Learn from the Test and Trace Debacle. It Shows How the Tories Enrich Their Friends

THE GUARDIAN: Calling the government’s spending wasteful, as Labour has, merely plays into the hands of the right

Just as 19th-century oil barons competed to make their millions from liquid gold, today vast sums are to be made by drilling deep into the British state.’ Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP
It’s 33 years since Margaret Thatcher inaugurated the modern rightwing Eurosceptic movement, declaring in Bruges that “we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level”. Given the Brexit cause was so inextricably tied with deregulation, tax cuts and a retreat from public spending, there is something of an irony that, less than two years since our withdrawal from the EU, British companies find themselves tied up with red tape at our borders, average taxes have reached their highest levels since the 1950s, and the size of the state has been brought to levels “not seen in normal times” since the early Thatcherite era, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Some commentators have even declared the contents of Rishi Sunak’s red box to be a “Labour budget”, while ITV’s Robert Peston labels Boris Johnson “an arch-Keynesian”. Such an analysis belies a common misconception: that a leftwing approach to the economy is defined by statism, and that an enlarged state is incompatible with the Tory creed. This fundamentally misunderstands the real ideological battleground, which is over whose interests the state serves rather than its absolute size. » | Owen Jones | Friday, October 29, 2021

Budget 2021: IFS Predicts ‘Real Pain’ for Low-income Households

THE GUARDIAN: Thinktank’s verdict on Rishi Sunak’s budget says tax rises and inflation will mean falling living standards for many

Rishi Sunak in Bury, the day after delivering the budget. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images
Rishi Sunak’s decision to raise taxes on workers amid high levels of inflation will squeeze living standards next year, causing “real pain” for low-income households, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.

Issuing its verdict after the chancellor’s budget on Wednesday, the UK’s leading tax and spending thinktank said a middle earner was likely to be worse off next year as high rates of inflation and tax rises negate weak growth in wages.

It said that while Sunak was promising a new age of optimism, voters might not get much feelgood factor after the chancellor announced £40bn of tax increases this year – the largest increase since 1993.

Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, said the outlook for living standards jarred with the chancellor’s upbeat tone. “Over the next several years a combination of tax increases and high inflation will mean very slow growth in living standards,” he said. » | Richard Partington, Economics correspondent | Thursday, October 29, 2021

Lebanon’s Economic Crisis: 'No Food, No Gas, No Hope' - BBC Newsnight

Oct 27, 2021 • As Lebanon’s crisis continues to intensify, how are people trying to cope in the midst of financial devastation?

Earlier this month violent clashes in Beirut touched off fears of renewed civil strife in Lebanon.

The country has been mired in crisis of late - political, economic, Covid, and on top of all that the devastating port blast in August 2020.

As if that's not bad enough a brain drain of the educated professionals has been gathering pace.

Leaving carries shame, so there are no reliable statistics about that flight.

Newsnight’s Mark Urban reports from Beirut.

Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos | Full film | FRONTLINE

Feb 19, 2020 • An inside look at how Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos built one of the largest and most influential economic forces in the world — and the cost of Amazon’s convenience.

Der Aufschwung kommt fast zum Erliegen

KONJUNKTUR
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Für Fachleute sind es „besorgniserregende“ Signale aus der Wirtschaft im Oktober: Das Wachstum stagniert – und die Preise steigen weiter.

Der Aufschwung der deutschen Wirtschaft ist im Oktober beinahe zum Erliegen gekommen. Das zeigen am Freitag veröffentlichte Umfragedatendaten des Analyseunternehmens IHS Markit. Der aus einer Umfrage unter 800 Industrie- und Dienstleistungsunternehmen errechnete Markit-Einkaufsmanagerindex fiel demnach im Oktober auf 52 Punkte – das waren fast vier Punkte weniger als im Dezember und der niedrigste Wert seit acht Monaten. » | Von Johannes Pennekamp | Freitag, 22. Oktober 2021

Le bitcoin franchit un nouveau plus haut historique à plus de 65.000 dollars

Le bitcoin se démocratise sur les marchés financiers. OZAN KOSE / AFP
LE FIGARO : Le cours du bitcoin a augmenté de plus de 50% sur un mois et de plus de 450% sur un an.

