Blog
29 march 2010, the not so grand finale
Wednesday 31st March 2010
Great piece of journalism bookending the new labour era through a pastiche of gordon brown’s marvellous 1997 independence-for-the-bank-of-england rabbit-out-of-the-hat, which is contrasted sharply to alistair darling’s “whimper” reprise of 2010. This was top drawer, not least for calling an end to an era - whatever the result of the election: tommorow’s labour flavour has a distinctly different tilt. The party’s heartland election strategy mirrors and anticipates this: gambling that although core vote strategies haven’t worked before, these days of low turnout and vote balkanisation might make it different. That may sound cynical: but it's the team with the most points that wins the league, not the one that plays the most beautiful football.
28 march 2010, data, data everywhere...
Monday 29th March 2010
Drove to Luton airport today, taking a ticket from the machine as we glided through the car park barrier. Astounded that the ticket had our car’s registration printed on it, I walked back to discover a camera, that in a split second had “captured”, processed and presented this data. Wal-mart captures more than 1 million customer transactions every hour; facebook has more than 40 billion photos; in 2003 it took ten years to analyse the 3 billion bits of data it took to unlock the human genome – the same can now be done in one week. Today, it is not getting hold of but managing and analysing data that is all important – the real skill is to understand…
19 march 2010, look who’s in the economist
Friday 19th March 2010
Excuse me if I slip into media luvvy talk for a moment, but the mother of all uk things to get an article in is the economist: that’s what can set the news agenda for a week. And so the team can all justly be "well proud like, our kid" of this excellent (though not uncritical) article. The manchester independent economic review of course gets a couple of mentions, as does our pipping of frankfurt and acquiring of “city region” status. Worth a read...
13 march 2010, election looming
Saturday 13th March 2010
Nick clegg, leader of the uk’s 3rd party (liberal democrats) was on the radio this morning, restating that whilst in the 1951 election only 2% of voters (actually I think it’s 7) did not opt for either of the main parties (the conservatives are centre right, labour centre left, but both very broad churches) by the last (european) elections this had risen to over 65%. Even at the last (2005) general election, it was already 30%, and this is likely to rise further on 6 may. The local elections would be on the same day, probably bad news for the 3rd party, who usually benefit from hardier supporters turning out for the locals, meaning they may be squeezed locally by…
12 march 2010, all that glitters
Saturday 13th March 2010
Having spent sixteen pounds to get sky premiere for a month so my other half could watch the oscars (yes, all five hours), we thought we better get value for money by watching some films. First up was the hurt locker, on oscar night, which I have to say was alright but the accolades tell you more about the academy than the film. Best was frost/nixon, which have wanted to see for an age, and was indeed very good, based as it was on the play, which in turn used the actual transcripts of a momentous series of interviews. It was slower and stodgier than it needed to be though, and worst of all I can’t see michael sheen (amazing…
5 march 2010, iceland votes no
Saturday 6th March 2010
OK, by popular request, here’s a slightly fuller version of the iceland=uk+3 years scenario. Firstly, iceland banks lend out masses more than the entirety of the country’s worth, measured, as all ultimately is, in foreign currency. London has done that too. Yes, iceland was 9x over the limit, whereas uk is 4.5, but both are ludicrous. Secondly, should the usa (or the ecb) find itself in a similar pickle, it has a virtually inexhaustible supply of cash to provide liquidity to banks courtesy of its management of a global reserve currency. Iceland rapidly found its ability to act as lender of last resort to its own banking sector was limited. So is ours. Iceland was forced to nationalise its banks,…
3 march 2010, the nhs rollercoaster tips downward
Wednesday 3rd March 2010
My hospital (that’s trafford healthcare trust, where I sit on the board as a non-executive director) made the guardian today, which reported we had a £6m deficit. At the same time, our paymaster - the pct - was outed as the nation’s 14th most indebted. Lord warner, former health minister, had the best quote, that in the 21st century the nhs received more money than it knew what to do with, “it was like giving a starving man foie gras and caviar”. Clearly that won’t be a problem going forward, and I strongly suspect that radical change is in the air. The commissioners are surely the system’s weak point, and despite all expectations to the contrary I suspect that the…
1 march 2010, déjà vu
Monday 1st March 2010
This is going to seem rather samey, but not for the first time willem buiter seems to be reading my blog. Previously he penned his famous "rekjavik on thames" article shortly after I first made the connection in the economist (ditching the krona – is sterling next ?), and now he’s rolled out my “hour of the sterling crisis cometh” thesis. Even though my old ecb colleagues don't, and even though he's citibank's new chief economist, you have to like willem. Today, "Britain’s economic fundamentals are uniquely awful. As regards public debt and deficits, Britain’s true fiscal circumstances are about as bad as Greece’s reported situation... Britain has four, inconsistent, features. It is a small, open economy, with a large,…
26 february 2010, merchant of gloom
Friday 26th February 2010
Despite my perennial optimistic bent, I just cannot make the economy read like good news. OK, so the end of 2009 did see anaemic growth, but what’s happened since ? House prices down, investment weak, mortgage lending down, retail figures terribly bad... and so it goes on. And I fear this is not transient but trend, driven by conservative (with a small “c” !) official forecasts seeing the uk's budget deficit rising beyond where greece is today by 2013. Market confidence is already fragile and we don’t, like greece, have a global reserve currency to prop us up. I have been saying for over a year now that the phase of the downturn still to come is a sterling crisis,…
23 february 2010, another day
Tuesday 23rd February 2010
Enjoyed today. I spoke in the morning at a large event on greater manchester and the region’s strategy (yup, there’s two) at the city of manchester stadium, and then the afternoon was the launch of two new working papers, a series I’m immensely proud of (see “equity finance: not me but...”). One of the latter was rather controversial, and we chose not to make too big a song and dance about it, which seemed justified given the spin the manchester evening news put on it and their wilfulness not to recognise that the papers are the thoughts of an individual not an organisation. Darted back afterwards to speak at a smaller but equally important session on the future of oldham…
15 february 2010, goodbye, ralph
Tuesday 23rd February 2010
At a funeral today, of my uncle – the last of my grandmother martha’s six siblings. Ralph burnett, second generation, stayed in manchester his whole life, apart from being a soldier in italy during the war, where he followed home a pretty girl on a red bike called giovanna, only to be told by her father that if he was really interested he should come back in a year. He was, and he did, and they were married for 64 years after that. Ralph inherited the family textile business, finally passing it on in the nineties, after which it was closed down. As was he, finally, of alzheimers and, though sad, it was the right time to go.
13 february 2010, bravo (again) merkel
Saturday 13th February 2010
With merkel standing firm against any “bail out” – longstanding german policy - the greek question rumbles on. That’s what it is though, a greek not a euro crisis, let alone an existential one. The greeks – fuming - returned empty handed from brussels. As they should have. They know more than last week that only more greek belt-tightening, the price of greek profligacy, can turn the situation. The pressure point is exactly where it should be. Sure, the euro has been beaten down by the markets on the basis of what will happen if the greek economy really crashes – as it well might. But haven’t european leaders been complaining for years about the strong euro, and knocking…