China has entered the adolescent stage of its development into a superpower – the past few years have been epochal, peaking with China overtaking Japan as the second biggest economy. China states categorically that their rise is ‘peaceful’ while other countries (particularly America) call on China to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’. Here we have a clear divergence of opinion, but what can this tell us about the current state of the ‘world order’? (more…)
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Logic of Lower Returns: Why Basel III Matters and More Needs to be Done (Part I)
11 Apr
Most people are not worried about the finesse of financial regulation, but I will give here a brief explanation of the three Basel Accords. As expected it is the trilogy of some accords created in the sterile inter-governmental buildings in Basel designed to regulate finance.
As most film aficionados will confess, trilogies often get progressively worse: Star Wars, Blade, Matrix (does anyone understand the ending?), Die Hard, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transporter (yes they made three!). Occasionally you get a great trilogy: Toy Story and Back to the Future come to mind.
Basel III, although not as cute as Toy Story or as thought provoking as BttF’s time travel is nevertheless a franchise that has improved with each chapter -but the work is far from finished. (more…)
The Beginnings of a Double-Dip Recession…possibly
11 Mar
Let me preface this article by defining a double-dip recession: it is a term coined by economists, meaning two consecutive periods of negative GDP growth.
Britain is still vulnerable to a double-dip recession – but whether it be next quarter or not is anyone’s guess. There was a surprising GDP figure last quarter showing a contraction of 0.5 per cent, which was emphatically blamed on the weather. This data has recently been revised down to 0.6 per cent, and of this ONS predict that 0.4 per cent decline was due to the snow. Taking that into account we have a relatively small contraction of 0.2% ,leaving us with an indifferent economy. However, this bad weather merely delayed shoppers from spending, with a rush recorded just after Christmas to take advantage of the sales and to beat the impending VAT rise.
Recent Posts
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Stop Tony 2012
“First there was a bad man, then there was another bad man, now we have Tony Blair.” So says ‘Tony 2012‘, the new documentary which is taking the internet by storm since its sudden release one month ago. The film, which charts the crimes of British-born warlord Tony Blair and his radical New Labour Party [...]
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Anti-Semitism and the Left (Part IIII): Nazism, the Holocaust and False Analogies
This is the final part of a series of four pieces about Anti-Semitism and the Left. The other parts can be viewed here: 1, 2 and 3. While the Left’s tendency to single Israel out is, in my opinion, the combination of misunderstood and misused post-Zionism, and a crude anti-colonialism, this does not mean that [...]
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Primary school ‘tuition fees’ to be introduced
The Department for Education has announced controversial plans to phase in £9,000 a year ‘tuition fees’ for children attending primary school. Michael Gove, the education minister led the announcement by saying that the changes were crucial in his plans for creating ‘internationally-competitive primary schools’ with would ‘attract the world’s brightest and best four-year olds’. The [...]
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Anti-Semitism and the Left (Part III): The Question of Colonialism
This is the third of four pieces about Anti-Semitism and the Left. The other parts can be viewed here: 1, 2 and shortly 4. In the ‘Introduction’ to Orientalism (1978), his fierce attack on Western perceptions of the East, Edward Said sets out a tripartite definition of Orientalism. The second definition is as follows, Orientalism is a style of thought [...]
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A response to Victoria Coren
Last week the Washington Post published the results of a phone survey of 1900 adults, on a range of issues, with individuals identified by gender and race. This weekend’s Observer published a follow-up article by Victoria Coren giving her interpretation of these findings. The general thrust was: According to this poll’s results, American black women tend to have higher self-esteem are [...]
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