Paul Ormerod talks EU referendum on IGTV- don’t miss it!
Volterra Partner and leading Economist Paul Ormerod was invited to IG with Survation to offer commentary on Brexit after Survation Poll results were shared live on IGTV on Wednesday 25th May. With just four weeks to the referendum Presenter Jeremy Naylor revealed Survation telephone poll results on which way the vote might go. Of those questioned: […]
Is Britain on the edge of recession? History is an unreliable guide
Concerns are growing about a marked slowdown in the UK economy. The Lloyds Bank purchasing managers’ index, for example, fell to 52.1 in April, its lowest point since 2013. The initial estimate for GDP, total output, in the first quarter of this year shows an increase of just 0.4 per cent on the final quarter of 2015. […]
China is drowning in private sector debt: there’s no telling how this one will end
The eyes of the financial and economics worlds are now fixed on China, with focus predominantly on Chinese stock markets and the country’s GDP figures. A fascinating perspective was provided last week in the leafy borough of Kingston upon Thames. The university has recruited the Australian Steve Keen as head of its economics department, and it […]
Integration won’t save the struggling Eurozone
Olivier Blanchard, the recently retired Head of Economics at the International Monetary Fund, has something of a track record with his predictions. In 2013, he warned George Osborne that he was “playing with fire” with the UK’s recovery from the financial crisis. Austerity had to be relaxed. We now know that we were actually nowhere […]
Technology is replacing school ties in companies’ battle to keep their employees honest
The activities of the House of Lords are very much in the news at the moment. But the members do carry out serious work, not least on the economic affairs committee. Last week, Lord Green, former chairman and chief executive of HSBC, appeared before them. Yes, the noble Lord admitted, the bank had not got […]
Capitalism is stable and resilient
The financial crisis did succeed in creating one dynamic new industry. Since the late 2000s, there has been a massive upsurge in op-ed pieces, books and even artistic performances offering a critique of capitalism. A founder member of the Monty Python team, Terry Jones, is the latest to get in on the act with his […]
A Tale of Two Financial Crises: the 1930s and Now
As the seventh anniversary of the start of the economic crisis approaches, it is an appropriate moment to take stock. At the time, the recession was simply not recognised by conventional economic forecasts. These continued to foresee positive growth until the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the autumn of 2008. But the latest national accounts […]
The Happy Band of the Self Employed
How many workers does the typical American firm employ? Actually, it is a trick question. The answer is ‘zero’. More than 50 per cent of all companies in the United States are one person operations – the owner, and no-one else. This fragmentation of size is increasingly reflected in the UK. Here, the main growth […]
Wall Street no smarter than Mr and Mrs Average
Lurid stories about the excesses in the UK housing market continue to proliferate. True, there is some evidence of a cooling, as the price rises tempt more sellers into the market and temporarily increase supply relative to demand. But at the same time we learn in the Sunday Times that the good burghers of Cobham […]
Herr Doktor Professor Sinn and Disciplining the Mediterranean Countries
The Polish banking and financial elite gathered last week at a conference in the Baltic seaside resort of Sopot. The proceedings were enlivened by the presence on the platform of Jacek Rostowski, one of the two senior Polish politicians caught on tape badmouthing, in very colourful terms, David Cameron for his failure to stand up […]
