By SIMON CONSTABLE
At last, Britain is moving towards an energy policy that’s workable.
The country’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says he wants to see more drilling in the oil and gas-rich North Sea. The idea is to boost British energy independence and comes more than a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which shone a spotlight on Britain’s lack of domestic supply. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
In one UK firm after another, workers are discovering an alarming trend: their colleagues from a year ago—or even a few months passed—are no longer there.
Despite some pricey post-pandemic efforts to retain employees, a series of shake-ups continue to plague Britain's labor market, new research shows. Experts say the level is high enough to create disruptions in many businesses and potentially increase staffing turnover costs. "Turnover is much higher than leaders would like," says Rory Singleton, Korn Ferry's head of global industrial markets. "Lots of people I talk with have struggled to find replacements, and it's taking far longer. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
The apprenticeships among the job listings seemed normal. They would last up to five years and offer an increasing pay scale. But there was one key twist—beyond trade gigs, they came they came in banking, marketing, even medicine. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
Not content with green lighting Britain’s first new coal mine in decades, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has a taken a new stance of energy policy.
“I don’t think that we’re going to get to net zero by telling everybody that they can’t fly anywhere or can’t do this or can’t do that. That’s not my approach to it,” Sunak told the BBC.
Instead he wants a pragmatic and proportionate way, while at the same time staying committed to achieving its carbon-emissions goal by 2050. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
Fund investors are bailing on commodities, and meanwhile the war in Ukraine suggests they should be doing the opposite.
The combination of sustained commodities fund outflows along with a pending disruption to global grain supplies suggest a possible epic rally for the sector. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Germany keeps on delivering bad economic news and its bad for the rest of Europe. The only twinkle of light is that things weren’t as bad as some expected.
The bottom line is that Europe’s largest economy, which is generally seen as the European Union’s engine of growth, shrank in the first half of the year.
“GDP data for Germany showed that the economy stagnated in Q2 and contracted slightly less than previously estimated,” according to a recent report from London-based consulting firm Capital Economics. “The big picture remains that the German economy has shrunk in the past nine months.” Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
Hoping to fill a shortfall in tech talent, Britain’s military hopes to scoop up some recently laid-off tech workers. But how well will these new hires take orders? Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Listen here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
By SIMON CONSTABLE
It's a rare thing to happen, but Germany now looks like the sick man of Europe, a phrase previously often used to describe Britain.
The health of the business sector dropped significantly in June, according to recent data. The Ifo Business Climate index for Germany, which measures the health of the commercial sector, registered 88.5 in June, down from 91.5 in May. Higher numbers show economic strength, whereas lower ones show a weakening of the economy. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
U.K finance chief Jeremy Hunt just cut a deal with some British banks to hold off from repossessing homes where owners haven’t kept up-to-date with their mortgage payments.
That moratorium, which will last 12 months, sounds great on the face of things. The stated idea is that it will allow financially stressed borrowers to get their finances in order. And therein lies a problem and an obfuscation both at the same time. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
The tumult in Russia this weekend won’t send prices for energy and food down much further, according to a recent report from Academy Securities.
The issue is that the attempted on-off coup by the mercenary force Wagner Group to oust the Russian President has likely weakened Vladimir Putin. While that may speed up the path to peace, other things have changed dramatically over the last year and a half. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Gold prices are set to drop as low as $1,800 a troy ounce as investors see potential for economic strength and bullion investors back off.
Our expectation is that it will be weak for the next few months and strength at the end of the year, says Jeff Christian, managing partner of commodities consulting company CPM Group in a recent video. He sees a likely fall to $1,800 over the near future, but it is possible that it goes down further to $1,800. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
The Bank of England’s (BoE) war on Britain's stubborn inflation is likely to crush the country’s economy in ways that many people aren’t recognizing.
If that comes to fruition, it won’t solely be the fault of the people at the BoE who decide the monetary policy. The problem comes down to decades of absurd housing policy and the overly cautious banking industry. Here’s where we are now and how we got here. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
The numbers couldn't be better. By all accounts, and according to recent data, Britain's economy is growing at a surprisingly brisk pace. But you might not know that from how firms here are acting. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
It’s called a “five days a week” policy—as in the firm asking employees to come in all week long. But stubbornly, it’s become a policy that’s far from universal.
