to the World Economic Forum, the prime minister said governments could not rely on international market forces to deliver prosperity for everyone and action was needed to address the “deeply felt sense of economic inequality that has emerged in recent years”.Related: Davos 2017: Theresa May says globalisation must work for everyone - liveRelated: EU politicians and businesses warn May over 'difficult' BrexitRelated: This is Brexit poker - and Theresa May was right to up the stakes | Simon Jenkins Continue reading...

The perception that the president-elect is a business genius and too much focus on the Dow Jones have led to excessive optimismSpeculative markets have always been vulnerable to illusion. But seeing the folly in markets provides no clear advantage in forecasting outcomes, because changes in the force of the illusion are difficult to predict.In the US, two illusions have been important recently in financial markets. One is the carefully nurtured perception that President-elect Donald Trump is a business genius who can apply his deal-making skills to make America great again.Related: Trump is a conservative – but that won't stop him sending deficits soaring Continue reading...

International trade secretary says ‘dozens of countries’ are preparing to expand trading links with UK once it has left EUThe UK is already discussing informal trade deals with at least 12 countries, despite being notionally prevented from striking deals while still a member of the EU, according to Liam Fox’s international trade department.Related: Theresa May's Brexit wishlist – Politics Weekly podcastRelated: We’re not out to punish Britain, but you need to shed your illusions | Guy Verhofstadt Continue reading...

British foreign secretary evokes dark period of French history as he warns François Hollande against trying to hurt UKDowning Street was forced to come to the defence of the foreign secretary Boris Johnson after he warned the French president, François Hollande, not to respond to Brexit by trying to “administer punishment beatings” in the manner of “some world war two movie”.The foreign secretary evoked the darkest period of France’s recent history as he rejected comments by an adviser to Hollande who said Britain should not expect a better trading relationship outside Europe than it currently enjoys inside.Related: Britain's Brexit deal must be inferior to EU membership, MEPs told - Politics liveYet more abhorrent & deeply unhelpful comments from @BorisJohnson which PM May should condemn. https://t.co/GdVQh0AMX1People "offended" by The Foreign Secretary's comments today are humourless, deliberately obtuse, snowflakes-it's a witty metaphor #getalifeRelated: MPs will not block May's deal for UK to leave EU, says David Davis Continue reading...

As many people suspected, and as is becoming more and more obvious, the UK, with its sweatshop economy, weak productivity and huge trade deficit, is going to find itself in very chilly waters after we leave the EU (‘Unsettled’ Brexit will hit UK growth, 17 January). If we succeed in making trade treaties they will mostly be on very unfavourable terms, as we will be on the weak side in most cases (especially with China, the US and the EU). It also becomes more and more obvious that in order to achieve even unfavourable terms we will have to submit to being dominated by big international companies, which will lead to the reintroduction of TTIP-style disputes procedures, a bonfire of labour and environmental protections and policies only acceptable to the hard right of the Conservative party. Brexit is wrong and dangerous: the only way forward is to reverse it.

Rolling coverage of the second day of the World Economic Forum in Davos

Prof Ted Malloch, tipped to be American ambassador to EU, says The Art of the Deal reveals how president-elect’s mind worksThe US academic tipped to be Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU has told British government advisers they should read the president-elect’s business book The Art of the Deal before starting trade negotiations with the US.Prof Ted Malloch, a long-time supporter of Trump who will fly out on Wednesday to attend his inauguration, is understood to have been speaking to Downing Street staff after Theresa May’s speech on leaving the EU. Continue reading...

The announcement that parliament will get a vote on a final deal was welcome. But the prime minister’s speech does nothing to lift the fog of uncertaintyThe big fear with Theresa May’s Brexit speech was that the pound would tank and that the markets would respond as negatively as they had to most of her previous utterances. The opposite happened, and it rose to $1.24, up almost 3% on the day, after it had already risen on Tuesday morning on news that inflation had reached a two-year high (it fell back a cent today).The news that the markets welcomed so warmly was that both houses of parliament would get a vote on the final deal and that May will not seek partial or associate membership of the European Union. That will prevent a bad deal, forced through by the Brexit-at-any-price Eurosceptics, which might have been on the cards without such a vote. Continue reading...

IMF head wins support from outgoing US vice-president Joe Biden as she uses American term for working people in demanding action over rising inequalityThe head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has called for urgent action to tackle a “middle-class crisis” hitting working people as she warned that inequality, distrust and a lack of hope were fuelling growing populism.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Lagarde said she had first highlighted the dangers of rising inequality four years ago but had been ignored. “I hope people will listen now,” she said.Related: Davos 2017: Joe Biden calls on richest 1% to pull their weight, and criticises Russia - live updates Continue reading...

Rightwing writers, ranging from conservative to lunatic fringe across all genres, have long been a lucrative books market. Will the new era see it grow?He compares feminism to cancer, called transgender people “retarded” and once labelled a BuzzFeed reporter a “thick-as-pig-shit media Jew”. So when “alt-right” figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos, who relentlessly delights in wild provocation, landed a $250,000 (£203,000) book deal with Simon & Schuster, the publisher understandably – and almost immediately – issued a statement distancing itself from the views of the writers they publish: “The opinions expressed therein belong to our authors, and do not reflect either a corporate viewpoint or the views of our employees.”Related: UK publishers shy away from 'alt-right' star Milo Yiannopoulos Continue reading...

Fewer people are in work and wage growth has slowed, latest figures showBritain’s labour market showed signs of slowing in November as the number of people in work declined and wage growth slowed for the first time since August.The number of people in employment fell by 9,000 to 31.8 million while month-on-month wage growth, including bonuses, dropped from 2.9% to 2.8%.Related: Pound soars but FTSE falls after Theresa May's Brexit speech Continue reading...

Trade has led to higher living standards in Asia and elsewhere. Are globalisation’s critics against eradicating global poverty?I was recently in beautiful Chile for a Futures Congress, and I had a chance to travel south to the very tip of Latin America. I also recently made a BBC radio documentary called Fixing Globalisation, in which I criss-crossed the UK in search of ideas for improving certain aspects of it and discussed topical issues with well-known experts. In both cases, I saw things that convinced me that it is past time for someone to come to globalisation’s defence.Chile today is Latin America’s richest country, with per capita GDP of about $23,000 – similar to that of central European countries. This is quite an achievement for a country that depends so heavily on copper production, and it sets Chile apart from many of its neighbours. Like many other countries, Chile is facing economic challenges, and its growth rate leaves something to be desired; but it also has many promising opportunities beyond its borders.Related: Xi Jinping signals China will champion free trade if Trump builds barriers Continue reading...