Feed economics-the-guardian

Link http://feeds.theguardian.com/
Feed http://feeds.theguardian.com/theguardian/business/economics/rss
Updated 2025-04-02 06:30
UK interest rates are going nowhere in 2017
Uncertainty about inflation and the impact of article 50 mean growth folllowing Brexit vote is unlikely to lastInterest rates are going up in the US, but in the UK they are going nowhere.That, bluntly, was the message from the Bank of England as it announced its latest decision on borrowing costs less than 24 hours after the US Federal Reserve not only tightened policy but signalled more to come in 2017.Related: Bank of England leaves UK interest rates on hold at 0.25% Continue reading...
Bank of England leaves UK interest rates on hold at 0.25%
Monetary policy committee votes to keep rates unchanged, but warns of likely slowdown in growth next yearThe Bank of England has left interest rates at their record low of 0.25% but repeated a warning that higher inflation and slower wage growth risk squeezing household budgets and spending next year.The Bank’s nine-strong monetary policy committee voted unanimously to keep rates on hold and maintain the current programme of electronic money printing known as quantitative easing. Policymakers had cut rates and expanded QE back in August to shore up confidence in the wake of June’s vote to leave the EU.Related: Bank of England leaves UK interest rates at record lows - business live Continue reading...
EU politicians believe trade deal could take decade, No 10 is warned
UK’s ambassador to EU is reported to have told PM of view that deal will not be finalised until early to mid-2020sEurope’s politicians believe a trade deal with the UK could take up to a decade or more and could still fail in the final stages, Downing Street has been warned by the UK’s ambassador to the EU.Sir Ivan Rogers, who conducted David Cameron’s renegotiation with the EU before the referendum, is reported to have told Theresa May that European politicians expect that a deal will not be finalised until the early to mid-2020s, according to the BBC. That deal could still be rejected by any of the 27 national parliaments during the ratification process.Related: Reality check: will it take 10 years to do a UK-EU trade deal post Brexit?Related: 'It terrifies me': Britons in Europe on how Brexit is going to affect themRelated: Philip Hammond: Japanese banks are concerned about Brexit Continue reading...
US dollar surges to 14-year high as Fed hints at three rate hikes in 2017
Currencies felt the pain around Asia as investors reacted to unexpectedly bullish comments by Fed chair Janet YellenThe prospect of three more hikes in US interest rates next year has sent the dollar to a 14-year high and caused a selloff on most Asian markets.
Janet Yellen: US interest rate rise 'vote of confidence' in economy – as it happened
Federal Reserve predicts three US rate hikes in 2017, as it increases borrowing costs for the first time this year
US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for second time since 2008 crisis
Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen announced a 0.25% increase in the benchmark rate to 0.50-0.75%, and predicted three further rates increase in 2017The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates for the first time in a year, and only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis. The US central bank also predicted three further rates increase in 2017, up from previous expectations of two rate hikes.
Keynes would be disappointed by the way we work | Letters
In his comparison between 1936 and 2016 (A view from 1936: what Keynes would say now, 12 December), Larry Elliott omits to mention one of the major differences, and one that JM Keynes would surely have noticed as he speculated on its implications – namely the enormous increase in the productive power of labour and of the economy.Our priority should be to help people reduce their working hours (whether over a lifetime or weekly or daily) so that they can enjoy the leisure their productive capacity allows; today most people are still wage slaves, indeed more so than ever in the richest countries.Related: Keynesian economics: is it time for the theory to rise from the dead?The illusion has been created that higher house prices represent an increase in real national wealthRelated: Oh for the 1960s! People earned less but could afford more Continue reading...
This is a true age of uncertainty for the world economy | Barry Eichengreen
Donald Trump and the EU crisis make the instability described by JK Galbraith nearly 40 years ago seem enviableThe year 2017 will mark the 40th anniversary of the publication of John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Age of Uncertainty. Forty years is a long time, but it is worth looking back and reminding ourselves of how much he and his readers had to be uncertain about.In 1977, as Galbraith was writing, the world was still reeling from the effects of the first Opec oil-price shock and wondering whether another one was in the pipeline (as it were). The US was confronting slowing growth and accelerating inflation, or stagflation, a novel problem that raised questions about policymakers’ competence and the adequacy of their economic models. Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild the Bretton Woods international monetary system had collapsed, casting a shadow over prospects for international trade and global economic growth.Related: Will Trump herald a US economic boom? Continue reading...
