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Finance Blog for the Telegraph Media Group
Updated: 25 min 20 sec ago
UK economy still has 'seven more hard years to go'
Four years gone, but seven years still to go. That's the considered view of the Royal Bank of Scotland's Ross Walker on the state of household "deleveraging" in the UK, and it seems about right to me. Just before the Lehman's collapse in 2008, household debt stood at an astonishing 166pc of income, the highest [...]
Categories: General
For Greece this is only be the beginning
OK, so here’s the good news: Greece has moved one step further away from a chaotic default. Greece’s political parties have reached a preliminary deal on a slew of austerity measures after weeks of huffing and puffing – and posturing – between the members of the Greek ‘unity’ government, though Greece's far-Right party has said [...]
Categories: General
The case in favour of money printing
One of my faults as a columnist is seeing both sides of the argument; I sometimes struggle to make up my mind. I'm in just such a quandary over quantatitive easing – torn between on the one hand regarding it as an unadulterated evil which unfairly punishes savers for the sake of debtors, and on [...]
Categories: General
Home ownership doubled during Queen Elizabeth’s reign but families were subject to tougher tax treatment
The Queen’s diamond jubilee reminds us how the United Kingdom has changed since Her Majesty Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952 – not least in financial affairs. Married couples with children were much more lightly taxed then than they are now, for example, and twice as many of us are homeowners today than 60 [...]
Categories: General
Europe is now deliberately trying to push Greece out
There is only one way of interpreting the set of fresh demands tabled by eurozone finance ministers last night in return for agreeing a new €130bn bailout for Greece – that they are now quite deliberately trying to push Greece out of the euro. All pretence at European solidarity has been abandoned, to be replaced [...]
Categories: General
Expert tips on how to become a buy-to-let landlord
Buy-to-let investments can prove an atractive way to supplement pension income and make good shortfalls caused by recent stock market shocks and dismal returns from banks and building societies. Older homeowners who have retired may have both the capital and the time to make the most of a sector that has generated greater income and [...]
Categories: General
The IMF, EU and ECB – Greece's payday creditors
If you have borrowed more than you can repay from the bank, but – instead of trying to make terms with the bank – you keep yourself going for a short time with payday loans at interest rates of 1000 per cent, your bank will be displeased. Why? Because you don't even have enough money [...]
Categories: General
Repossessions rise and housing experts fear worse to come
Repossessions increased by 5pc over the last year, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), as more than 800,000 homebuyers struggled to meet monthly bills – despite interest rates remaining frozen for nearly three years. During the fourth quarter of 2011, the number of homes repossessed from their buyers was 8,500 compared to 8,100 [...]
Categories: General
Greek death spiral accelerates
Another normal day at the Hellenic Statistical Authority. We learn that: Greece's manufacturing output contracted by 15.5pc in December from a year earlier. Industrial output fell 11.3pc, compared to minus 7.8pc in November. Unemployment jumped to 20.9pc in November, up from 18.2pc a month earlier. I have little further to add. This is what a [...]
Categories: General
Bankers’ bonuses are ‘like penis extensions’ claims Ken Livingstone
Bankers’ bonuses are the latest battleground on which Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone have clashed with the latter describing them as being “like penis extensions”. Former London mayor Mr Livingstone explained: “In the time I was mayor, I used to do meetings with City bankers and I’d often open by saying, this isn’t the world [...]
Categories: General
For Greece a tear, for Brussels a blush
Very quickly: some of you will have seen that Greece’s tax revenue from VAT collapsed by 18.7pc in January from a year earlier. Nobody can seriously blame tax evasion for this. It has happened because 60,000 small firms and family businesses have gone bankrupt since the summer. The VAT rate for food and drink rose [...]
Categories: General
Childcare loans could help parents go to work and boost tax revenues
Parents should be helped to pay for childcare by borrowing up to £10,000 from the Government which they would repay through the tax system, a cross-party think tank has proposed. The Social Market Foundation plan would not only help many couples cope with the soaring cost of bringing up children but could pay for itself [...]
Categories: General
Harry Redknapp acquitted of tax evasion but should HMRC have paid for stolen information?
Harry Redknapp has been cleared of tax evasion charges but accountants question whether it is right for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to have paid for stolen information in its bid to identify tax dodgers elsewhere. The Spurs manager is innocent of any wrongdoing but HMRC says 2,000 wealthy Britons with offshore bank accounts they [...]
Categories: General
Japan's perverse message; just tax the corporate cash mountains even more
In a briefing document, Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, notes that large companies have built up record cash reserves in the past three years, and wonders what they might do with the money (sorry, no link). At the last count, the cash holdings of UK non financial companies stood at £731.4bn, the highest level [...]
Categories: General
Income-seekers beat frozen bank rates
Nearly three years after base rates were frozen at a historic low of 0.5pc, despite inflation running about 10 times that level, savers and investors are waking up to this slow-motion bank robbery – and pouring money into share and bond-based funds to preserve its real value or purchasing power. Equity income and corporate bond [...]
Categories: General
An orderly EMU break-up, à la Française
Salut souverainistes. For those wanting more details on the euro break-up plan drafted by French economists, here is the link to the L’Observatoire de L’Europe website. A few extracts, loosely translated: "The obstinate determination of governments to take us by forced march deeper into the euro impasse can only lead to the general aggravation of [...]
Categories: General
House prices, shares, bonds and deposits: which did best during the Queen’s reign?
House prices, shares, bonds and deposits are the main stores of value favoured by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s subjects but which did best during the 60 years of her reign? According to new analysis by Barclays Capital and Nationwide Building Society, shares seem to have pipped property at the post in the Diamond Jubilee [...]
Categories: General
Tax avoidance lessons to be learned from the Student Loans Company chief’s example
Revelations that the chief executive of the taxpayer-funded Student Loans Company avoided paying tens of thousands of pounds in tax by a simple manoeuvre called ‘incorporation’ may prompt other taxpayers to ask if they can do the same. Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, claims that Ed Lester’s tax will henceforth be deducted at [...]
Categories: General
Facebook: even if you don't like it, check out tech funds for growth
Facebook’s massive stockmarket flotation looks set to focus attention on new technology shares and funds, which most investors have shunned since the dot.gone disaster of a decade ago. Readers who regard social media with about as much enthusiasm as a pub with no beer may be baffled by talk that the website might achieve a [...]
Categories: General
Ed Miliband's posturing does no justice to capitalism's problems
Fresh from his victories on Stephen Hester’s bonus (Pyrrhic) and Fred Goodwin’s knighthood, Ed Miliband is back banging the “responsible capitalism” drum. And, once again, he’s poking the soft underbelly – bankers’ egregious bonuses. His soundbites are all perfectly pitched for the disenfranchised masses. “People who did not cause the financial crisis are paying the [...]
Categories: General
The Bottom Line:If Mr Cable has his way...
"If Mr Cable had his way, all the big banks would be broken up and bonuses would be virtually eliminated - a sure-fire way in my view of guaranteeing an end to the UK’s ability to compete as an international financial centre. Let’s not forget that this is a man who is on record as saying that everyone who works in a bank has an ‘aristocratic lifestyle’ clearly demonstrating his lack of understanding of the sector." A tough line on bankers’ bonuses could make a brain drain of financial talent a distinct possibility, warns Paul Marsden. Read more