Monthly Archives: February 2009

You cannot solve a crisis brought on by borrowing too much, by borrowing even more. You have to work your way through the debts, repaying some, and increasing your income relative to the interest costs. You cannot magic away a load of bad debts and poor investments by transferring them all from the private sector [...]

Report to Shareholders in UK PLC by the Chief Executive This year will be difficult for your country. Our turnover (output) will continue to fall, as it has been doing for the last half year. I have decided to use this opportunity to expand the cost base substantially. I intend to increase the numbers on [...]

Both American and EU capitalism are heavily regulated. Both have concentrated on a lot of detailed regulation of financial services, and both have done it badly. The EU dreams that there is a free wheeling US system and a cleverly regulated EU system. In times of trouble when US output wobbles, they come out and [...]

Mr Hester, the CEO of RBS, figures prominently in today’s papers with a plan to sort out the mess at RBS. Some of what is reported makes sense and is welcome. There appears to be a realisation that the investment bank is undertaking too much risky business, and using too much capital This needs to [...]

Can spinning get any more trivial? What matters is the content of any meeting between PM and President, and whether it is in our interest and the US interest to develop the relationship. Do we agree with Obama’s warlike moves in Afghanistan? Can we advise the President to a wiser course in the Middle East? [...]

In January both share prices and government bond prices fell. This meant that most pension funds in the UK lost money, some of them very large sums. In the through the looking glass world of pension calculations, the deficits of the UK funds actually fell a little. The combined deficits of all the funds coming [...]

The government’s stealth taxes have slowly but surely taken more of our incomes. Tax Freedom has crept later, from May into June. Now the UK government takes financial responsibility for a very large bank with a medium sized government attached, Tax Freedom Day will advance still later, beyond the half way point of the year. [...]

The Labour government is getting several of the things it said it wanted, but discovering they are not what they were cracked up to be They said they wanted homes to be more affordable. Now they have house prices in free fall, they are not so sure it was a good idea. They said they [...]

The Unions are right to be worried about the future of British car manufacturing capacity. They are not necessarily right to say we need to preserve the capacity and the model ranges we currently have. We need to export more vehicles. Even at the height of the over borrowing in 2007 the world had too [...]