About: robert

The appalling UK GDP figures, which mark the longest period of contraction for 100 years, plus the weakening of US and Euro area economies, provides yet further evidence that current policies everywhere are failing. Yet the debate on what to do is getting nowhere. The sterile argument between Keynesian expansionists and advocates of austerity continues. That…
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The reputation of the City of London has been badly damaged, however the LIBOR affair turns out. People will inevitably ask, who knows what other kinds of criminal or near-criminal activity have been taking place? Would the LIBOR attempted price fixing have come to light without those incriminating emails? What other forms of collusion are…
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This morning the FT reported that some of Wall Street’s top executives, including the heads of JP Morgan and Citigroup, Jamie Dimon and Vikram Pandit, were given double-digit annual pay rises averaging almost 12%, despite widespread falls in profits and share prices. The news confirms claims that banks are finding ways round the clamp down…
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The discussion about the need for a ‘banking union’ in the Euro area needs to focus on the key issues, just as does the debate on the euro crisis as a whole. What matters in deciding whether to assist a country to stay in the euro is its political will to reform. The test is…
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“The global recovery has stalled again as confidence in policy makers’ ability to provide conditions for growth has slipped away” writes Chris Giles of the Financial Times, in his report from Los Cabos on the opening day of the G20 meeting there. According to the latest FT/Brookings Institution Tiger Index, world economic growth is stalling…
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