Monthly Archives: February 2010

In the shops last week-end I looked at the labels of the merchandise. Some clothes shops were full of garments from China, interspersed with items from Malaysia, Viet Nam and India. They had nothing from the UK, nor from the countries of Europe that used to pride themselves on fashion and style. The electrical and [...]

It is fashionable to say that baby boomers – people born from 1945 to the early 1960s – were the lucky generation. They got free places at university, had final salary pension schemes from well heeled jobs, and became rich just by buying and living in a house. Their parents fought a war and were [...]

It is a significant moment, when senior economists write to the Sunday Times warning that we need to cut the deficit to sustain the recovery. It is even more important that they think deficit cutting should mainly come from spending cuts, not from tax increases. They delphically warn that some tax increases on employment and [...]

As forecast, it has not snowed since I swapped my Jaguar XF for a Freelander! It worked. I find it an improvement. So much of what passed for controlling the Jaguar had to be executed by pressing on a flabby touch screen. If there was sunshine it was difficult or impossible to read it. If [...]

There have been two types of government economic policy. One set of policies has tried to delay the inevitable adjustment to a world of lower borrowing. The other set is starting to cut living standards, as the government tries to stave off a worse financial crisis. Money printing was designed to delay the adjustment of [...]

With Greece nestling in the Euro zone, the EU Euro summiteers yesterday tried to give the impression that there would be gifts for the Greeks to save them within the zone. There was no detail, however. It was all spin and mood music, no deals, no loans with conditions, nothing save stern words on how [...]

Therre are senior Greeks who think Europe owes them a living. They seem to think they have a right to spend far too much on their unhappy and poor performing public sector and then to ask the Germans to pay the bills.Their efforts so far to cut spending and set out a course to get [...]