Le cours du bitcoin s'envole mercredi à un nouveau plus haut, à plus de 65.000 dollars, porté par le lancement d'un produit financier à Wall Street lié à la cryptomonnaie, étape historique pour sa démocratisation.

La cryptomonnaie, qui s'échangeait pour moins d'un dollar il y a 12 ans, culminait en cours de séance à 66.273 dollars vers 14H00 GMT (16H00 à Paris), en hausse de plus de 50% sur un mois et de plus de 450% sur un an. Le bitcoin profite depuis un mois du lancement du premier fonds indiciel (ETF) lié à son cours à la Bourse de New York, dont les échanges ont commencé mardi: les investisseurs espèrent que de nouveaux fonds vont pouvoir se lancer sur le marché de la cryptomonnaie en utilisant ce nouveau produit financier régulé. » | Par Le Figaro avec AFP | mercredi 20 octobre 2021

Bank of England Will Have to Act to Curb Inflation, Says Bailey

THE GUARDIAN: Governor signals central bank is preparing to raise interest rates amid surge in energy prices

The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, said he continued to believe the recent jump in inflation would be temporary. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters
The governor of the Bank of England has warned it will “have to act” to curb rising inflation, sending a new signal that it is gearing up to raise interest rates.

Andrew Bailey said he continued to believe the recent jump in inflation would be temporary, but he predicted a surge in energy prices would push it higher and make its climb last longer, increasing the risk of higher inflation expectations.

“Monetary policy cannot solve supply-side problems – but it will have to act and must do so if we see a risk, particularly to medium-term inflation and to medium-term inflation expectations,” Bailey said on Sunday during an online panel discussion organised by the Group of 30 consultative group. » | Guardian staff and agency | Monday, October 18, 2021

France Accuses UK of Violating Brexit Fishing Deal | DW News

Oct 17, 2021 • The UK and the European Union wrangled for months over a deal that was supposed to regulate their post-Brexit trade relationship. But almost a year after it went into force, the squabbling continues. French fishermen say London's not honoring its side of the bargain by refusing to grant access to its waters - and now Paris is threatening to take action.

What Is Causing a Global Goods Shortage? | Inside Story

Oct 14, 2021 • A supply chain crisis is threatening to derail the world's economic recovery from the pandemic. New smartphones, toys, clothes, and even Christmas turkeys are among many items failing to reach consumers.

Container ports in the US and Europe are working at full capacity. Manufacturing hubs in China have slowed down output because of power shortages and high commodity prices.

So, what are the solutions?

Presenter: Imran Khan | Guests: Jas Kalra - Assistant Professor in Supply Chain Management, Newcastle University Business School; Dan Wang - Chief Economist, Hang Seng Bank China; Stavros Karamperidis - Lecturer in Maritime Economics, University of Plymouth

Brexit : des exigences britanniques inacceptables

LE MONDE : ace à la surenchère de Londres concernant la remise en cause de la compétence de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne, l’UE doit rester ferme, tant pour sauvegarder la paix en Irlande que pour défendre le marché unique.

Editorial. On croyait le cauchemar du Brexit terminé. Il n’en est rien. Tout juste deux ans après sa signature, le 17 octobre 2019, l’accord sur le divorce péniblement conclu entre le Royaume-uni et l’Union européenne est remis en cause par son principal promoteur, Boris Johnson. Le contentieux soulevé par Londres porte sur la mise en œuvre du « protocole nord-irlandais », un volet de l’accord qui prévoit l’instauration de contrôles douaniers pour les marchandises débarquant en Irlande du Nord en provenance de Grande-Bretagne afin de protéger le marché intérieur européen, auquel appartient toute l’île d’Irlande.

