I'm surprised to see so little attention paid to the Intertrade Ireland conference in Dublin recently - did I miss it or was it pre-empted by the IOD's own work? Some words of cheer and others of warning came from
Mike Smyth the plain-speaking University of Ulster economist whose presentation to the…
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Added by Brian Walker on June 29, 2009 at 12:17pm —
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Has growth has already started or is the recession just bottoming out? That’s the state of the debate on recession.
An FT poll of City economists suggests that more than half think that the economy has returned to growth. The CBI sounds a cautionary note, but:
I
n a hopeful sign, the CBI cut its forecast for unemployment to a peak of 3m from a previous prediction that it could hit 3.2m. Ian McCafferty, its chief…
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Added by Brian Walker on June 15, 2009 at 8:18am —
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Gordon Brown’s anger at the stubborn refusal of banks –including Northern Ireland banks - to lend to small business at affordable rates after all those billions of public money handed over to recapitalise them, broke surface at Prime Minister’s Questions today. His message to frustrated small businesses was this : if you’re having trouble getting a bank loan, get your MP to contact me and I’ll take it up with the bank myself. Would be borrowers should take the Prime Minister at his word. Here’s…
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Added by Brian Walker on May 20, 2009 at 8:00pm —
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Despite the kerfuffle over the MPs' expenses scandal, it's still the economy, stupid. The
Guardian sounds the alarm.
“Bank of England braced for third wave of financial crisis. Surprise £50bn cash injection is attempt to avert new phase of credit crunch.” The
FT contex…
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Added by Brian Walker on May 9, 2009 at 12:31pm —
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The banks got us into this and the banks must get us out of it.
Robert Peston is not the only commentator to lay out the arguments in favour of calling the lynch mobs off the hated financial sector.
"Statements today by Barclays and Lloyds indicate that banks should be over the worst." Whatever happened to all those demands for tougher regulation?
Peston touches on the debate that the EU haven’t th…
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Added by Brian Walker on May 7, 2009 at 2:20pm —
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Did anyone actually read that report? No doubt the thrust of it is familiar to many of you but the forecasts of the impact on the recession make grim reading. Below is my take on it - does anybody read it differently?
Northern Ireland will need three times the number of highly skilled than low- or un-skilled new workers over the next ten years than it did in the last “golden era, ” but the total number of new workers required is unlikely to match 2008 levels until 2017, says a stark report by O…
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Added by Brian Walker on May 1, 2009 at 4:30pm —
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Edwina Currie, remember her? Outspoken Tory who had a brief fling with John Major? Edwina has
surfaced to attack the Equal Pay Bill of her contemporary Harriet Harman:
The truth is that much of the gap between male and female earnings can't be explained by discrimination against women in the workplace. It's the result of millions of considered choices that are made b…
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Added by Brian Walker on April 28, 2009 at 1:00pm —
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Today, an
Equalities Bill is published by Harriet Harman the Minister for Women that among
many other things requires all firms employing 250 workers or more to…
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Added by Brian Walker on April 27, 2009 at 2:30pm —
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Labour's postponement of the worst of the cuts compared with the Conservatives' call to start them next year at least gives Northern Ireland a bigger breathing space.to get its public sector house in better order. Red book projections remain.
Outturn Estimate
2007-8 2008-9 2009-10 2010- 11
£m
Northern Ireland Executive 7.6 8.1 8.4 8.7
Northern Ireland Office 1.3 1.3 1.2 1.2
Even though we take these with a big pinch of salt after next year, the outlook could surely have been worse.
See the…
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Added by Brian Walker on April 23, 2009 at 10:30am —
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Andreas Whittam Smith is a mere journalist but a former City Editor of the Daily Telegraph who left his safe job 20 years ago to embark on the chancy business of starting up a new serious newspaper, the Independent. The Indy group, now run by Tony O’Reilly is having a hard time in a declining industry but it survives and editorially flourishes.…
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Added by Brian Walker on February 20, 2009 at 9:55am —
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As the whiff of panic rises on a grey February Monday morning, there’s a common factor. The government has been dithering - and fatally. Is this part of the panic and should be ignored? I suggest it should be. The eye of the storm is not the right place to make the judgment, even though you feel the pain most.
