Month: October 2016

Brexit disclosure: food prices can go down as well as up

A few weeks ago the Tesco-Unilever stand-off had the British public trembling at the thought of higher Marmite prices and the Bremainers (or Bremoaners, if you [...]

Total catastrophe: the Chinese bad debt time bomb

When China reported 3rd quarter DGP figures last week, it was no surprise to see a 3rd straight quarter of 6.7% annual growth, placing them comfortably in the [...]

Why the press should be free to slander

Back in 2011 the phone hacking scandal which led to the demise of the News of the World newspaper had politicians take aim at the free press. The subsequent [...]

Keynesian coin toss: heads I win, tails you lose

The aftermath of the financial crisis has been the era of the central banks. Never before have our supposedly infallible monetary overlords been charged with [...]

What Pompeii can teach us about inequality

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash. The disaster killed every citizen, but the thick ash also [...]

Scotland: Spoiled, broke and angry

The Scottish National Party is staging its annual conference this week amidst renewed calls for a 2nd Scottish independence referendum. Nicola Sturgeon is of [...]

Why does our PM think it is important who makes your chocolate bar?

It seems the UK’s new government has little faith in markets. Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech to the Conservative Conference last week marked the move [...]

Endangered, Vulnerable and Threatened: rare species need saving from government too

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), nearly a quarter of all mammals and a third of amphibians face extinction unless action is taken. For [...]

Déjà vu: May shadows the Shadow Chancellor

’Fair’ is a word often misused in political discourse, but it is fair to say that the UK's new Prime Minister delivered a fairly economically illiterate, [...]

What you, and the regulators, should know about bank capital and market discipline

Deutsche Bank has hit the headlines recently, as the US Department of Justice slapped an incredulous fine of USD 14bn on them for mis-selling of mortgage [...]