I should perhaps have been more explicit when I said ‘Signing Off’. This is the last post on this blog until further notice. I have unexpectedly been offered an advisory position to the new government, and so for many different reasons can no longer keep this going. Many thanks to all of you for making [...]
Archive for May, 2010
24 May
Quotes of a vital, nay historic importance
On the EuroMess, Stephanie: those North European powerhouses have been running up huge trade surpluses, while the Southern Europeans have run bigger and bigger trade deficits. Whenever Germany tells you how much the Greeks are costing them, remember this: German exports to Greece have risen by 133% since the single currency started. Greek exports to [...]
21 May
Dow 10,000: it must be magnetic or something
Once again, the Dow Jones has tumbled back towards 10,000 having failed to escape this level. Here are some quiz questions: 1. Can you remember when it first hit 10,000 2. On how many separate days has it traded THROUGH 10,000 – that is, had a High above that level and a Low below that [...]
21 May
A common eurozone bond
The Financial Times helps to resurrect an idea that CentreForum was cautiously plugging a year back. A common eurozone bond: would provide more accessibility to the markets, help stabilise the continent’s economies and, most importantly, lower the cost of funding, which in turn would ease the burden on taxpayers.Such a bond would create the scope [...]
20 May
Some top quotes …
in order to make up for my abandoning the blog for a day owing to us relaunching a website, soon. Here is the world’s top blogger Cowen hoisting an excellent quote about Benthamism: Bentham is a total mess. One commentator said that Benthamite utilitarianism is a philosophy that tells you what to do when you [...]
19 May
The day after the inflation shock, the gilt rockets …
which may confuse some people, but shouldn’t. Here is the graph of the June Gilt future since March: As this story indicates, yields are now at a very low level. Good news? Well, no. A naive, political interpretation of this would be: the Conservative government has impressed the market that it has borrowing under control. [...]
19 May
Defending the Bank of England
It is looking pretty dicey for the Bank and it’s inflation-fighting reputation. Read Jeremy Warner (Does the inflation target actually mean anything any more?) and above all the point made clear in Simon Ward’s post yesterday (UK CPI inflation 3 percentage points above BoE year-ago forecast). Here is a graph from last year’s May Inflation [...]
19 May
Great quote from Kamm
Of the Times “Whereas all of the parties ought to have been disappointed with their showings in the general election, the eventual shape of government has – for now, at least – pleasingly marginalised the worst people in all of them.”
18 May
Blaming the speculators, part MXXVI or whatever
The latest squeal at the sheer unfairness of ‘of the absolute power that the markets have over government decisions’ can be found at LibCon. To be honest, I can’t make much of it: some of it literally makes no sense to me on the third reading. For example, what does this mean: Furthermore, this missed [...]
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