Business Comment
Stephen King: As safe as houses? How harsh realities are dispelling the home market myths
As safe as houses. No place like home. An Englishman's home is his castle. Our language is replete with positive references to housing. It's almost as if we're programmed to believe, from a very early age, that housing is somehow "safe".
Inside Business Comment
Margareta Pagano: Carphone Warehouse's US connections ring all the right bells for Dunstone
Sunday, 11 May 2008
This could be the time to start betting on Charles Dunstone again. Shares in Carphone Warehouse, look cheap after they fell to 270p last week after the mobile tycoon announced a brilliant tie-up with Best Buy, the giant US electronics retailer.
Hamish McRae: China races for growth, India muddles through. But failing to prepare means preparing to win
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Bangalore – downturn, what downturn? The world economy really does look different when viewed from the other side. This year it has been China that has attracted the headlines, but the boom and the strains it has created are just as evident in the other Asian giant, India, as a brief visit to the capital of its hi-tech industries makes clear.
Jeremy Warner's Outlook: So that's all right, then. The Government is on the case of beleaguered homeowners
Saturday, 10 May 2008
You'll be pleased to know that, with repossession orders rocketing and householders struggling to keep up with their mortgage repayments, the Government is now fully on the case.
Jeremy Warner's Outlook: With the rates dilemma never more acute, the Bank doesn't know which way to go
Friday, 9 May 2008
You don't need to wait until next week's publication of the quarterly Inflation Report to know why the Bank of England yesterday left interest rates on hold. Inflationary pressures are refusing to abate, and whereas further out a fast slowing economy should cause prices to ease, it looks perverse to be cutting interest rates into a worsening medium term inflation outlook.
Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Carphone faces up to DSG International
Friday, 9 May 2008
Watch out DSG International. As if things were not already bad enough for the Dixons, Currys and PC World retailer, here comes Best Buy, the "big box" consumer electronics giant from the US, to attack the soft underbelly of the European market. What's more, it has wisely chosen to launch its assault in partnership with Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse fame, one of Britain's most canny and successful entrepreneurs.
Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Currie in the frame for FSA chairmanship
Friday, 9 May 2008
Decision time approaches in the contest to become the next chairman of the Financial Services Authority – if indeed the search for what is regarded as one of the least enviable top jobs in the City can be described as a "contest". A shortlist of just two is said to be before the Chancellor.
Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Ministers cannot win case for green taxes if they won't apply them to green causes
Thursday, 8 May 2008
It is little surprise that Defra has so firmly rejected proposals from the European Commission that revenue derived from auctioning emission permits be earmarked for spending on climate change initiatives. As on everything to do with the growing burden of business taxes, ministers have got their heads buried in the sand.
Hamish McRae: Lower interest rates are no magic bullet, but given time they will work
Thursday, 8 May 2008
Another month, another Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meeting – and another interest rate cut? Well, we will learn today, but if we don't get a quarter-point now, expect it to come through in June instead. The path is clearly down, with rates at 4 per cent by December now on the cards and maybe even lower.
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