Monthly Archives: December 2008

I am a natural optimist. I like to see the opportunity and the possibilities in life. The background as we travel through the end of the old year and into the new is not auspicious. The news background threatens worse to come on jobs, company failures, house prices and much else. Just to make it [...]

Now government and media are blessed with 20/20 hindsight about the property and commodity price bubbles, they should ask themselves when and how they want to puncture the latest bubble – that in government bonds. Or do they wish to do exactly the same with this as they did with the property and commodity bubbles [...]

Yesterday’s Sunday Times reported a City analyst saying that RBS may report losses of up to £28 billion for 2008 when it reports its full year figures. If it does, or if reports a mere £20 billion of losses for last year, that means all the extra capital pumped in by UK taxpayers will have [...]

On the economy we have heard from the President elect. Apparently the only thing wrong with the high spend high borrow strategy of George Bush is that he didn’t overspend and over borrow enough. We should expect more of the same when President Obama sits in the Oval Office. On the alleged corruption within the [...]

Last night was doubly unusual for me. I had time to watch TV, and there was something on a Saturday night I was willing to watch. I tuned in to the story of the political awakening of John Adams, the 2nd President of the USA. In their vivid and simplified documentary way the film makers [...]

Locally yesterday’s spree looked like a one day wonder this afternoon. In Wokingham there were long queues in Woolworths to pay small sums for items that are now heavily discounted and well thumbed through, but not a lot else going on. In Bracknell the furniture sheds were short of paying customers and the electrical and [...]

This year there are three trends hitting the stores simultaneously. Two have become common in recent years. We have become a nation of binge shoppers, with a temptation to all try to shop on the same few days each year when we think the prices will be keenest and when we have a holiday. More [...]

The Japanese industrial output figures show a drop of 8%. That should come as no surprise. Other economies will also produce dreadful figures for manufacturing output in the weeks ahead, as there is now a big shut down underway which will last well into the New Year. People ask why the lower interest rates and [...]

I was pleased to learn this morning that there is now a final deadline to get our remaining troops out of Iraq. They have done a great job in difficult circumstances, made worse by political disagreement about the desirability and nature of the mission and by the lack of certain vital items of equipment. The [...]