Instaurer une telle frontière de fait en mer d’Irlande était la seule solution pour éviter le rétablissement de la frontière entre les deux Irlandes supprimée par l’accord de paix de 1998. Les contrôles à l’entrée de l’Irlande du Nord, province du Royaume-Uni, résultaient également d’un choix net de M. Johnson : la sortie du Royaume-Uni de l’union douanière européenne. Sa prédécesseure, Theresa May, avait fait le choix inverse, précisément pour éviter une frontière en mer d’Irlande, option, affirmait-elle, qu’« aucun premier ministre britannique n’acceptera[it] jamais ». » | Éditorial, Le Monde | jeudi 14 octobre 2021

Surge in Demand Catches Global Shippers Off Guard | DW Business

Oct 8, 2021 • Container ships are backing up at ports worldwide. A global surge in demand has put more ships underway. Is this just a momentary supply chain blip, or a sign that container shipping and ports can no longer keep pace with global demand?

he City of London Is Hiding the World’s Stolen Money

Toby Melville/Reuters
OPINION: GUEST ESSAY
THE NEW YORK TIMES: In 1969, two years after the Cayman Islands, a British territory, passed its first law to allow secretive offshore trusts, an official government report struck an ominous note. A tide of glossy propositions from private developers, it warned, was washing through the islands. Cayman was fast becoming a state captured by shady finance.

Those were the pungent beginnings of a modern system brought to light by the Pandora Papers, an enormous data leak coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The papers exposed a smorgasbord of secretive and questionable financial dealings by more than 330 politicians and public officials from over 90 countries and territories — and over 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States and elsewhere. On display was a dizzying array of chicanery and wealth hoarding, often by the very people who should crack down on it.

The revelations, published on Oct. 3, are global in scope. But if there is one country at the system’s heart, it is Britain. Taken together with its partly controlled territories overseas, Britain is instrumental in the worldwide concealment of cash and assets. It is, as a member of the ruling Conservative Party said last week, “the money laundering capital of the world.” And the City of London, its gilded financial center, is at the system’s core. For Britain, whose bloated financial sector exacerbates widespread economic problems, that’s bad enough. For the world, at the mercy of an economic system rigged for the rich, it’s even worse. » | Nicholas Shaxson | Monday, October 11, 2021

Harry and Meghan Get into Sustainable Investing with a Fintech Partnership

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are getting into the investment business. They are joining Ethic, a fintech asset manager in the fast-growing environmental, social and governance space, as “impact partners” and investors. Ethic has $1.3 billion under management and creates separately managed accounts to invest in social responsibility themes.

The couple could attract more attention to sustainable investing, the DealBook newsletter reports. Harry and Meghan can make E.S.G. investing part of pop culture in a way that, say, BlackRock’s Larry Fink cannot. “From the world I come from, you don’t talk about investing, right?” Meghan told DealBook in a joint interview with Harry. “You don’t have the luxury to invest. That sounds so fancy.”

“My husband has been saying for years, ‘Gosh, don’t you wish there was a place where if your values were aligned like this, you could put your money to that same sort of thing?’” Meghan said. They were introduced to Ethic by friends, she said. » | Andrew Ross Sorkin | Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Economic and Earnings Concerns Begin to Weigh on Stocks

THE NEW YORK TIMES: After having few cares about the markets all year, investors are getting nervous as the Fed signals that harsher policies are on the way.

Wall Street’s imperviousness to bad news, which enabled stocks to double in value from their pandemic panic lows, may be starting to crack.

When the Federal Reserve signaled in September that it would soon tighten monetary policy by curtailing asset purchases, the stock market took it well, but not for long. The S&P 500 rose modestly for a few days before reversing course, pushing the index more than 5 percent below the high it set earlier in the month, which amounted to its biggest drop for the year.

Despite that setback, the market managed to eke out a 0.2 percent gain for the third quarter.

A stingier Fed is not the market’s only concern. Inflation, dismissed until recently by the Fed as a transitory artifact of the pandemic, is coming to be seen as more persistent as the prices of goods, services and labor increase. What is being acknowledged as transitory, though, is the jolt to economic growth and corporate profits provided by several trillion dollars of added spending by Congress.

