Article from WCC website here, dated 14th November 2008 - “A call for a new international financial architecture The World Council of Churches and the overall ecumenical family are deeply concerned with the current global financial system which has continued to generate poverty and create massive unemployment. On November 15 the leaders of 20 nations and the major multilateral financial institutions will gather behind closed doors in Washington, D.C. to attempt to fix the current crisis by remaking the rules of global finance. This group includes many of the people, governments and institutions whose policies are responsible for the current financial meltdown. It has been dubbed “Bretton Woods II”. The WCC is concerned about the effectiveness of such a meeting limited...

One of the less baleful consequences of the financial crisis is that every political pundit, columnist, and indeed blogger, has become an amateur economist, whether economics were previously his/her ‘specialist subject’ or not. Economics’ centrality, as the pivotal issue on which politics turns, might be disputed but its importance is not. Therefore it does no-one any harm whatsoever to start thinking a lot harder about how money and markets interact with government.The truth is, however, that we are dealing with a theoretical rather than an exact science, dismalness not withstanding. National economies are staggeringly complex, that complexity is multiplied infinitely for the world economy, and its workings are hotly disputed. Yesterday I suggested that David Cameron is...

The Labour Party was gearing itself up 14 months ago to call a General Election.  Brown marched his troops (or should that be troups? they are like a ballet troup) to the top of the hill, then dithered, and marched them down again. Lord Mandy is behind the current spin.  So this “snap election” is a bit better spun. But the problem is for Mandy is the unpredictability of his new boss (unlike the predictable Blair), as Mandy saw when Brown went loopy at PMQs last week. Labour is setting out its stall for a snap poll with its announcements and hints on taxation.  The problem is, of course, and poor Mandy no doubt realises this, is that - even if they had a poll lead - Brown is too much of a ditherer to call a General Election.       ...

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Tony Blair is to co-host a summit on the global financial crisis with President Nicolas Sarkozy in January, in a move likely to infuriate Gordon Brown.Mr Blair's office has been in in touch with the Prime Minister to invite him to the Paris conference, but Mr Brown has so far refused to accept the invitation, with an official saying last night he was still considering his "diary commitments".Sources said that Mr Brown was "relaxed" about the event taking place. However, any attempt by Mr Blair to overshadow Mr Brown's efforts on the world stage is likely to anger Downing Street aides. He has rebuilt his political reputation by claiming to lead the world in tackling the global financial crisis – most recently with a "road map" for financial reform he presented at a G20 summit last...

David Cameron is right:Gordon Brown knows that borrowing [to fund tax cuts] today means higher taxes tomorrow.But he’s also wrong:Everyone knows the prime minister is planning a Christmas tax giveaway, but tax cuts should be for life, not just for Christmas.The thing about an anti-recession fiscal stimulus is that it can perfectly well be temporary. Then, when decent growth resumes, you can tighten the reins again.So tax cuts now, presumably targeted at lower earners (and/or rises in tax credits) will need to be reversed later, right?Wrong. Some fiscal tightening or other will be needed later on – but not necessarily in the same place. And this means there’s no reason for Brown to go into an election trying to claim that no tax rises are on the way.Imagine this:In a pre-election...

So the Conservative plans to match Labour’s spending plans have been abandoned.  About time too.  Meanwhile, Labour is about to unveil a set of handouts to its core vote, i.e. tax credits and what not. As argued by Janet Daley in today’s Telegraph, the Conservatives (as well as not keeping to Labour’s profligacy) need to target tax cuts to the most productive part of society, the middle-income working classes and lower-middle class who have been hammered by Brownian economic policy most.  These may well be Prescott’s tectonic plates moving again, but the Tories might just pull off a masterstroke.  Here’s hoping they do.  After all, no matter what the public think of certain leading figures, the only Government they can truly trust is a Tory one....

Unusually for me, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been watching PMQs. It hasn’t been a happy experience for me. On both occasions Clegg has been felled by Brown, who on both occasions has simply swatted him away by smearing about £20bn cuts in public services. And I can’t help but feel that the confusion at the heart of Clegg’s own strategy has lead these blows to be effectively self-inflicted wounds. It’s time he rethought this strategy. Instead of flailing wildly once Brown has accused him of wanting to cut public services, he should confront it face on. I’d like him to say something like: The Prime Minister has repeatedly accused me of wanting to cut public services. If by that he means I am calling for him to abandon the appalling money pit...

