Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’
It has been a long time since the West dominated shipbuilding, or steel making. We are already aware that we are losing ground in consumer goods, as well as in finance and transport. Add it all up, and we no longer expect the US, Europe or its allies to control the global market in most
It hires the cleverest young graduates every year. It brings in talent from around the world. And it has the budget to acquire all the resources it needs. With all this at its disposal, you would think the Bank of England could at least come up with a better excuse for its dismal record on
It has finally happened. In trading on Tuesday afternoon, the UK’s FTSE 100 index finally closed in on an all-time high. It hit 8,015 points, itching above the previous record closing level of 8,014 set in February 2023 – even if it was still a whisker below the intra-day trading record of 8,043, also from
Mortgage rates will finally start to come down again. Consumers will have a little more money in their pockets. And companies will find it cheaper to invest. Today’s cut in interest rates was a much needed boost for the economy. Oh, but hold on. That was over in Switzerland, where the central bank this morning cut
Growth will be turbo-charged, animal spirits will be unleashed, and foreign investment will flood back into Britain. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves is promising a Thatcher-style revival of the British economy if Labour wins power. But there’s a problem with the pitch that she will deliver in her keynote Mais lecture on the economy today: a
It will put more money in people’s pockets. It will improve the incentives to work. And it will put down a marker that the party does still believe taxes can occasionally be cut. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is not the world’s finest speech-maker, but he will probably attempt a few rhetorical flourishes when he cuts
At a certain point, your smartphone may no longer accept the latest software update from Apple or Google. Your laptop could get so cranky after four or five years that it is easier to replace it with a new one than spend hours staring at the blue screen of death. Even your toaster or your
Apple’s much-hyped electric car appears to have been killed off before it ever hit the road. For years, the tech firm’s plan to branch out into developing an electric, semi-autonomous car have been the subject of much excitement. Codenamed Project Titan, fans speculated that Apple would turn its magic to designing a car that would
The currency would collapse. Output would go into freefall. Unemployment would soar, and the IMF would be back in charge quicker than you could say ‘chainsaw’. When Argentina voted into power its libertarian new president Javier Milei there were predictions that his radical free market reforms would quickly plunge the country into chaos. But hold
A lot has happened over the past 34 years: the Cold War ended, several wars have taken place in the Middle East, a banking collapse occurred, and a global pandemic left millions stuck inside their homes. But one thing remained constant throughout: the bear market – a price drop of 20 per cent or more
The City of London would be hollowed out. Bankers would have to retrain as burger chefs. And Paris and Frankfurt would emerge as the twin centres of the European financial markets, leaving London as little more than a backwater. Of all the predictions made by some Remainers during Brexit, there was one that kept re-emerging:
Thierry Breton is, on the face of it, well qualified to regulate Europe’s tech industry. After a brief spell as French finance minister, from 2009 to 2019 he ran the computing giant Atos, one of the champions of France’s IT industry. Yet Atos is now in deep trouble. Shares have plunged more than 90 per
Government borrowing is lower than had been forecast. The economy needs some form of a boost. And perhaps most of all there is an election within a few months. There are plenty of reasons why Chancellor Jeremy Hunt might want to cut taxes slightly in his spring Budget, and perhaps even once more by the
Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, has one of the most glittering CVs in European politics. The ex finance minister of France, and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, earns £365,000 a year for running the show at the ECB. But is she any good? An internal poll of staff
Why is Oxfam so concerned about the coming possibility of the world’s first trillionaire? The charity has this week released a report with an apocalyptic warning that one is likely within the next decade. Yet surely people only get that rich by making something that people want. That should be celebrated instead of condemned. In
It has formidable negotiating skills, at least according to its cheerleaders. It has huge economic clout. And it can impose its will on companies and rival governments. Given that we have heard so much over the last few years about the immense influence of the European Union you might have thought that a small matter like
The charlatans had been exposed. Its flimsiness had been confirmed. And the bubble had finally burst. Rewind to just over a year ago, and with the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX and the arrest of its billionaire founder Sam Bankman-Fried it seemed as if the legions of skeptics of the digital currency Bitcoin had
Well that was a surprise. At just 3.9 per cent, down from 4.7 per cent, the latest inflation figure published today came as a shock for many. The figures are far lower than the consensus forecasts, and even low enough to allow the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to meet his forecast to halve the rate
The Argentinian peso has been devalued by 50 per cent overnight. Controls on exports have been scrapped, and the country’s ministry of culture is to be closed down. The health, labour, social development and education departments are also facing the chop. Argentina’s president Javier Milei – who vowed to deliver economic ‘shock treatment’ in his
They are cheap to run. They rarely break down. And perhaps most of all they are far better for the environment. For the last decade we have been endlessly lectured about how electric cars are so completely superior to the petrol variety that they would quickly dominate the market. But hold on. Now that some
