Letters to the Editor – 23/09 – Future of gaming, Care robots, Best of Twitter September 22, 2013 Future of gaming [Re: Computer games have grown up – and they’re an economic powerhouse, Friday] This is an excellent article. While George Osborne goes on about the march of the makers, the gaming industry shows exactly what Britain can do if creativity is allowed to combine with technical and scientific know-how. I even think [...]
The Fed’s taper surprise highlights a wider problem with monetary policy September 19, 2013 THE US Federal Reserve’s surprise decision not to scale back its stimulus programme on Wednesday night should not perhaps have been so unexpected. Back in 2010, in those early days of quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, I suggested that both institutions would be tempted to make sure the [...]
The Long View: Computer games have grown up – and they’re an economic powerhouse September 19, 2013 COMPUTER games are serious business. Grand Theft Auto V took $800m (£497m) in 24 hours this week, a record-breaking achievement that rivals the success of blockbuster films. Warner Brothers’ Man of Steel, the third-best box office earner this year according to Variety, only took in $663m. Some are predicting sales for the latest installment in [...]
Why Germany’s boring elections should still spook David Cameron September 19, 2013 FOR A vote touted as decisive to the future of the Eurozone, the German election campaign – which reaches its climax on Sunday – has been lacklustre. With barely any talk of Europe, it’s been defined by domestic issues – from data protection, to rent control and taxation. We Germans love a good debate on [...]
Letters to the editor – 20/09 – Clegg’s tax coup, China’s promise, Best of Twitter September 19, 2013 Clegg’s tax coup [Re: Tories can match Clegg’s income tax coup without punishing middle classess, Wednesday] Dominic Raab makes sense as always, but he’s not in government and his party is still unlikely to win the next election. While it may be cheering to imagine the Conservatives can win the vote on the back of [...]
A future of statist confusion underlies Clegg’s pitch for permanent coalition September 18, 2013 NICK Clegg appears to have settled on a new strategy for the Lib Dems. Put unkindly, his aim seems to be to bore the electorate into submission. In fact, in many ways, his speech to the party faithful in Glasgow yesterday was a throwback to the rhetoric of the SDP-Liberal Alliance of the 1980s. He’s [...]
Against the Grain: Why cutting-edge China could leapfrog the West in the service economy September 18, 2013 IN THE whole of the twentieth century, only a few countries managed to transform themselves and join the club of rich economies. Japan is the most prominent example. The key question for the first half of the twenty-first century, however, is whether China will manage to do the same. It is a difficult and elusive [...]
It’s time we put some X Factor into financial education in schools September 18, 2013 I DO not often cross paths with Gary Barlow, Nicole Scherzinger or Sharon Osbourne. I am told we move in different circles. This seemingly unusual point was brought home to me by new research showing that an 8 to 15-year old was twice as likely to be able to identify an X Factor judge as [...]
Letters to the editor -19/09 – Globalisation, Actuarial methods, Best of Twitter September 18, 2013 Globalisation [Re: Anti-globalisation campaigners got it wrong: Trade is defeating poverty, yesterday] Contrary to Douglas McWilliams’s claim, Christian Aid has never suggested that trade per se, or globalisation for that matter, is bad. What we have pointed to, and will continue to highlight, are injustices that keep people poor. Tax injustice is a case in [...]
Anti-globalisation campaigners got it wrong: Trade is defeating poverty September 17, 2013 GLOBALISATION is likely to have cut the number of people in the world in poverty by three quarters by 2015. This remarkable trend was the reason I first became interested in economics. I was brought up in Malaysia, and could see that economic development was gradually wiping out poverty. It seemed almost miraculous, and I [...]