UK jobs improvement has stalled as employers wait and see on Brexit
Latest ONS figures showing slight fall in employment after major rise in previous quarter are consistent with other surveysEmployment and unemployment down marginally. Wage growth and inactivity up a bit. Cut through the mass of data and the conclusion is clear: the improvement in the UK labour market has stalled.
Greece 'boxed in' as EU and IMF fight over nation's debt relief plan
IMF distances itself from policies underpinning bailout as Greek officials worry that war of words may lead to IMF pulling out of rescue programmeThe row over how to stabilise the indebted Greek economy has resurfaced with renewed vigour after the European Union on Tuesday angrily rejected charges by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that its current rescue programme is “not credible”.The spectre of the country’s economic crisis flaring up again deepened as the extent of the differences between creditors was laid bare. Caught in the middle, Athens also ratcheted up the rhetoric, as its finance minister told the Guardian that the IMF was “economising with the truth”. Continue reading...
Looking for happiness in life and at work | Letters
Richard Layard is promoting the idea that better provision of mental health services is more important than reducing social inequalities in promoting human happiness (Happiness depends on health and friends, not money, says new study, theguardian.com, 12 December). This is a false dichotomy. Evidence suggests that austerity damages our collective health. Deepening economic and social divides, bullying, abuse, misogyny, racism, dehumanisation and consequent insecurity, trauma, social exclusion, neglect and despair underpin the current tsunami of desolation in the UK and beyond, especially in our children. These are largely economic and political matters, requiring cultural, social and political solutions. Psychological therapies, humanely delivered to those who want them, have a part to play in ameliorating human suffering, and we do need more flexible, kind and supportive services. But we must not pathologise those who are damaged by the injustices they experience. Degradation by the benefits system is now devastating many with long-term illnesses in the UK. To imagine that therapy, rather than social transformation, can address or prevent the conditions that lead to despair is to be wilfully blind.
Greek finance minister hits back at IMF as bailout row deepens -as it happened
Euclid Tsakalotos says Fund is ‘economising on the truth” after it insisted it wasn’t demanding more austerity to make Greek bailout targets credible.
Commodity price falls mean poorest countries miss UN poverty goals
Unctad reports weakest year of GDP growth in 20 years for least developed nations, scuppering hopes that half would escape extreme poverty by 2020Hopes that half of the world’s 48 least developed nations could emerge from extreme poverty by the end of the decade have been dashed after a UN body reported the weakest year of growth in more than 20 years.The UN conference on trade and development (Unctad) said plunging commodity prices had hit the group of least developed countries hard, with 13 of them suffering a fall in living standards in 2015.Related: UN warns over global fallout from debt crisis in poor countries Continue reading...
'We have to be nimble and pragmatic' – crisp maker hit by price rises
Kent food manufacturer Nim’s Fruit Crisps faces higher import costs – but sees silver lining of increased export demand for productsManufacturer Nimisha Raja has been following the foreign exchange markets more closely than usual since the referendum. She makes dried fruit and vegetable crisps at a factory in Sittingbourne, Kent, and buying ingredients from abroad has become a lot more expensive since the Brexit vote sent the pound tumbling against the euro, the dollar and other currencies.Like other manufacturers who buy materials from abroad, Raja has had to decide whether to take a hit to profit margins at Nim’s Fruit Crisps, charge more to clients or change her products.Related: Inflation hits highest level in more than two years Continue reading...
Why is UK inflation rising so quickly? Blame Brexit and the oil price
A 20% hike in petrol prices added to sterling’s 15% fall means the cost of living is rising fast. Expect 2% by spring, 3% by next ChristmasGyrations in the oil market meant it was a stone-cold certainty that inflation would be on the rise in late 2016. This time last year the price of crude was crashing, which put strong downward pressure on the cost of living. The annual inflation rate is the sum of price movements in the latest 12 months, so last year’s price falls are gradually dropping out. As they do, inflation automatically goes up.This trend is, however, is being amplified by two other factors. The first is that oil prices are not just holding steady: as a result of the deal between oil-producing countries to curb production they are going up. A year ago, it was possible to find unleaded petrol at around £1 a litre; this Christmas it will be £1.20 a litre.Related: Inflation hits highest level in more than two years Continue reading...