In a previous article I quoted extensively from both Jeff Randall’s masterly dissection of Labour’s poor record on the economy and from Matthew Elliott’s spot-on tax recommendations.  It is ironic, given the 10p fiasco earlier this year (which was largely responsible for Labour’s defeat at Crewe) and the fiasco that has been Brownian economic policy, that the latest MORI poll has Labour at 37% (+7), the Tories on 40% (-5) and the Lib Dems on 12% (-2).  Labour’s policies are doomed as they’ll increase further, as Praguetory observes, the size of the state and mess the economy up. It is now certain that Brown will call a spring 2009 election - or sooner if he can - because the electorate have fallen for Mandelson’s hyper-spinning.  There’s...

This West Lothian man went far. The chairman of Disney Consumer Products Worldwide is Andrew Mooney originally from Whitburn, West Lothian and is today featured in the Edinburgh Evening News. The son of a late miner who then worked at the British Leyland plant at Bathgate. Having left school at 16 to become a trainee accountant instead of going to college Mooney worked up his experience...

After Labour excoriated shadow chancellor, George Osborne, for ‘irresponsibility’ and ‘talking down’ the pound, over the weekend, the Tories have launched what has every appearance of an effective comeback on economic issues. In the Telegraph, Boris Johnson defends his colleague’s right to offer a prognosis on the economy. Although this contention might appear self-evident, the government has reacted with increasing petulance on each occasion that an opposition politician dares to question the wisdom of Gordon Brown’s economic plans. Labour chose to interpret Conservative support for its bank bail-out as an open ended commitment to support all of its anti-recessionary measures. As Brown’s spending pledges become increasingly extravagant, and as tax cutting initiatives...

In quite the reverse to those magnificent men in their flying machines, that self proclaimed custodian of the world's economic future Gordon Brown has said that while taxes will be cut next week expect them to rise again after. David Cameron in response did come out with the rather good line: "Tax cuts should be for life, not just for Christmas." For it does seem that despite calls from the...

As I have warned over the past few months, Russia is being particularly badly hit by the global financial crisis. Partly this is a function of the severity of the collapse of commodity prices, especially oil and gas, which has had an exceptionally serious impact on a country where 85% of GDP relies on the extraction of raw materials. However the scale of the crisis in Russia has been hugely increased by a number of massive miscalculations by the Silovik state. Now the speed and scale of the Russian meltdown could conceivably become a threat to the stability of the Silovik regime itself.As energy prices rose from their lows of a decade ago, the regime which took power after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin on New Years Eve 1999 made oil and gas the central plank of their economic policies....

The International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008 published on 12 Nov is worth a look. It makes key points about how we cannot let the financial/economic crisis delay urgent actions needed to move to a low carbon economy. And that the danger for the climate of continued high carbon dependence is...

Rodney Grief over on Centre Right suggests that when Ozzy Osborne finally does go, that he should be replaced by Ken Clarke.  This would be electoral suicide.  If ever there was a throwback to the Major era, Clarke is No 1 throwback - and Labour, Mandy et al would have a field day.  Clarke was interviewed yesterday and in his interview basically insulted Conservative Peer Lord Kalms, who I think is a former Treasurer of the Party, and who has donated quite a lot of his money to the Tory cause.  Lord Kalms has some very sound conservative, right-wing views unlike the wet Europhile Clarke. Ken Clarke, after all, was the man who introduced stealth taxes to this country.  He’s not a low tax politicians. Clarke is also a traitor whose betrayal in standing - along with the man who...

The global economy is going down the tubes. Capitalism is crap. And markets are madness. That pretty much sums up what people think these days. Or does it? Well, as the old saying goes “a leopard never changes its spots", so I don’t think that too many capitalists will be buying the mantra that John Maynard Keynes is the best economist just yet. Well not until their houses are repossessed...

It’s bad folks. Very bad. And according to Merrill Lynch chief John Thain it’s going to be as bad as the 1930s: The global economy is entering a slowdown of epic prop-ortions comparable with the period after the 1929 crash, John Thain, chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch, warned yesterday. Speaking at the company's annual banking and financial services conference, Mr Thain said...

Well done again to Vince Cable. The government just don't get it, do they? They've given billions to the banks and aren't even going to have directors on the boards of the banks they part-own. As Cable says, it is...

After several weeks of worrying silence, during which time Gordon Brown was able to pose as saviour of the world financial system, improving his position in the opinion polls, George Osborne has at last come out fighting. In an interview with the Times on Saturday, he drew attention to the perilous position of the currency, as the national credit comes increasingly to resemble that of Iceland or Northern Rock. "The more you borrow as a government the more you have to sell that debt and the less attractive your currency seems," he commented. "Sterling has devalued rapidly against the euro and the dollar. We are in danger, if the Government is not careful, of having a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound."With the pound now at a record low against the Euro and a steadily falling...

