Subsidies to Wales have made devolution a begging bowl rather than a point of pride
Did you raise a toast yesterday to the staff of Gwynedd Council in North Wales? They were enjoying their very own special Bank Holiday to celebrate the day of the patron saint of Wales, St David. Gwynedd council proudly declared in January that it would “grant” this extra holiday. All very well and good, except that […]
A four day week must withstand the productivity test to be worth the gamble
Durham based challenger bank Atom has announced a four day working week for all of its 430 employees as more and more people debate the number of days we should be working. For SMEs in the services sector, a four day week is an attractive bandwagon to jump on. It is commonly given credit for […]
Andrew Bailey fell asleep on inflation and now it is workers who will face the flames
Is there a comfortable chaise longue in the office of Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England? I think we should be told. Because it has become apparent that the Bank has been asleep on the job. In the year to December 2021, consumer prices rose by 5.4 per cent. We have to go […]
The Bank of England has developed a mythical stature – it’s time to burst it
The UK, along with the rest of the Western world, has just lived through a period of low inflation. In the 25 years since the mid-1990s, inflation has averaged just 2 per cent a year. It is enough to double the price level every 35 years, but a far cry from the double-digit rates seen […]
From Northern Rock to lunch tables, no one is immune from the herd mentality
The Bank of England and Federal Reserve held a two-day conference last week in London on big data and machine learning. All very interesting stuff. There was an intriguing vignette as we emerged from the conference room for the frugal lunch on the first day. Straight ahead was a table with sandwiches, fruit and the […]
At long last, economists appreciate that private debt was the catalyst for the crisis
This month saw the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a collapse which precipitated one of the only two global financial crises of the past 150 years. The late 2000s and early 1930s were the only periods in time when capitalism itself has trembled on the edge of the precipice. It was in […]
The Bank of England’s own data negates Carney’s overhyped house price warning
No one can tell them quite like Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England. He appears to have briefed the cabinet last week that house prices could fall by 35 per cent in the event of a no-deal Brexit. To be fair, the Bank did try to qualify this figure by saying that […]
It’s time to question the macroeconomic orthodoxy on interest rates and inflation
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, is getting his retaliation in early. Faced yet again with the Bank failing to deliver its designated target of a two per cent inflation rate, in a speech last week he suggested that his remit was broader. “We face a tradeoff between having inflation above target and […]