Airbnb a solution to middle-class inequality, company says
Sharing economy helping to mitigate blows dealt by 2008 financial crisis and dwindling middle class that Trump warned about, says head of global policyAirbnb says it is a solution to the problem of growing middle-class inequality that Donald Trump campaigned on, as it attempts to persuade local governments around the world of what it has to offer.Chris Lehane, head of global policy, told media in Sydney on Tuesday that a struggling middle class was a concern for both the Democrats and the Republican party in the recent presidential election campaign.Related: Airbnb faces worldwide opposition. It plans a movement to rise up in its defenceRelated: The 'Airbnb effect': is it real, and what is it doing to a city like Amsterdam?Related: Airbnb regulation deal with London and Amsterdam marks dramatic policy shiftRelated: Airbnb is driving up the rent in your urban neighborhood | Alexander Zaitchik Continue reading...
Four lessons from Donald Trump's US election victory
Our best chance of building consensus is if we engage with voters’ concerns about jobs, society and rapid changeDonald Trump’s surprise election as the 45th president of the US has spawned a cottage industry of election postmortems and predictions in the US and abroad. Some correlate Trump’s victory with a broader trend toward populism in the west, and, in particular, in Europe, exemplified by the UK’s vote in June to leave the European Union. Others focus on Trump’s appeal as an outsider, capable of disrupting the political system in a way that his opponent, the former secretary of state and consummate insider Hillary Clinton never could. There may be something to these explanations, particularly the latter. But there is more to the story.In the months preceding the election, the mainstream media, pundits and pollsters kept repeating that Trump had an extremely narrow path to victory. What they failed to recognize was the extent of economic anxiety felt by working-class families in key states, owing to the dislocations caused by technology and globalization.Related: US economy adds 178,000 new jobs making Fed rate hike likely Continue reading...
Neoliberalism turned our world into a business. And there are two big winners
Fearmongering Donald Trump and optimistic Silicon Valley seem to epitomize opposing ideologies. But the two have far more in common than you thinkTomorrow, Silicon Valley leaders will sit down for a summit with Donald Trump. Larry Page, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and Sheryl Sandberg are all expected to attend. The agenda is unknown, but the mood is likely to be tense. After all, tech executives overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton and loudly railed against the dangers posed by a Trump presidency. And Trump regularly lashed out at Silicon Valley on the campaign trail, bashing the industry for building hardware overseas and importing foreign engineers.But tech has little to fear from Trump. If his cabinet appointments are any indication, he seems keen to govern as a free-market fundamentalist, cutting taxes and regulations to the bone. Trump’s elevation of ultra-hawkish ex-generals to key cabinet posts also suggests that he will aggressively expand the sprawling surveillance state inherited from Obama. This is excellent news for companies like Palantir, which sell data analytics tools to the CIA, the NSA and other agencies. Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire who broke with his Silicon Valley colleagues to embrace Trump. Thiel now sits on the transition team, and has begun drawing a select circle of tech industry allies into Trump’s orbit. He and his friends are likely to make lots of money.Related: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problemsNo industry has played a larger role in evangelizing the neoliberal faith than Silicon ValleyThe irony is that Trump will only intensify the crisis that put him in powerRelated: 2016: the year Facebook became the bad guy Continue reading...
Inflation hits highest level in more than two years
The 1.2% rate in November was driven by higher petrol and clothing prices, with leather sofas, bleach, pizza and computers also contrubuting, says ONSUK inflation climbed to 1.2% in November, the highest level in more than two years, in a sign that the fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote is fuelling a rise in the cost of living.
UK naive to expect easy ride in Brexit trade talks, says Lords report
Lords Brexit reports: Cross-party peers accuse ministers of misunderstanding nature of free trade and overestimating negotiating positionBritain is naive to expect a “free lunch” in trade negotiations with the EU, according to a scathing House of Lords report that calls for a transition phase to ease the pain.“The notion that a country can have complete regulatory sovereignty while engaging in comprehensive free trade with partners is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of free trade,” said the cross-party group of peers. Continue reading...
