Diane Coyle, distinguished academic economist with Harvard PhD, Cambridge Chair, and professional, ex-UK Treasury, CBE, explores enormous problems but also opportunities and explains how economics needs to change to keep pace with the twenty-first century and the digital economy – Digital technology, big data, big tech, machine learning, and AI are revolutionising both the tools…
The UK government continued to support the economy during the pandemic by borrowing soared in November hitting £31.6bn the highest level on record according to the office for National Statistics and the third-highest figure in any month since records began in 1993. The Independent Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that the amount of borrowing…
In August as the effect of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme which ran from Monday to Wednesday, and offered 50 per cent off food up to the value of £10, pushed down the restaurant prices and July’s consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation figure had been1 per cent. The VAT cut in the hospitality…
The UK economy suffered its worst and biggest slump on record between April and June due to coronavirus lockdown measures, shrinking as much as 20.4 per cent compared with the first three months of the year. The UK is officially into recession. Household spending plunged as shops were ordered to close, while factory and construction…
The UK government borrowed £127.9bn between April and June for tackling the coronavirus pandemic, taking the total government debt to £1.98 trillion. The difference between spending and tax income was more than double the £55.4bn borrowed in the whole of the previous year. The borrowing in June was lower in May at £35.5bn, as…
Trade conflicts caused by governments promoting the interest of the elite at the expense of workers. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. The class wars of rising inequality are a…
Aon buys Willis Tower Watson for £30bn in an all share-deal that will combine world’s second and third largest insurance brokers into a new industry leader and throws up challenge to Marsh & McLennan, which until now has been the world’s number one in the sector by revenue, one year after they completed acquisition of…
There is a scandal in the Wealth Management division of Deutsche Bank which paid £1.1m to secure the wealth management business of a senior Saudi Royal financial adviser, whose wife was paid according to an internal probe that led to two former employees being reported to criminal prosecutors. The money transfers were arranged in 2011…
Help to Buy was introduced by David Cameron’s coalition government in 2013, with the aim of helping more people to get on the property ladder, instead 63 per cent of people using the Government’s Help to Buy scheme could have purchased their properties without it, and 19 per cent were not first time buyers. According…
Zhang, a Chinese farmer set up a fake branch of one of the world’s largest banks was caught when he stopped customers withdrawing money. He created the China Construction Bank in Shandong a fake branch with card readers, passbooks and three teenage girls as bank tellers and ran for over a month and swindled thousands of…