With a number of threats to prosperity becoming harder to ignore, many investment advisers have become less enthusiastic about stocks. They are revising return expectations down and recommending exposure only to narrow niches. » | Conrad de Aenlle | Friday, October 8, 2021

’Pandora Papers’: Why Is It So Difficult to Clamp Down on Tax Evasion? | DW News

Oct 4, 2021 • It is the biggest ever data leak exposing how the world's richest and most powerful keep their wealth offshore, hidden from the tax man. Journalists from around the world, including at DW News, have spent years sifting through this trove of data – and the results reveal a global offshore shadow economy inhabited by billionaires, celebrities, and political leaders. The goal is the same: to keep wealth hidden and avoid paying taxes. Some of the practices are legal, others are raising eyebrows.

A Scary Energy Winter Is Coming. Don’t Blame the Greens.

OPINION : THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Every so often the tectonic geopolitical plates that hold up the world economy suddenly shift in ways that can rattle and destabilize everything on the surface. That’s happening right now in the energy sphere.

Several forces are coming together that could make Vladimir Putin the king of Europe, enable Iran to thumb its nose at America and build an atomic bomb, and disrupt European power markets enough that the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Glasgow could suffer blackouts owing to too little clean energy.

Yes, this is a big one.

Natural gas and coal prices in Europe and Asia just hit their highest levels on record, oil prices in America hit a seven-year high and U.S. gasoline prices are up $1 a gallon from last year. If this winter is as bad as some experts predict — with some in the poor and middle classes unable to heat their homes — I fear we’ll see a populist backlash to the whole climate/green movement. You can already smell that coming in Britain.

I am a fan of the financial newsletter Blain’s Morning Porridge, written by a smart, irreverent market strategist in London, Bill Blain. Last Thursday he bluntly summed up the energy situation for the U.K. and Europe this way:

This winter — people are going to die of cold. As the price of energy goes higher, the costs will fall disproportionately upon the poorest in society. Income inequalities will be dramatically exposed as the most vulnerable in society face a stark choice: heat or eat. … This winter the U.K. is likely to be on its knees, begging energy from wherever it’s available. Europe will be in as much trouble. The Middle East will be charging whatever they can get away with, and the capacity to deliver is limited. … And Vladimir Putin can’t wait. … He will invite each European leader to plead their case individually, menacingly asking each leader why he should open the gas taps to their nation specifically. … Make no mistake, this winter is going to be shocking. Be aware.

How did we get here? In truth, it’s a good-news-bad-news story. » | Thomas L. Friedman, Opinion Columnist | Tuesday, October 5, 2021

The End of a ‘Gilded Age’: China Is Bringing Business to Heel

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Executives sit in jail, tech companies are being reined in and the biggest developer is teetering. It’s the beginning of a new era for China’s economy.

Xi Jinping in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Thursday. In Mr. Xi’s China, success in business no longer guarantees safety. | Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
Chinese tech companies are reeling from regulation. Nervous creditors are hoping for a bailout for China’s largest developer. Growing numbers of executives are going to jail. An entire industry is shutting down.

For China’s leader, Xi Jinping, it’s all part of the plan.

Under Mr. Xi, China is reshaping how business works and limiting executives’ power. Long in coming, but rapid in execution, the policies are driven by a desire for state control and self-reliance as well as concerns about debt, inequality and influence by foreign countries, including the United States.

Emboldened by swelling nationalism and his success with Covid-19, Mr. Xi is remaking China’s business world in his own image. Above all else, that means control. Where once executives had a green light to grow at any cost, officials now want to dictate which industries boom, which ones bust and how it happens. And the changes offer a glimpse of Mr. Xi’s vision for managing the economy, ahead of a political meeting expected to solidify his plans for an unprecedented third term in charge.

The goal is to fix structural problems, like excess debt and inequality, and generate more balanced growth. Taken together, the measures mark the end of a Gilded Age for private business that made China into a manufacturing powerhouse and a nexus of innovation. Economists warn that authoritarian governments have a shaky record with this type of transformation, though they acknowledge that few have brought such resources and planning to the effort. » | Paul Mozur | Tuesday, October 5, 2021