Our problem isn’t robots, it’s the low-wage car-wash economy | Paul Mason
Mark Carney is right that we must stop creating badly paid low-productivity jobs and redistribute wealth – and that will involve unleashing the machinesThe headlines were inevitable, once Mark Carney uttered the word automation. Robots, the Sun told us, are set to “steal 15m jobs from Brits”. Sadly, our main problem is not robots; still less the artificial intelligence technologies that will power them.Our real problem is symbolised by the car wash. A car wash used to mean a machine. Now it means five guys with rags. There are now 20,000 hand car washes in Britain, only a thousand of them regulated. By contrast, in the space of 10 years, the number of rollover car-wash machines has halved – from 9,000 to 4,200. The free-market economic model, combined with a globalised labour market, has produced a kind of reverse industrialisation. Continue reading...
Oil price surges on cuts deal, as Trump tweet hits Lockheed Martin shares – as it happened
Crude prices hit 17-month high as Opec and non-Opec members take steps to tackle worldwide oil glut
Social care: why are we 'beyond the crisis point'?
Funding cuts, staff costs and rising need have spurred the government to consider increasing council taxThere is not a crisis in adult social care, says Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association. “We are now beyond the crisis point. We really are at the edge of the cliff now.”Residential care homes are closing at an unprecedented rate, hospitals are logjammed with elderly patients with nowhere to go; in the community, local authority cuts are leaving more than a million people desperately in need of more assistance in their homes.Related: Council tax hike being considered to cover social care costs Continue reading...
Fossil fuel divestment funds double to $5tn in a year
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon welcomes new total revealing concern over coal, oil and gas investments has entered financial mainstreamThe value of investment funds committed to selling off fossil fuel assets has jumped to $5.2tn, doubling in just over a year.The new total, published on Monday, was welcomed by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who said: “It’s clear the transition to a clean energy future is inevitable, beneficial and well underway, and that investors have a key role to play.”Related: Institutions worth $2.6 trillion have now pulled investments out of fossil fuelsRelated: A beginner's guide to fossil fuel divestment Continue reading...
Venezuela pulls 100-bolivar note from circulation to 'beat mafia'
President says surprise move needed to stem profiteering, but critics lambast move as impractical amid inflation crisis
Monte dei Paschi di Siena tries to keep €5bn rescue plan alive
Italy’s third largest bank seeks to avoid government bailout with debt-for-equity swap offer to retail investorsExecutives at Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) are fighting to salvage a multibillion-euro rescue by private investors in a frantic attempt to prop up the bank.In a statement released after a board meeting on Sunday, the world’s oldest bank said it would forge ahead with a debt-for-equity swap offer for tens of thousands of retail investors. The offer still requires regulatory approval. If MPS manages to convince investors to go along with the plan, it would help it avoid a government bailout by Italy, which would have far-reaching economic and political consequences.Related: Monte Dei Paschi bailout: what you need to know – the Guardian briefing Continue reading...
UK economy set for sluggish growth, warns business group
Inflation, cautious consumers and weak pound will be drag on output, says BCC, which puts 2017 GDP at 1.1%The UK economy will slow markedly next year as uncertainty about the country’s future position in Europe and higher inflation hit consumers and businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has predicted.The business group believes the UK will avoid recession but still lose momentum as the weak pound pushes up import costs and the resulting rise in inflation erodes people’s spending power. Continue reading...
West Midlands is now employment blackspot, says thinktank
Resolution Foundation links region’s growth, pay and income problems to pro-Brexit sentiment and policymakers favouring London and ManchesterThe West Midlands has become an employment blackspot and is badly trailing behind other parts of the UK on job creation and living standards, a leading think tank has warned.These considerations pushed the region into voting to leave the European Union, said the Resolution Foundation. Continue reading...
