Mervyn King gave a speech in Helsinki Finland today just before he takes retirement from the Bank of England in which he said that both austerity and growth were at fault of grossly exaggerated statements to purely political ends: "This debate has been vastly exaggerated by people who want to make political arguments”. He went on to add that it was a time for common sense.
Everyone has heard of Marie-Antoinette screaming from her balcony at the Palace of Versailles in the early hours of the French Revolution: “if there’s no bread, then let them eat cake!”. Right!
What was that single that soul singer Otis Clay brought out in 1980? Oh yeah, ‘The only way is up’! Well, if ever there were a more fitting signature tune these days for CEOs in the USA, then that’s what I’d be betting (my bottom) dollar on!
The Nikkei dropped by 7.3% at the end of the day and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped by 2.5%. Shanghai maintained a moderate fall at just 1.2% (if you believe that data now!). The Asian markets are down.
Popularity is something that can be determined by two things. Firstly, it doesn’t last! When too many people start liking you anyway, there is always someone that is there ready to knife you in the back. ‘Heil Caesar!’ soon turns into ‘Et tu, Brute’!
Last week (May 11th) there was a peak of 32, 000 new claims being made taking the US to 360, 000 new unemployed claims being filed, which is the biggest increase since March.
Inflation is hot property today, hyperinflation is even hotter! We think we are modern, contemporary, smart and ready to deal with anything. We’ve got that seen-it-all-before, been-there-done-it attitude. But, we are not a patch on what some countries have been through in the worst cases of hyperinflation in history.
The UK Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband plans on running head long into Eric Schmidt today during a conference in which he will clearly point out that he doesn’t agree with Google Inc.’s lack of fair play. It’s just not cricket, Eric!
Margaret Thatcher might have been the perfect housewife that got Britain off to a good start or at least that’s what she would have liked us all to have believed when she was in power. The prefect Grantham housewife, so simple: never spend more than you earn, the defender of good management of budgetary finances. But that was all part of the ruse, wasn’t it?
A generation of economists and students of macroeconomics were taught that the Quantity Theory of Money described the relationship between money and prices in the economy.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony to Congress will be important in setting the tone for the markets (particularly the dollar, equities and US treasuries), as traders hunt for clues on when the Fed is likely to ease its rate of asset purchases.
Recently in the United States we’ve heard news that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) is guilty of discriminating against conservative “non-profit” or not-for-profit entities. Any group with the name “Patriot” or “Tea Party” in their name was immediately held as suspect and the IRS in essence dragged their feet in terms of granting them a non-profit status.