Despite a recent uptick in people coming into the office—with more firms requiring it—many British companies are still struggling with return-to-office plans. According to the most recent data from Remit Consulting, office occupancy hit its highest level in two years, but still remains at only about 35%, meaning that about half of employees are coming into offices. (UK offices were at an estimated 80%-occupancy level prior to the pandemic.) Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Will the real California Assembly please stand up!
In the space of just a few years, California’s Democrat-heavy lawmakers have switched from introducing measures that hurt journalism and journalists to now wanting to help them. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Energy policy has gotten weird lately. Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, came back after an apparent near-death experience. In 2021, delegates at the COP26 climate summit demanded we ditch using coal, followed by less-toxic natural gas. But a year later, long-term green energy proponent Germany increased its use of coal-generated electricity by 13 percent.
Meanwhile, Britain’s government banned natural gas fracking and approved the first new mine in decades. The US isn’t immune, either. The Biden administration’s proposal to eliminate natural gas stoves would mean using electricity, 22 percent of which is coal-generated. The question is, what next? A long tricky slog, experts say. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
This continues a series of video flashbacks filmed in the depths of the 2007-2009 financial crisis when John Batchelor and I discussed what was going on in the world.
We had minimal equipment and almost no time for video editing. But we did have mental space for creativity.
If inclined, please feel free to follow on YouTube.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
By SIMON CONSTABLE
By SIMON CONSTABLE
The exchange-traded-fund market is getting a lot more active.
After decades of being dominated by index-tracking investments, the ETF market is being flooded by actively managed funds. In 2013, a mere 16% of newly launched ETFs were actively managed, according to Morningstar. That jumped to 66% in the first quarter of this year, following three straight calendar years of more than 50% of new ETFs being active. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Just when we thought Britain’s economic policy couldn’t get more bizarre, up pops an announcement from Rishi Sunak, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister.
Earlier in May, news broke that Sunak would pressure supermarkets to offer basic food staples such as milk, bread and butter at the lowest possible prices, according to multiple reports.
The phrase used by Britain’s media is “price caps” and everyone in the UK should be concerned as it represents a return to failed 1970s economic policies. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
Who benefits most from cuts in corporate tax rates? Some say it is job seekers, while others see it as a giveaway to the rich.
According to a new paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, they are both correct and wrong at the same time. The truth is what happens depends directly of the type of business. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Earlier this month, when King Charles got crowned by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, protestors took to the street demanding that the Monarchy should be abolished.
The logic of their position is clear. National leadership by a hereditary elite makes no sense in a meritocracy. In theory, I’d tend to agree.
However, what we know from European history shows that ditching your King or Queen tends to lead to tyranny and financial disaster. It's for that reason keeping Charles as Britain’s head of state makes a lot of sense. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
Scotland’s latest bizarre economic policy is about to run headlong into common sense. The result will be a disaster for Edinburgh’s famed International Festival, which is due to kick off, as usual, this August.
The Festival sold a little more than 3 million tickets in 2019, pulling in an estimated 450,000 visitors to Scotland’s capital city.
The 2020 pandemic meant there was no festival that year. But when it resumed in 2022, ticket sales sank by almost a third to 2.2 million.
But so much for the rebound. This year is likely to see another drop because of a strange and self-defeating housing regulation that got passed by the Scottish parliament in 2022. Read more here.
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By SIMON CONSTABLE
Where’s the imminent recession we were promised a year ago?
Nowhere apparently, but hardly anyone has admitted they were wrong. And that includes Wall Street gurus.
Last June, the finance world was abuzz with pledges that the U.S. economy was barely a hare’s whisker from diving into a recession. Back then, I wrote a column for Time magazine that clearly showed no signs of an imminent recession.
There are still few signs that the economy will contract in the weeks ahead. In fact, the opposite seems true. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
At last, the debt ceiling debacle looks close to being over at least until the next time.
It’s the worst political theatre possible, and it happens time after time after time.
Yet somehow, much of the media always goes for the most unlikely result. Specifically, the message is simple:
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