Can a change in economic policies cope with anger and alienation? | Letters
Pankaj Mishra’s exposé of the poverty of economic man (Welcome to the age of anger, 8 December) is powerful but, among the “more complex drives” he lists, he omits “belonging” – key to understanding “identity politics”. Facing danger our instinct, like that of animals who herd, is to cling to the familiar and the group. Incomers may or may not be a realistic threat, but they are easily perceived to be in times of disturbing upheaval. This need not be a counsel of despair; it could be a cause for hope. Globalisation and technical change may not be inevitably destructive: whether they do harm or good depends on the values by which we handle them. If we remain dedicated to the competitive pursuit of material gain and are indifferent to the feelings of shame, humiliation, helplessness and anger of those who are left out – or if, worse still, we continue our persecution of the poor – then recent events are just a foretaste of a future that will be bleak indeed.
Taxpayers saved the Royal Bank of Scotland. Now it’s time we owned it | Gareth Thomas
Mutualising RBS would mean it could start serving those who bailed it out. And it would also inject some much-needed competition into the banking sectorEvery month there are new headlines about the Royal Bank of Scotland’s wrongdoing. The chief executive, Ross McEwan, puts the best spin on things, but his bank is still failing; most recently it failed the Bank of England’s stress test. Trying to privatise the bank hasn’t worked and state ownership hasn’t been a rip-roaring success either; but worse, its very size and dominance means together with the other big banks it is stifling competition. Now is the right moment for a different approach.Related: Turn RBS into a building society says Co-op party chiefIn strong mutuals it is member expectations rather than shareholder interests that ensure more competitive productsRelated: After eight hard years and a £52bn loss, can RBS ever be privatised? Continue reading...
Keynesian economics: is it time for the theory to rise from the dead?
John Maynard Keynes penned his General Theory in 1936. Faced with the upheaval of 2016, what would a cryogenically frozen Keynes do?Imagine this. In late 1936, shortly after the publication of his classic General Theory, John Maynard Keynes is cryogenically frozen so he can return 80 years later.Things were looking grim when Keynes went into cold storage. The Spanish civil war had just begun, Stalin’s purges were in full swing, and Hitler had flouted the Treaty of Versailles by remilitarising the Rhineland. The recovery from the Great Depression was fragile. It was the year of the Jarrow march and Franklin Roosevelt’s second presidential election victory.Related: John Maynard Keynes died 70 years ago. We ignore his wisdom at our peril | Justin Talbot Zorn and Merle LefkoffRelated: Keynes helped us through the crisis – but he's still out of favour Continue reading...
We’ll get a Brexit that suits Europe, not one that suits us
The process of leaving is descending into a farce that reminds one of The Fast Show – except that it is happening so excruciatingly slowlyThe Fast Show, which ran on BBC television from 1994 to 1997 – the last few years of Ken Clarke’s chancellorship – has been voted the second-best television sketch show ever, after Monty Python.What we are now witnessing is the Slow Show – this excruciating, drawn-out process of Brexit, which shows every sign of eventually proving the most dangerous and self-defeating political tragicomedy of our age. Continue reading...
‘Who buys fish with a credit card here?’ Traders scoff at Goa’s bid to ditch cash
With the state about to be a test bed for India’s drive to digital payments, alarm bells are ringing in the city of PanjimIt’s 11 o’clock, and Laxman Chauhan still hasn’t sold any fish. His stall in the central market in the west Indian city of Panjim has been open for three hours, but none of his usual clients have come today. He checks his watch, and then takes a walk to see if other vendors have had any customers. “Sold anything yet?” he asks Ramila Pujjar, who has set her stall up with a glistening display of the morning’s catch. She hasn’t either.“I’m losing 2,000-3,000 rupees (£23-£35) a day,” says Chauhan. “I’m throwing fish away every day.” Continue reading...
Ed Miliband joins call for soft Brexit as conflict in Labour grows
Tough choices must be made to safeguard economy, including scrapping of migration cuts, warns party’s former leaderThe UK should stay inside the EU’s single market and customs union even if this means there can only be limited cuts to immigration after Brexit, the former Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said.Spelling out his own Brexit strategy, and insisting that tough choices must now be made, Miliband argued that safeguarding the strength of the economy should be the number one priority in negotiations over leaving the EU, rather than a focus on the “undeliverable promise” of cutting immigration to tens of thousands a year.Related: Brexit must be fair to working people – or there will be a backlash |Ed MilibandRelated: Poll suggests public will not accept a Brexit that leaves them worse off Continue reading...
