Daily Mail
"Out of a population of 60.4 million, there is now a total of 6.6 million immigrants in the UK, according to the Daily Express. ...The findings were slipped out without notice last month and only revealed yesterday after academics discovered them and reported them to an immigration think-tank. ....Among the 1.5million people who have arrived since 2004, 620,000 are from Poland and other Eastern European countries who joined the EU that year, the report added.Home Office projections issued before the borders were opened said numbers arriving from Eastern Europe would be 13,000 a year.On top of the 2.3million migrants said to have arrived since 2001, it is thought around 700,000 arrived between 1997 and 2000.Migration information collected by the Office for National Statistics has been discredited since the disastrous national census of 2001 missed a million people."
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Immigrant Population Has Increased By More Than Two Million In Eight Years (MigrationWatchUK)
"The number of immigrants in the UK has increased by more than two million in the last eight years, says a Government sponsored report – that is nearly 700 a day - entirely consistent with the figure predicted by think tank Migrationwatch in 2002 which at the time was vilified by critics.The report by Oxford Economics, was quietly slipped out on the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government last month with no attention drawn to it.‘The report has confirmed that what Migrationwatch has been saying for seven years has turned out to be pretty accurate,’ said Chairman Sir Andrew Green."
Monday, 19 October 2009
Gordon Brown, the banks and the survival of the fattest
Daily Mail
"Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Gordon Brown says: 'Britain needs to emerge from recession with financial services that work for you, not for them. Banking for people, not for bankers.' Yes! But what does this mean? Precisely nothing. It is empty, political gibberish."
"Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Gordon Brown says: 'Britain needs to emerge from recession with financial services that work for you, not for them. Banking for people, not for bankers.' Yes! But what does this mean? Precisely nothing. It is empty, political gibberish."
Countdown to the next crisis is already under way
FT
"We did not need to wait until the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 10,000. It has been clear for some time that global equity markets are bubbling again. On the surface, this looks like 2003 and 2004 when the previous housing, credit, commodity and equity bubbles started to inflate, helped by low nominal interest rates and a lack of inflation. There is one big difference, though. This bubble will burst sooner."
"We did not need to wait until the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 10,000. It has been clear for some time that global equity markets are bubbling again. On the surface, this looks like 2003 and 2004 when the previous housing, credit, commodity and equity bubbles started to inflate, helped by low nominal interest rates and a lack of inflation. There is one big difference, though. This bubble will burst sooner."
A sterling crash is a godsend
Telegraph
"Britain has twice averted disaster over the past century by a timely – if humiliating – crash in sterling. In neither case was it obvious that this would lead to a decade-long revival in British fortunes. .....This is not to underplay the gravity of Britain's crisis. We are in a worse state today than in 1992 or 1931. Our budget deficit is 13pc of GDP. We are living £175bn a year beyond our means."
"Britain has twice averted disaster over the past century by a timely – if humiliating – crash in sterling. In neither case was it obvious that this would lead to a decade-long revival in British fortunes. .....This is not to underplay the gravity of Britain's crisis. We are in a worse state today than in 1992 or 1931. Our budget deficit is 13pc of GDP. We are living £175bn a year beyond our means."
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Britain's secret weapon against a fiscal crisis
Telegraph
"What I hadn’t realised was that the UK’s debt market is peculiar. In the US, average length of the existing Treasury bonds was, at recent count, 4.7 years and falling. Because this is such a short maturity, it means the debt has to be rolled over far more often, and at every point the government runs the risk of setting in stone any changes in interest rates. In France, the average maturity is 7.1 years, in Italy 6.9 years, in Germany 6.35 and in Japan 5.7 years.In Britain, the weighted average maturity of government bonds is a whopping 14.2 years. Admittedly, as the IMF points out this is slightly lower in the wake of the crisis, but it is still significantly longer than any other major economy."
"What I hadn’t realised was that the UK’s debt market is peculiar. In the US, average length of the existing Treasury bonds was, at recent count, 4.7 years and falling. Because this is such a short maturity, it means the debt has to be rolled over far more often, and at every point the government runs the risk of setting in stone any changes in interest rates. In France, the average maturity is 7.1 years, in Italy 6.9 years, in Germany 6.35 and in Japan 5.7 years.In Britain, the weighted average maturity of government bonds is a whopping 14.2 years. Admittedly, as the IMF points out this is slightly lower in the wake of the crisis, but it is still significantly longer than any other major economy."
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Another way of understanding the financial mess
John Redwood
"On Friday I was trying to explain the financial mess the UK is in now to some Councillors. I was urging them to cut their overheads by natural wastage and other measures now, as I fear whoever is in government in seven months time will tell them “the party is over” in Callaghan fashion."
"On Friday I was trying to explain the financial mess the UK is in now to some Councillors. I was urging them to cut their overheads by natural wastage and other measures now, as I fear whoever is in government in seven months time will tell them “the party is over” in Callaghan fashion."
