January 18, 2012

The Arab Spring in Moscow

With the recent passing of North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader,’ Kim Jong-il, it will be interesting to

Kim Jong-il

With the recent passing of North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader,’ Kim Jong-il, it will be interesting to see if such a closed society will be swallowed by the kinds of tumultuous changes that the Arab world has faced in the last twelve months.

see if such a closed society will be swallowed by the kinds of tumultuous changes that the Arab world has faced in the last twelve months. Democracy (in all of its guises), a more western-style fluid economy and, of course, freedom are all selling points that even North Korea will have a hard time dampening.

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January 16, 2012

Traditional media is on its knees

It’s not surprising that the Christmas season brings the latest wave of Kindles and iPads crashing against the door of traditional printed publications. And every year the figures get worse for the old school. As a recent Guardian newspaper piece reported, “one million iPad and Kindles were unwrapped the Christmas” and the effect is, well, a modern one. It seems that for the first time in its almost two hundred-year-old existence, The Sunday Times produced an electronic edition of the paper for Christmas Day, attempting to keep up with the information-gobbling era we live in. Traditionally, that day was print-free, in order to give paperboys a day off to rest. Guess what? That quaint job is gone also!

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January 10, 2012

So This Is Christmas

To turn our collective attention away from the sinking economy, incessant downgrades,

So This Is Christmas

So This Is Christmas: seasonal snuggle beds

mortgage horrors, unemployment, riots, monsoons and other seasonal niceties; we can look at how the economy is effecting those nearest to us: our pets. After reading a short piece in The Guardian recently about Christmas austerity for our animals – spare a thought for our fine furry friends and how they might be suffering through the global downturn also.

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January 8, 2012

Vince Cable: Man on a Mission

Britain’s coalition business secretary, Vince Cable, has accepted a recent independent

Vince Cable

Vince Cable: "In the UK we need to put the whingeing of the City to one side and concentrate on delivering our core narrative..."

report into the banking crisis, and is eager to implement the long-discussed changes in the banking sector, one of which is separating retail banking from the investment side; the other is the forcing of banks to create and hold more capital, in the event of another crisis, thus limiting the need to use public funds for a bail out. These points will require substantial restructuring of the banking sector with an end date set for 2019 for full implementation.

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January 3, 2012

The Battle of Words

The almighty credit agencies have turned their sights to the world’s largest banks, downgrading Bank of America and Goldman Sachs among others, but the appeal for calm came from the IMF’s chief, Christine Lagarde, after fellow French countrymen continued the battle of words against Great Britain. Following the calamitous events with David Cameron at the last EU summit, Christian Noyer, head of the Bank of France, announced that Britain not France, should receive a downgrade, “which has bigger deficits, more debt, higher inflation, less growth than us and where credit is shrinking,” he said.

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December 27, 2011

Britain’s Divide At Home

Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, not only took a public flogging from the sound bite king, Nicolas Sarkozy (calling him an “obstinate child”) for his stand-alone approach at the latest Brussels EU meeting, but his coalition partner and Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, was open about his disappointment as well. Britain has a tough line to walk, as it’s very much tied to the notion of EU collectivity, but also doesn’t share the single currency of the euro, and the eurozone’s current woes.

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December 22, 2011

‘Hamsters’ are out for Putin’s blood

The ripples from the ‘Arab spring’ have continued to evolve, facilitating the Occupy Wall

Putin's internet hamsters

Putin's 'internet hamsters' bastion of censorship and state control is being shaken by them

Street campaign and countless other demonstrations, and now the Kremlin, once the bastion of censorship and state control is being shaken by what President Vladimir Putin calls Russia’s ‘internet hamsters.’ And the irony is that the man known to have had trouble sending his own emails is responsible for the relatively open online culture in Russia. It’s payback time.

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December 18, 2011

Can Common Taxes Work for the Eurozone?

Just as yet another ‘crunch summit’ got under way in Brussels, Angela Merkeland Nicolas Sarkozy have penned a letter to

Larry Elliot

Larry Elliot, decried Britain’s response to shield London’s financial sector from ‘harm,’ instead insisting that the City should be left to fend for itself...

European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy, suggesting that the 17-member eurozone nations should share common corporation and financial taxes, the BBC reports. This, of course, had the UK rolling its eyes and shaking its head. That isn’t all, the shopping list of key topics for the Belgian summit also included ‘financial regulations’ and a more cohesive labour market (vague, indeed).

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December 13, 2011

Was Britain Right About the Euro?

Jacques Delors, former head of the European Commission and key instigator of the euro, has come out in the press

Jacques Delors

Jacques Delors

stating in a recent Daily Telegraph interview “It (the euro) was flawed from the beginning.” Damning words, and ones that don’t particularly help the dire situation the euro is currently in. He told the British newspaper, “That the lack of central powers to co-ordinate economic policies allowed some members to run up unsustainable debt.” This echoes the same concern that Britain initially had, feeling that the lack of centralized control, or more specifically a state, would lead to imbalances and fundamental problems – essentially an unmanageable, ungovernable mess.

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December 12, 2011

Britain’s Had Enough

Unprecedented strikes across the UK have sent a direct signal to the coalition government that the unions, pensioners

Britain's Had Enough

Britain's Had Enough

and public sector workers have had enough. These are quite untypical British actions – more akin to the French or any other ailing EU country on the continent – but ones that seem to fit the mood of the time. Austerity measures from the Cameron crew have, up until now, been met with typical mumblings and partisan political bashings in the Commons. No longer, as the retirement age has been moved to 67 years old, and the pension purse tightened, it seems to have lit the proverbial fuse.

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