ECB refuses to help Italy's crisis-hit Monte dei Paschi bank
Italian government may have to prop up world’s oldest bank as recapitalisation deal faltersFears that the Italian government will have to prop up Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) are mounting after the European Central Bank refused to give the world’s oldest bank more time to find major investors to back a €5bn (£4.2bn) cash injection.Trading in the troubled bank’s shares was repeatedly halted on the Italian stock exchange on Friday. The MPS share price closed 10% lower as the bank’s board held a meeting that had already been scheduled before the reports that the ECB had rejected its calls for an extension to the deadline to bolster its financial position.Related: Monte Dei Paschi bailout: what you need to know – the Guardian briefing Continue reading...
UK can lead the way on human rights | Letters
After a week of intense scrutiny of Brexit arrangements, this Saturday’s observance of Human Rights Day provides a welcome pause to reflect on the role the UK should play on the international stage. This is especially important when we consider how global businesses based in the UK or listed on the London Stock Exchange impact on the world’s poorest people. There are real examples of UK leadership on human rights, from support for the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, the government must follow through on its commitments and ensure that its leadership in these areas is not jeopardised by falling short elsewhere.Legal changes have made it harder for communities affected by British companies’ actions overseas to seek justice in the UK. It is also concerning that some government departments have regarded international standards as optional, rather than essential protections to ensure that business operations do not harm society’s most vulnerable. Continue reading...
Monte Dei Paschi bailout: what you need to know – the Guardian briefing
Why has the EU given the world’s oldest bank a deadline, how much money needs to be raised, and what impact is the Italian referendum having?The Italian banking system now poses the biggest risk to the financial security of the eurozone and its most venerable institution is at the heart of the problem. Here is what you need to know.Related: Crisis-hit Monte dei Paschi bank refused ECB help Continue reading...
ECB reportedly rules out extension for Monte dei Paschi fundraising - as it happened
Brazil's austerity package decried by UN as attack on poor people
Senior official says proposed budget cuts, which have been protested in violent street clashes, are ‘lacking in all nuance and compassion’Brazil is poised to implement the most socially regressive austerity package in the world, a senior United Nations official has warned.Despite violent street protests against budget cuts, President Michel Temer – who came to power after engineering the impeachment of his former running mate, Dilma Rousseff – is pushing through a 20-year social spending freeze that will be locked into the constitution.Related: Brazil turns right as old elite wastes no time erasing Workers' party influenceRelated: Brazil is in crisis. And once again, the poorest will bear the burden | Mariana Prandini Assis Continue reading...
ECB's quantitative easing programme investing billions in fossil fuels
EU emissions pledge could be undermined by bank’s investments in oil, gas and auto industries, new analysis showsThe European Central Bank’s (ECB) quantitative easing programme is systematically investing billions of euros in the oil, gas and auto industries, according to a new analysis.The ECB has already purchased €46bn (£39bn) of corporate bonds since last June in a bid to boost flagging eurozone growth rates, a figure that some analysts expect to rise to €125bn by next September. On Thursday the bank said it would extend the scheme until 2018. Continue reading...
Gender pay gap checker reveals the good, the bad and the scandalous
New ONS tool allows workers to see the disparity in pay on a job-by-job basis – from fishmongers to fitness instructors, cleaners to cooksIf you are a female traffic warden or probation officer read on for good news. If you are a female chief executive you may want to look away now.The UK’s stubbornly wide gender pay gap is well-known. Almost half a century on from the gender pay act, there is still an 18.1% difference in average pay between men and women. Of course, such average figures for all employees tell a narrow story. They don’t, for example, account for the fact more women work in lower-paid jobs or sectors.
UK trade gap narrows despite fears of Brexit slowdown
Rise in exports in October fuels hopes economy will end year strongly – but construction output suffers surprise fallNews of a pick-up in exports has fanned hopes the UK economy will finish the year on a strong note, confounding earlier fears that the Brexit vote would spark a sharp slowdown.Official figures showed the UK’s trade deficit with the rest of the world narrowed more than expected in October as exports rose and imports fell. But statisticians said there was little evidence that the weak pound – which makes UK goods cheaper overseas – was boosting exports.Related: Protectionism and trade disputes threaten world growth, says OECD Continue reading...