Lloyds/TSB shares fall 15% in the first 10 minutes of trading after losing 36 billion in a few hours last Friday. £17 billion of public money poured into the ailing group has gone already…
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Added by Brian Walker on February 16, 2009 at 8:51am —
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It would be fascinating to know if NI business folk share the largely impotent rage felt by the general public (or at least the papers) at the fallen Masters of the Universe who still head Britain’s banks. Anger at Irish banks may be a different, simpler matter. Or do people feel that a lynch mob atmosphere is brewing, stoked below the surface by the equally guilty politicians seeking scapegoats, and risks pulling down the whole House of Mammon, to the detriment of the rest of us?…
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Added by Brian Walker on February 10, 2009 at 2:52pm —
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In covering the unfolding financial crisis journalists tend to duck and weave along with the people who have to bear the burden of policy making but without carrying any of the real responsibility. They have the privilege, and also the freedom, of non-responsibility and the daily churn - today’s oracle is tomorrow’s fish and chips wrappings and all that (Though if you’re interested in the latest foray into the theme of journalists’ responsibility for financial collapse, read…
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Added by Brian Walker on February 5, 2009 at 10:30am —
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Gordon Brown's utterance of the dread word "depression" was 'a slip of the tongue” at Prime Minister’s Questions, his spokesman hastily asserted, minutes later.
Another one. Less than two months ago, he "saved the world." Picking on the Prime Minister for the odd “misspeak” ( an old Watergate era…
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Added by Brian Walker on February 4, 2009 at 2:51pm —
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What is “British” (or indeed "Irish") labour these days?
Wildcat strikers at any rate are clear it’s non-foreign, but what’s “foreign” in the EU? Next question: what is a “British” company?
The Guardian exclusive takes the traditional view as the basis of their story about massive if legal company tax avoidance. e.g.:…
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Added by Brian Walker on February 2, 2009 at 10:29am —
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I think we know in our guts that the
strikes supporting the Lindsey oil refinery dispute make a powerful point. As they reveal deep fears of wider unemployment, they also expose government weakness. The immediate official response does no more than play for time.
Employment Minister Pat McFadden last night said he had asked Acas to examine claims that British workers w…
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Added by Brian Walker on January 31, 2009 at 8:16pm —
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At first glance the IMF and Institute of Fiscal Studies reports on the state and prospects for the British economy are very depressing. The
FT leads the chorus
Britain is facing the deepest recession of any big industrialised economy, the International Monetary Fund signalled on Wednesday as it said that the UK economy would shrink 2.8 per cent this year...The IMF forecast for the U…
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Added by Brian Walker on January 29, 2009 at 7:45am —
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The think tank Centre for Cities has placed Liverpool, Belfast and Hull on
“red alert” status in a review by Oxford Economics of the social, economic and environmental strengths and weaknesses of 64 cities in the UK. The Centre is a think tank backed by the Local Government Association, an umbrella lobby body for councils. Belfast’s is one of the “core cities “ studies. The main message in the report…
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Added by Brian Walker on January 26, 2009 at 9:21am —
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“We are trying to achieve closure; we are trying to say there is a basis on which banks can say it will get no worse than this.”
Lord Myners , an insider brought in from the top of business and banking by Gordon Brown to add expertise as City Minister has given the frankest interview so far on the state of the financial crisis. Ministers appear to be trying so steady nerves now by admitting we were “ on the b…
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Added by Brian Walker on January 24, 2009 at 9:36am —
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Short Selling of Bank Stocks Returns -
What idiot allowed this? asks Peter Martin below. Now we know. Lord Adair Turner, the new chair of the Financial Services Authority has fessed up. The Chancellor had only an hour’s notice,
reports the Guardian and he’s “furious.” ( funny how they’re always “furious” off the record and t…
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Added by Brian Walker on January 22, 2009 at 11:43am —
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