Economy

while it is true that at the moment it is possible to buy cheaper steel elsewhere, this will not always be the case. Most commentators have already drawn the link between the manner in which government responded to the banking crisis and the way they are now responding to the …

In the wake of the financial crash of 2008, we witnessed scandal after scandal – PPI fraud, money laundering on behalf of terrorists and drug cartels, Libor and Forex rate fixing, etc.  A great deal of it was due to incompetence and a good part of it plain old fashioned …

George Osborne has spent the best part of a decade telling everyone else that we need to live within our means.  By which, of course, he means that ordinary people are going to have to pay more in taxes and get less back in public services and benefits in order …

Oil companies face record pressure from shareholders according to Ed Crooks in the Financial Times.  Concern about climate change policies has resulted in a record number of shareholder resolutions aimed at altering the balance between dividends and investment: “Proposals include calls for ExxonMobil and Chevron, the largest US oil groups, …

Chemical company INEOS’ Grangemouth plant has opened for its first shipment of fracked ethane from the USA. Gordon Milne, INEOS Grangemouth Operations Director explained: “When US shale gas finally arrives here in the autumn, this plant will move into the premier league of European petrochemical plants. Bringing the site back …

Home affordability – the ratio between average city house prices and average gross local earnings – across UK cities has hit its worst level since the 2008 crash, according to Lloyds Bank’s Affordable Cities Review. The average UK city house price has risen to its highest ever level of £211,880 …

The new digital economy in which more and more of us would be selling our time and skills to a host of clients via online “gig” platforms appears to be a myth according to Josh Zumbrun in the Wall Street Journal: “The so-called gig economy barely registers in traditional labor-market …

Insurance companies are pretty hard headed when it comes to mapping risk.  With this in mind, insurance companies in the USA will be studying the new US Geological Survey seismic activity maps that show one of the US fracking regions in Oklahoma to have the same risk of damage from …

These days, economists only exist to make weather forecasters look competent.  It should be clear by now from their failure to predict the crash of 2008 (or, for that matter, the DotCom bust, the 1987 stock market crash or any of the other busts going all the way back to …

The UK tech firms are driving economic growth according to Chris Papadopoullos at City AM: “The so-called flat white economy of media, internet and creative businesses is now the second largest business sector in the UK. It accounts for 8.7 per cent of GDP.” The tech sector has overtaken retail …