Northern England's Brexit voters need to be heard, says thinktank
Brexit vote is cry of community outrage at imbalances of wealth and power, warns IPPR NorthEstablishment figures should stop sneering at northern England’s Brexit voters and instead work to understand their concerns, a leading thinktank will warn on Friday.Speaking at its annual State of the North conference in Leeds, the director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) North, Ed Cox, will argue that Brexit negotiations should focus on the needs of the areas that voted most strongly to leave the EU. Continue reading...
UK food prices will rise without EU workers, say trade groups
Food and drink industry flags up labour shortages as EU workers leave after Brexit vote or stay away due to fall in poundFood prices will rise unless the government ensures EU citizens can work in the UK after Brexit, according to industry groups representing the major supermarkets and food manufacturers, including the owner of Marmite.Related: EU workers in food and drink industry need assurance over Brexit | Letters Continue reading...
EU workers in food and drink industry need assurance over Brexit | Letters
Nearly 4 million people are employed in growing, harvesting, producing, packaging, selling and serving our food and drink.In light of the vote for Brexit, the importance of food and drink to our nation’s economic and physical wellbeing should be recognised and its future secured. In recent years, Britain has enjoyed access to a wider range of safe, high-quality food and drink, at every price point, than ever before. At a time when household incomes are under increasing pressure, shop prices for food have been kept in check for more than three years and, if that is to continue, the government must ensure the place of food and drink both in our new industrial strategy and at the heart of the Brexit negotiations. Continue reading...
ECB surprises markets by scaling back QE programme
Eurozone’s central bank leaves interest rates unchanged but slows pace of asset purchases from €80bn a month to €60bnThe European Central Bank has vowed to continue with its programme of electronic money printing to shore up the eurozone recovery but surprised financial markets by reducing the amount of stimulus it expects to provide each month.The single currency bloc’s central bank left interest rates unchanged and said it would continue its programme of quantitative easing (QE) to next December or beyond “if necessary”, marking an extension to its previous guidance that the scheme would run until the end of March. Continue reading...
Markets soar as ECB extends QE programme until December 2017 – as it happened
European Central Bank says it will conduct an extra nine months of quantitative easing, but cuts bond purchases from €80bn to €60bn per month
2016 in review: where did the jobs and growth go? – podcast
Greg Jericho, Katharine Murphy, Gareth Hutchens and the West Australian’s economics editor, Shane Wright, look back at the year in economics on this episode of Australian politics live. When the election promised jobs and growth, why do we now have less of both? Continue reading...
Scott Morrison: recession not needed to make case for company tax cuts
Treasurer says he would prefer policy changes were accepted before economic emergency, but Labor blames shrinking growth on Coalition’s lack of strategyScott Morrison says he does not want to wait for a recession to convince parliament of the need for his company tax cuts.He has referred to Paul Keating’s infamous phrase from 1990 about the “recession we had to have”, saying he would prefer important policy changes were accepted before an emergency.Related: Australian GDP: economy shrinks by 0.5% in September quarterRelated: Coalition policy has gone badly wrong and the RBA needs to cut interest rates | Stephen Koukoulas Continue reading...
Some fresh ideas to tackle social insecurity | Letters
Colin Hines of the Green New Deal Group on job-creating QE | James Taylor of Scope on disabled people in poverty | Dr Malcolm Torry of the Citizen’s Income Trust on a basic income | Anita Deshmukh on older women’s unemploymentMark Carney can himself do far more to bring about his desire for the rebalancing of the economy to help the “left behind” (Globalisation victims must now get a share of the gains, warns Carney, 6 December). In August the Bank of England announced a further £60bn of its quantitative easing programme, taking the total of e-printed money to £435bn, the equivalent of nearly £7,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.Instead of using this staggering amount of money to prop up the banks and inflate stock markets, property and other assets, the new £60bn of QE should be used to buy bonds from a national investment bank and from local authorities to generate a “jobs in every constituency” programme. This would give all people, not just the left behind, a sense of hope about their economic future and should involve decentralised infrastructure projects centred on a decades-long, multi-skilled programme of energy refits of all the nation’s 30 million dwellings, a shift to localised renewable energy, and a rebuilding of local transport, food and flood defence systems. Continue reading...
...248249250251252253254255256257...