Wanderlust

Tag: economic growth (gdp)

  • Gordon Brown in dire warning about the next financial crisis

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    Media captionGordon Brown says we are sleepwalking into another financial crisis

    The world is not ready to deal with another financial crisis, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told the BBC.

    A breakdown in international co-operation means nations would be unable to act in a concerted way to tackle future threats – which are many.

    “I feel we’re sleepwalking into the next crisis”, said Mr Brown, speaking on the 10th anniversary of the start of the previous crisis.

    He added that some of the bankers involved should have gone to jail.

    Mr Brown, speaking from his living room, said: “This is a leaderless world and I think when the next crisis comes, and there will be a future crisis, we’ll find that we neither have the fiscal or monetary room for manoeuvre or the willingness to take that action.

    “But perhaps most worrying of all, we will not have the international co-operation necessary to get us out of a worldwide crisis.”

    In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Wall Street banking giant Lehman Brothers, the UK government was one of the first to press the case for using public money to recapitalise failing banks and did exactly that – pumping taxpayer funds into Lloyds, HBOS and RBS.

    Mr Brown, UK prime minister as the crisis unfolded, said that it was possible to counteract the evaporation of trust in the markets by co-ordinated action between governments and regulators that trusted eachother.

    “But now with the trade wars, the disagreements over climate change, the nuclear deals that have fallen apart there is no spirit of co-operation – there is division and protectionism and I fear a new crisis would see nations trying to shift the blame to each other.”

    Bob Diamond defends risk-taking banks Hammond: Financial crisis ‘shock’ continues Carney warns against complacency

    He acknowledged that the use of public money to bail out high earning bankers was a difficult pill for the public to swallow and although he insists it was necessary, he says that he is frustrated that harsher penalties weren’t dished out to some of the bankers involved.

    “I’ll be honest with you. Some of these bankers should have gone to jail and until we have proper laws that can find the guilty and show there are clear penalties, then people will think the bankers have got away with it and will go back to doing the same thing again.”

    What blame does he bear himself? Former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn (Lord) King has been critical of the way his government designed the regulatory regime – moving bank supervision away from the central bank to the Financial Services Authority.

    Mr Brown acknowledges that it didn’t work perfectly, but argues that the system was designed to look at isolated outbreaks of bank distress – not a contagion which consumed the entire global financial system.

    No national warning system, he says, was equipped to see the full picture and no individual country could have tackled the meltdown.

    A global problem needs global co-operation. Without that – and with most of the tools available already used (rock bottom interest rates, trillions pumped into the system through quantitative easing) – Mr Brown paints a grim picture of our ability to face the next crisis.

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  • Unions call for four-day working week

    Image caption Russ Todd says the arrangement offers him extra flexibility along with his time

    “My father may paintings long hours. He was once up ahead of i was up and he was once house after I went to bed,” he stated. “it’s important to be there. It issues.”

    Employee Mari Dunning has used a few of her additional time to get a suite of poetry printed, amongst extra menial tasks.

    Or for those who use the extra day to get the housework done, “you’ve got then were given your weekend huge open”, she stated.

    “i do not see why 4 days is not potential for most folks,” she introduced.

    But for most British workers the rage goes in the other route.

    ‘Better running lives’

    Some 1.4 million folks now paintings a whole seven days per week in the UNITED KINGDOM, in step with the TUC, and FIFTY ONE% of people they surveyed mentioned they feared the advantages of latest era may visit corporate managers and shareholders.

    A document this January from Centre for Towns discovered that 3.6m UNITED KINGDOM jobs might be replaced by means of machines by way of 2030.

    The TUC’s general secretary Frances O’Grady highlighted that unions had fought for 2-day weekends and bounds on lengthy hours – and that that is their subsequent challenge.

    Symbol copyright PA Image caption Frances O’Grady has led the TUC since 2013

    “We All Know that a few individuals are pessimistic about whether era will make their lives better however technology may well be a force for excellent, we will be able to also make everyone’s running lives better and richer,” she explained.

    “It does not need to be about surveillance and exploitation. This could be about creating extra enjoyable work.”

    But that may no longer be simple.

    ‘Protecting jobs’

    The Communication and Employees Union just took on that combat – to have the advantages of automation calmly shared – on the Royal Mail.

    When the postal carrier invested in new sorting machines – thus scaling down at the quantity of time employees had been had to deal with programs – it sought after the staff to work extended supply rounds instead.

    Image copyright Getty Pictures Symbol caption New tech disrupted the operating week for workers at Royal Mail

    Terry Pullinger was the lead union rep on the dispute that took years to unravel.

    “Our goal was once to paintings in opposition to a 35-hour week,” he said.

    “An Important to us was to protect as many jobs as imaginable with the generation that is coming in, that is removing so much of the paintings that our participants are doing. and fortuitously we ended up in a state of affairs the place the organization agreed with us.”

    He introduced: “persons are finding that they are being driven to work tougher, but how much can other folks take?”

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  • UK products and services sector will get wonder boost

    Waiter in outdoor restaurant Symbol copyright Getty Images

    Britain’s large services and products sector – the whole thing from eating places to banking – shocked economists through selecting up extra strongly than anticipated remaining month.

    The sector, which makes up about EIGHTY% of the economy, noticed many firms operating at capability with complete order books.

    The services index, compiled via IHS Markit/CIPS Buying Managers’ Index (PMI), grew to 54.3 in August from 53.5 in July.

    But firms stated Brexit concerns have been slowing investment for the 12 months ahead.

    The figures have been better than any of these forecast through economists in a ballot by Reuters earlier this month.

    IHS Markit’s chief trade economist, Chris Williamson, said: “Faster provider sector order e book and employment enlargement… highlights the extent to which the economy has change into more reliant on products and services to support expansion, and specifically an especially robust financial carrier sector.”

    The numbers also make up for the the slowing expansion in production which showed up in PMI figures for August launched earlier this susceptible and was as a result of a sharp downturn in exports.

    The manufacturing index was once at 52.8, the bottom reading in 25 months.

    Any reading below 50 method economic job is shrinking.

    The PMI forecast that the economy as a complete will grow at 0.4% within the third quarter of the yr, the similar as in the 2nd quarter. All Over the second quarter of the year it received a boost from the world Cup celebrations and the nice and cozy weather, in line with the Place Of Business of National Facts.

    Then Again there had been fears that the upward push in interest rates, uncertainty over Brexit and the threat of global trade wars might dampen enlargement.

    Relatively powerful

    Commenting on the products and services figures, Mr Williamson, stated: “This is a comparatively powerful and resilient rate of expansion that will for sure draw a few sighs of aid on the Bank of britain after the velocity hike earlier within the month,”

    “Given the an increasing number of unbalanced nature of enlargement and the darkening industry mood, dangers to the fast outlook appear tilted to the disadvantage.”

    The survey discovered that businesses were still taking over body of workers however that trust for the 12 months in advance slipped to its lowest considering the fact that March, with businesses saying Brexit uncertainty had made purchasers less keen to speculate, for now.

    There are signs that the lack of labour is using up a few wages. Companies within the PMI survey pronounced paying upper salaries to recruit laborious-to-find workforce and reduce employee turnover that was once proscribing their talent to finish a few projects.

    Government figures from the ONS show wages, except bonuses, grew through 2.7% in the 3 months to June, compared with a 12 months ago while the official inflation degree, as measured by the shopper Price Index, stands at 2.5%.