As government debt jumps to fund defence spending, our economy will pay the price
Sanctions will clearly hit the Russian economy very hard. But economic prospects for the West are not exactly rosy. Twice in the 1970s and again in the early 90s, there were rapid spikes in oil prices; each instance was followed by economic recessions. The deep recession following 2008 was, of course, due to financial causes […]
Subsidies to Wales have made devolution a begging bowl rather than a point of pride
Did you raise a toast yesterday to the staff of Gwynedd Council in North Wales? They were enjoying their very own special Bank Holiday to celebrate the day of the patron saint of Wales, St David. Gwynedd council proudly declared in January that it would “grant” this extra holiday. All very well and good, except that […]
A four day week must withstand the productivity test to be worth the gamble
Durham based challenger bank Atom has announced a four day working week for all of its 430 employees as more and more people debate the number of days we should be working. For SMEs in the services sector, a four day week is an attractive bandwagon to jump on. It is commonly given credit for […]
Andrew Bailey fell asleep on inflation and now it is workers who will face the flames
Is there a comfortable chaise longue in the office of Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England? I think we should be told. Because it has become apparent that the Bank has been asleep on the job. In the year to December 2021, consumer prices rose by 5.4 per cent. We have to go […]
State intervention can boost our economy but only the private sector can rebalance it
The government’s long awaited levelling up white paper was met with a lukewarm reception last week. One of the main complaints was that there was not enough – or in fact any – new money for the regions. Many localities have become stuck with low levels of productivity and, as a consequence, low levels of […]
Uncertainty from our leaders is keeping our economic recovery wavering on the brink
In November last year, the UK’s total GDP output finally regained its pre-pandemic level. But although the economic recovery is on an upward trajectory, there is a disconcerting stop-start hesitancy to it. A reasonable indicator of where the economy stands in any given month is the purchasing managers’ index which shows the prevailing direction of […]
Britons squeamish to spend their savings are jeopardising our economic recovery
The economic recovery is under threat. British consumers are saving and not spending. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that during lockdown, households accumulated a massive £180bn of so-called “excess savings”. Earlier in the year, most economic forecasts assumed that these would be run down. Lockdown had constrained people’s normal behaviour and with the […]
In the end, the Swedes really did have the last laugh with a relaxed Covid approach
They never give up. The finger waggers who know what is good for the rest of us; the epidemiologists trying to intimidate us with their seemingly terrifying but actually rather trivial models of applied mathematics. The vested interests in the NHS creating excuses for the inefficiencies inherent in the system. If we already have restrictive […]
A service economy and shrinking workforce is the driving force of low economic growth
Extinction Rebellion’s fortnight of protests have only hardened existing beliefs and positions on both sides of the debate. But a book by Dietrich Vollrath of the University of Houston suggests that there may be much broader support for a low or even zero growth agenda than even XR might imagine. Vollrath does not address this […]
Labour shortages make light work of fears of a post-Brexit unemployment surge
In the two decades before the Brexit referendum, there was a large increase in the number of people moving from the EU to the UK. In the mid-1990s there were less than one million EU citizens living in the UK. By the mid-2010s, this had risen to 3.6 million. The bulk of the increase came […]
