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View from London

Damage to growth has been done

One year on, how does it feel? How does it feel to know that you can't sell your house? That you can't get a loan from the bank to buy a house or, for that matter, anything else? That unemployment is on its way up?
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Inside View from London

No ‘all for one and one for all’ in Greek tragedy

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

It's the politics, stupid. After years in which market forces dominated, in which economies were supposedly self-regulating and in which the nation state appeared increasingly impotent, markets are now struggling with the return of what might be called ‘political economy’.
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Shadow from the east looms over Davos leaders

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

On arriving in Davos on Tuesday, I detected a mood of cautious optimism. Yet, as the week progressed, the mood of this gathering of supposedly strategic long-term thinkers darkened.
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Why folks on the Hill are fed up with the Fed ...

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

All of a sudden, financial markets look sickly. From a Western perspective, it's not difficult to see why.
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When markets are happy we should be wary

Tuesday, 19 January 2010

If there's one thing which has got policymakers excited over the last few months, it's the rally in stock markets across the world.
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We're out of the woods but still lost in the forest

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Many years ago, I specialised in coverage of the Japanese economy. In 1990, the big worry was inflation. Although Japan's stock market had begun its long journey south, investors thought earlier overheating would lead to big price increases.
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A case of paradise lost and austerity being postponed

Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Contrary to popular opinion, the UK gilt market — the market in government IOUs —has not yet collapsed, despite the ongoing increase in national debt.
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Thriving China is re-writing trade script for all of us

Tuesday, 8 December 2009

In recessions past, the western economies exported their problems to countries elsewhere in the world. As the US and European economies tripped up, so their demand for raw materials would drop.
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Dubai's difficulty is a warning to all big spenders

Tuesday, 1 December 2009

November 2009 will surely go down as one of those great months of mystery.
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I’ll raise my hat if someone caps bank leverage

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Just as the world suffered grievously from the banking sector's ability to invent complex securities that no one understood, and thus were impossible to manage or value, are we now about to create a regulatory system that is also too complicated to understand?
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There's a lot of wishful thinking in this recovery

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Just when can we be sure that economic recovery is in the bag? The world economy seems to be in a much better place today than it was at the beginning of the year.
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Now we need the emerging nations to start shopping

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Only a few years ago, the world economy was dominated by the US. Nowadays, the evidence suggests the US is increasingly dependent on the rest of the world.
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Euro’s strength can’t heal rifts between rich and poor

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

There has been plenty of speculation about the dollar and poor old sterling recently — but how has the euro fared in its first big test?
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Sense of foreboding grows as the recession lingers on

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

Half-a-dozen quarters on, the UK is still in recession. The 0.4% drop in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the third quarter of this year left economists dumbfounded. Where were the green shoots? Why was recovery yet to materialise? Why had the efforts of policymakers - interest rate cuts, quantitative easing, big budget deficits, a drop in sterling - not paid off?
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Not quite the same, but the 80s can still teach us a thing or two

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

No pain, no gain. That is the message coming from the Conservatives and, for that matter, from Labour too. The UK's public finances are in a parlous state. Spending is going to be slashed. Taxes are going to rise. And our political leaders, both current and those-in-waiting, are hoping that a dose of tough medicine now will form the foundations of the next recovery.
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US is playing a dangerous game with difficult dollar

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

It's no great surprise that, in Britain, the collapse of the dollar has gone largely unnoticed. Sterling has fallen even further.
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The four most expensive words: ‘This time it’s different’... is it?

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

In a typical banking crisis, the economy stumbles and never gets its old pace back.
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Devaluation won't change much

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

Devaluation is a dirty word. It stinks of failure. Every so often, the British economy succumbs, most famously in 1949, 1967 and 1992. Each time, as the UK lost its economic footing and sterling collapsed, the people of Britain were left to inhale the stench of political desperation. Given all this, it's fortunate that the UK no longer pegs its exchange rate to anything in particular.
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Obama must resist the call of protectionism ahead of the G20

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

The internal combustion engine was not invented in the US. With the honourable exception of Mario Andretti, Americans tend to ignore Formula 1. General Motors and Ford no longer produce the iconic brands of yesteryear. On his new album, Jay-Z talks about “Cruisin' down 8th Street, off-white Lexus drivin' so slow”, no doubt keeping Toyota very happy but leaving Detroit rather sad.
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More caution with public finances may limit future risks

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

Running the economy is no easy task. Sometimes, I get the impression that policymakers think there is some magic formula which, once unlocked, will allow strong growth, low inflation and full employment to continue indefinitely.
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What happens to us if everyone rushes for the financial exit?

Tuesday, 8 September 2009

The beads of sweat must have been building up on Gordon Brown's brow last week. What if the leaders of other nations suddenly decided to raise taxes, to cut public spending or to raise interest rates to bring last year's policy stimulus to a close?
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