Blog
7 february 2010, bring in the imf
Sunday 7th February 2010
UK commentators continue to “big up” how greece’s chronic deficit is going to affect the euro, with regular “euro zone break up” doomsayers out in force. Absolute nonsense. There is no way out (see 16 jan), nor does anyone want one. Though the euro has certainly felt it, the real reaction has been on the bond market, i.e. the focus is on can greece perform. As it should be. The words stone, throw and greenhouse spring to mind: the uk’s time in the bond market spotlight will come. At that point, sterling can devalue, which greece can’t. But all that does is force the spotlight where it should be: on cutting greek spending and making the deep structural reforms desperately…
4 february 2010, silvio and me
Thursday 4th February 2010
I've never had much in common with silvio berlusconi, but now he’s talking about israel joining the eu. Not only is this not eu policy, it’s several miles from any serious agenda. The last attempt to upgrade a rocky bilateral relationship fell with the 2009 gaza invasion. However, if you take a large step back, its not a ridiculous idea. Israel lies just 160 miles from its number one trading partner and shares a great deal of cultural and social values, not least a commitment to democracy. More than a third of its population - the primary builders of the state - has european roots. Tel aviv is a world-class showcase of bauhaus, built by a clutch of leading german…
30 january 2010, am I becoming a daily mail reader ??
Saturday 30th January 2010
Nearly lost the kids today, at the manchester museum (which is excellent). Youngest got walkie-talkies for his birthday, and the plan was to use them in case the kids got lost. In fact they raced off immediately, although stayed in touch. I was much more relaxed than my other half, who in turn was an ice block compared to our (israeli) friend when her daughter joined our two, and all three promptly stopped answering, went awol and absolutely could not be found as we raced around ever more frantically, shouting their names ever more loudly – eventually with the security team in tow. They were fine in the end of course, and I did find myself wondering if my parents…
23 january 2010, up, up and away
Saturday 23rd January 2010
Wow – 2.9%, the sharpest inflation rise on record – ever. Who could have predicted that ? How about me (22 Nov), “inflation, inflation, inflation is likely today's biggest legacy.” Yet the bank of england’s governor is astoundingly relaxed, even as he notes that “inflation is likely to pick up markedly in the first half of this year”. Interest rate rises then are not imminent. They are needed though, or would be if a manageable bout of inflation were not needed more to help whittle away our mountainous debt. It’s been entirely evident for a long time now that the cost to all this monetary laxity building up inexorably will come back to haunt us. Inflation’s leap, no temporary blip,…
16 january 2010, no way out
Saturday 16th January 2010
An old legal colleague, phoebus athanassiou, has just published a paper on withdrawal and expulsion from the eu and emu. Before the new lisbon treaty came into force, there was an endless argument about whether a member state could actually leave the eu. Of course they could, the uk would always note: greenland actually did in 1985. Lisbon introduced a formal “exit clause”, bringing a small semblance of order to the process. Phoebus confirms (as I did earlier, seep11) that a member state could not leave the euro without leaving the eu. Practically, the problems of leaving the euro would be monumental and far outweigh any gains, but it is good to see sound legal reasoning that “the only way…
14 january 2010, brics - more than ever the global economic future
Friday 15th January 2010
Mier reunion today at goldman sachs, with sir tom mckillop, diane coyle, jonathan kestenbaum and goldman’s chief economist, jim o’neill, the man who first coined the term the “brics”, meaning brazil, russia, india and china, countries which he reckoned would account for getting on for 50% of the global economy by 2050. Widely discounted as fantastic back in 2001, this is now accepted wisdom, with a timetable moving rapidly up to 2030. Really, it’s all about china, whose economy is close to creating a new turkey every year, dwarfing india. The bric proposition has strengthened in the recession, as their phenomenal growth – goldmans estimates 11.9% for china for 2010 – closes the gap on an anaemic west ever quicker.…
12 january 2010, islamophobia ?
Tuesday 12th January 2010
I felt great disquiet on hearing this morning that a radical uk muslim group are to be banned. I am almost as much against their views, such as the introduction of sharia (orthodox muslim) law, as I am against those of the british national party. But I stand by their rights to speak, however abhorrent what they say. Or just plain wrong: they have a well-argued critique of the afghan war. I’ll debate them if I have to, but don’t recommend giving them the platform and oxygen of publicity such “bans” bring. Extreme beliefs are not terrorism. That is real enough, but we can’t fight it by outlawing those who have similar views to those that commit violence. That just…
8 january 2010, deserved applause for obama
Friday 8th January 2010
While most of the uk was hearing about jonathan ross (a disgraceful 20 minutes of pm last night), barak was making an important speech in response to the christmas day non-bombing in which he said that america “will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish... because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want... we will never hand them that victory. We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children.” To many of us, that’s an appallingly obvious response to such things…
6 january 2010, is our AAA rating at risk ?
Wednesday 6th January 2010
In both the us and Europe, the turmoil has separated the weaker banks from the strong. Will the same now happen for countries ? Iceland of course has already gone, but the thing to watch over the next months is how the bond markets react to countries’ debts and their plans to deal with them. Greece’s bond market spread widened drastically recently, meaning in plain English that the cost to the country of borrowing huge amounts shot up. By contrast Ireland, another of the piigs (the euro’s weakest economies, also portugal, italy and spain) put in eye watering plans to spend less, and its spread is rather more moderate. What hasn’t happened though is a sharp deterioration of these countries’…
5 january 2010 the city snows down
Tuesday 5th January 2010
At the window of greens last night, we first saw the snow fall; by this morning it was a foot. School was closed – as we discovered on the radio, as our internet was out. My other half, well used to this for months on end, was astounded that anything a snow plough could sail through could grind the city to a halt. There’s hundreds of millions in lost productivity to be measured against a day’s snowballing with the kids, left-handed for me, as my right’s still bandaged up. Staying at home was definitely established today as an acceptable norm, and tomorrow will be worse, with school again shut. With cause though I think, the whole place will be an…
31 december 2009, we’ll always have budapest...
Tuesday 5th January 2010
Another new year in budapest. Since my first - 1993/4 - the city has genuinely changed. Then, there was potential: "paris in 30 years" we used to say. Well, not quite, but the changes are startling, and the number of asians I saw showed that the city has now exchanged its hip student tag for the well-heeled frequenters of dolce and gabbana and the rest of the best stores we don't have in manchester. Despite hungary having a pretty horrendous time of the recession, buildings continue to be replaced and restored at an astounding pace, the poo on the pavement has all but disappeared and a new metro line is coming out the ground. Even the rudas baths have been…
25 december 2009, that was the year that was...
Tuesday 5th January 2010
So work went stellar then a little awry, some hairs went grey, we bought a house and so decided to settle the while in manchester, and we began to forget that the sun can shine two days on the run, but learnt that life can be bright even without it – for a while at least. In the wider world, obama must take top billing, and I’m not disappointed – nothing ever changes overnight, but change has happened and the best is yet to come. 2009 was though a year of failure – with well over a $1trillion poured into the banks, rewriting capitalism’s first law of live by the sword and die by it, and with little change asked…