UK's budget deficit will leave pound weak until at least 2014
Telegraph
"The report says that sterling could continue to weaken until 2014, as foreign investors balk at the unprecedented size of the UK's budget deficit."
"The report says that sterling could continue to weaken until 2014, as foreign investors balk at the unprecedented size of the UK's budget deficit."
Friday, 16 October 2009
Ex-FSA chief Sir Howard Davies sees 'dramatic’ risks for Britain
Telegraph
"The British people are living in a fool's paradise and have yet to understand the gravity of the economic crisis, according a former head of the Financial Services Authority.
.....What is disturbing is that the British people seem unwilling to face minimal belt-tightening. Even professors in higher education are balloting to strike, demanding a continuation of boom-time pay raises. "You have the best minds in the country planning to go on strike for 8pc. People are miles away from understanding what is needed."
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German 'Wise Men' fear credit crunch in 2010
"The British people are living in a fool's paradise and have yet to understand the gravity of the economic crisis, according a former head of the Financial Services Authority.
.....What is disturbing is that the British people seem unwilling to face minimal belt-tightening. Even professors in higher education are balloting to strike, demanding a continuation of boom-time pay raises. "You have the best minds in the country planning to go on strike for 8pc. People are miles away from understanding what is needed."
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German 'Wise Men' fear credit crunch in 2010
Thursday, 15 October 2009
An easy way to save £5 billion - say no to Lloyds Bank
John Redwood
"Today I awoke to the Today programme telling me Lloyds was likely to receive another £5,000,000,000 from taxpayers to top up its capital. No, No, No. The answer must be No.
Lloyds has plenty of assets. They should sell some. Lloyds has too big a position in the UK mortgage market, thanks to the foolish acquisition of HBOS egged on by the government. It should be made to sell some of it off. Lloyds can now raise some money from private markets, so let it do so. Lloyds has enormous scope for cutting its costs, starting with the huge salaries its Board members and senior executives draw from a subsidised business."
"Today I awoke to the Today programme telling me Lloyds was likely to receive another £5,000,000,000 from taxpayers to top up its capital. No, No, No. The answer must be No.
Lloyds has plenty of assets. They should sell some. Lloyds has too big a position in the UK mortgage market, thanks to the foolish acquisition of HBOS egged on by the government. It should be made to sell some of it off. Lloyds can now raise some money from private markets, so let it do so. Lloyds has enormous scope for cutting its costs, starting with the huge salaries its Board members and senior executives draw from a subsidised business."
How bad will spending cuts get? Take a look at Latvia
Telegraph
"Allow me to paint you a picture of a country mired in chaos. The unions are in open revolt. Public sector workers have just stomached their biggest pay cuts in living memory; many face losing their homes. In a desperate attempt to bring the budget deficit back under control, ministers are considering slashing child benefit by a fifth – the biggest attack on the welfare state since it was set up in the first half of the 20th century. The government's popularity is at historical lows.This is the state of affairs in one of our closest cultural and geographical neighbours. We should be watching closely, because what is happening in Ireland today is almost exactly what will happen in Britain tomorrow."
"Allow me to paint you a picture of a country mired in chaos. The unions are in open revolt. Public sector workers have just stomached their biggest pay cuts in living memory; many face losing their homes. In a desperate attempt to bring the budget deficit back under control, ministers are considering slashing child benefit by a fifth – the biggest attack on the welfare state since it was set up in the first half of the 20th century. The government's popularity is at historical lows.This is the state of affairs in one of our closest cultural and geographical neighbours. We should be watching closely, because what is happening in Ireland today is almost exactly what will happen in Britain tomorrow."
Treasury slams EU report warning Britain faces debt spiral
Telegraph
"Brussels said UK public debt will rise from around 60pc of GDP this year to 160pc by 2020, 406pc by 2040, and 760pc by 2060 unless there are drastic spending cuts."The UK's budgetary position poses severe risks to the sustainability of public finances," the EC said in its Sustainability Report."
"Brussels said UK public debt will rise from around 60pc of GDP this year to 160pc by 2020, 406pc by 2040, and 760pc by 2060 unless there are drastic spending cuts."The UK's budgetary position poses severe risks to the sustainability of public finances," the EC said in its Sustainability Report."
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Sterling is a silver lining as the dark clouds of austerity gather
Telegraph
"In reaching that point there's obviously no money left in Government coffers to spend our way out of recession. Taxes are going up, not down. Interest rates are as low as they'll go. We're fast approaching the limits of Mervyn King's ability to pump money into the economy via the banks (who don't seem to be passing much on) which leaves the currency as the final instrument we have to keep the economy off the rocks."
"In reaching that point there's obviously no money left in Government coffers to spend our way out of recession. Taxes are going up, not down. Interest rates are as low as they'll go. We're fast approaching the limits of Mervyn King's ability to pump money into the economy via the banks (who don't seem to be passing much on) which leaves the currency as the final instrument we have to keep the economy off the rocks."
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