Much has been made in the British press of the comments by George Osborne on a future British currency crisis, what he called "having a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound". Leaving aside- for the moment- the convention which Osborne has broken that opposition politicians do not talk down the British economy, let us examine what George Osborne is saying.On Friday, Sterling hit a a six and a half year low against the US Dollar and a record low against the Euro. The immediate cause was a series of extremely gloomy predictions for the UK economy and the expectations, that despite the 150 basis point rate cut, there could still be further reductions in British interest rates. None of this, you note has much to do with UK government borrowing. However the risk of a run on the Pound...

In the previous post I highlighted the importance of social policy to deal with the urban dystopia and the underclass.  But let’s not forget the economic context - and how tax and benefits policy disincentives many people from working - or even starting a business. Worth reading today is Jeff Randall’s masterly dissection of how Brown is like the little boy who broke his neighbour’s window but is trying to blame another kid and is going to help fix the window, do the garden (which he messed up too), wash the car, and even walk the dog… The final bill for Mr Brown’s incompetence will be huge. When Labour came to power in 1997, unemployment was close to two million. Today, it is back at that level – and set to become much worse. The CBI expects the jobless total...

This little boy is Baby P. His picture is in tomorrow’s Independent, as well as the fact that there were “‘issues’ at baby death council“, and how ministers were warned but did nothing about the shambolic Haringey social services department.  Haringey Council will forever be known as the Baby Death Council. Lord Mandelson’s strategy has fallen apart after Brown’s (and his MPs’) despicable performance at PMQs this week.  In the light of the murder of a little boy, in which not only the social services department at the local Council but the Government, is culpable, our current recession - which we will get out of by 2011 or 2012 at the latest - pales into insignificance. Remember 12 February 1993?  After that day, Tony Blair highlighted...

What an image - Brown and Cameron as taxcutters, but here we have it … auld Fraser Nelson, though, is a wise man and has suggested how the Tories could cut spending and taxes … while boosting the economy … rather than borrowing … he might just be on to something.       ...

World Challenge 2008 is the 4th year of an annual competition to 'discover' and celebrate enterprise and innovation within small business and projects on a global scale. The contest aims to champion and reward such organisations that 'really make a difference'.BBC World News and Newsweek who produce World Challenge are supported by Shell and distribute a total of $40,000 USD to the competition winners (two runners up prizes of $10,000 plus $20,000 to the overall winner). These invaluable funds are invested into the projects enabling them to expand.It all sounds like a highly commendable endeavour and there are some very worthwhile projects amongst the 12 finalists who are fortunate enough to have been picked by a panel of judges from a shortlist of 60.These 60 projects were in turn chosen...

So, I won't tell anyone if you don't. It is remarkable to see the Tory getting itself tied up in knots over the economy. Iain Martin writes a most entertaining article in the Torygraph suggesting that little Georgie Osbourne should be moved to a role more in line with his skills. Like looking after the Shadow Cabinet tuck shop. The Martin article is full of quotable sentences from beginning...

I've been a bit mean about the Daily Mail these past few days, since Paul Dacre claimed that indulging his own neo-Victorian brand of puritanical prurience constituted a vital democratic principle. Still, we mustn't forget all the good they do, so I'm delighted to note that Richard Littlejohn is in top form with a splendid rant about all the Guardian-advertised non-jobs that, he predicts, will prove strangely recession-proof:Yes, Britain's five-a- day coordinators, diversity managers, equality officers, elf 'n'safety enforcers and carbon-footprint campaigners can all sleep easily in their beds.While private companies are either contracting or going to the wall, the public sector continues to party like it's 1999. There'll be no shake-out in the Town Halls, no Christmas parties cancelled...

Much coverage this morning of the latest Bank of England Inflation Report. In particular, their big dipper GDP forecast (above). Unfortunately - scary though it looks - it seriously understates the likely pain we face.The Bank forecast envisages a short sharp recession, with a maximum total fall in GDP in the range 2-3%, and recovery back to the starting GDP level within about two and half years (ie late 2010). But previous recessions since WW2 have been worse than that, and they weren’t triggered by the worst financial crisis in history.The following chart shows what happened to GDP in the three previous recessions, tracing the quarterly path from the onset of the downturn through to the quarter in which GDP recovered back to its starting level. The conventional definition of recession...

New technology offers us all flexible working potential with virtual offices, hot desking and mobile working practices. Location and time are not issues anymore and the constrictions of the typical 9 to 5 day have been all but wiped out. Email services offer extremely efficient and fast communication and the various video conferencing packages are bringing...