Letters to the Editor – 22/04 – Bank productivity, Self-employment, Best of Twitter

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Bank productivity

[Re: The British productivity disease: How to cure it, Thursday]

Dominic Raab is right that falling productivity can be blamed, particularly, on sectors like finance. But can he really claim that this is due to poor competition? Has he missed the new regulations that have pushed up the cost of doing business? Perhaps he didn’t notice laws that have either been introduced, or are still under discussion, that want to split up major banks, divide them between investment and retail arms, or limit their room for maneovure. Since he claims to want an honest discussion, it was strange to miss this out.

Name withheld

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Self-employment

[Re: Britain’s jobs miracle: A case of supply creating its own demand, Thursday]

You’re absolutely right about the rise in self-employment being a good thing. So many of the critics are behind the times culturally, and still see things like a job for life or absolute job security as ideals for everyone to aim for. Many in my peer group, mostly professional people, don’t intend to keep hold of the same jobs when they reach their 50s (or 60s). I can’t say we all know what we want to do next, but it’s totally unremarked upon that it’s possible to leave your career, start up a company, or just do consultancy.

Alasdair Hodgson

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BEST OF TWITTER

Investment and exports are driving the pick-up in UK growth since early last year – as is normally the case.

@asentance

Twitter agrees to censorship in Turkey. The price of staying in business there.

@ianbremmer

Wow: Number of new startups in Greece reached 144 in 2013. That’s impressive!

@minefornothing

Another Tube strike coming because RMT fail to accept change. Automate it all, I say.

@jdr7