Notes From Felipe Gonzalez’s Lecture In Brussels
One of the problems with blogging is the speed at which communications can now be transmitted. I know that this is meant to be the major strength of blogging - but if you happen to busy, it simply makes you look slow!
This time last week I was fortunate enough to attend a one hour lecture [...]
Gordon Brown Visits The European Parliament
Ok, so the fact that virtually every blog in the UK is now posting the following videos does not make them any less important.
Without trying to get overtly political, there are obvious connections between stock markets, national economies, currency valuations and the policies of the government of the day.
For years, Gordon Brown has [...]
The UK Economy: An Accountant’s View
Speaking to an accountant is always interesting. Firstly, you are hoping that they can save you some tax money - any savings are more than interesting!! Secondly, they have real insight into the workings of businesses in a way that a stock market or finance column (or blog!) does not.
My own accountant is owner of [...]
Paul Krugman Speaks About Food Security And The Depression
In yesterdays post, I wrote about Paul Krugman and his thoughts at FFA 2009 in Biblioteque Solvay, Brussels.
This interview is well worth watching for his brief discussion about finance. Note that most politicians discuss the recession and how we may be out of it in 2010. Instead, Paul Krugman calls it the “Mother of all [...]
Paul Krugman Speaks About Food Security
Yesterday and today saw me at the Forum for the Future of Agriculture in the lovely Biblioteque Solvay in Brussels. The main event was Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman.
Krugman spoke at some length about the current financial crisis and how he believes it is masking a growing food shortage around the world. He feels [...]
Investment And The Environment
Your author has tickets to EBS next week (26th and 27th March in Brussels). This isn’t because of my stellar environmental knowledge, but for other occupational reasons. For those that don’t know, EBS is the European Business Summit and is a similar type of event to Davos. However, EBS concentrates on the environment, business and [...]
How Risky Is The United Kingdom For Investors?
One of the maxims of investment is that, “Capital is scared”.
It seems that capital is currently scared of being in the United Kingdom. The following story from The Independent
suggests that money is leaving the UK at an incredible rate. If you watch currency markets, this is not a surprise.
This could all simply be related to [...]
Why Did Lloyds TSB Buy HBOS?
The rather unusual news from the UK is that the British government has grabbed control of Lloyds TSB PLC as a part of guaranteeing loans worth £260 billion.
According to a statement from Lloyds TSB, “About 83% of the insured assets were acquired when the bank bought HBOS.” The details, as reported by Bloomberg, can be [...]
Too Much Borrowed Money - Puerto Rico Is ‘Bust’
It had to happen. Iceland couldn’t be the only government to ‘go under’ during this financial crisis.
This is one of the problems with a global recession, it is very hard to guess what is actually at risk. It could be everything, or it could be nothing.
Either way, the impact of too much borrowed money is [...]