Letters to the Editor – 06/02 – Quango bonfire, Global growth, Best of Twitter
Quango bonfire
[Re: How charities lavish millions of taxpayer money on left-wing campaigns, yesterday]
The government should consider revisiting its “bonfire of the quangos”, although they should see it through properly this time. Over 200 have been axed, with impressive savings upwards of £2bn quoted, but far too many of the roles have been rehashed, merged or accommodated elsewhere. And the cost of the transition, including the disposal of assets and the massive redundancy packages for the top brass, has been estimated to be as high as £830m by the National Audit Office.
Name Withheld
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Global growth
[Re: Global growth has peaked for now – but no need to panic, yesterday]
I fear that the cosy consensus of a broad acceleration in global growth this year may prove elusive, as it proved to be in 2013. We have yet to see the full extent of economic fallout in emerging markets and, even if the fallout is contained, the chaos could deliver a meaningful dent to the global figure. Beyond emerging markets, Japan’s Abenomics has run into trouble; the US is at best going through a soft patch. As for Europe, since when has it been anything more than an economic passenger?
Mike Ingram
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BEST OF TWITTER
In 2013, Fed focused on unemployment rate not being low enough. This year, it’s “not important enough”.
@alaidi
More positives from PMI services data: UK’s largest sector sees backlog of work and more employment.
@EY_ITEMClub
Only 58 per cent of planned benefit cuts and 36 per cent of public service cuts will have happened by April.
@jamestplunkett
International media arriving in Sochi looking for things to go wrong. Russians are obliging them.
@ianbremmer