Category Archives: Economics

House committee subpoenas far-right groups and leaders over Capitol attack – as it happened

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In case you missed it yesterday: the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued five more subpoenas to right-wing political operatives, including former Trump associate Roger Stone and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Hugo Lowell reports:

The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony expand the select committee’s inquiry focused on the planning and financing of the rally at the Ellipse, by targeting operatives who appear to have had contacts with the Trump White House.

House investigators issued subpoenas to the veteran operatives Stone and Jones, Trump’s spokesperson Taylor Budowich, and the pro-Trump activists Dustin Stockton and his wife, Jennifer Lawrence.

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Flexible working: ‘A system set up for women to fail’

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After the pandemic more women are choosing to work from home but that choice could damage career prospects

Employees want it, employers know they have to offer it; flexible working has transformed almost every office during the pandemic and it’s here to stay.

It is a change that has been demanded for decades by groups including women, those with caring responsibilities and disabled people. But economists and employment experts are warning it could lead to more inequality at the office, particularly for working mothers.

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‘I went from having to borrow money to making $4m in a day’: how NFTs are shaking up the art world

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Digital art is a billion-dollar business, with everyone from Paris Hilton to Damien Hirst trading in ‘non-fungible tokens’. But are NFTs just a get-rich-quick scheme masquerading as culture?

“It’s actually a lot simpler than you think.” It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and somewhat to my surprise, I’m on the phone to Paris Hilton, who is graciously explaining the world of NFTs.

Hilton is many things – a reality star, an heiress, an unlikely lockdown fitness guru who uses designer handbags instead of weights. But until now, she has never been considered a significant player in the art world. When artists have acknowledged her, often they’ve done so to fetishise her image. In 2008, Damien Hirst bought a portrait of her by the artist Jonathan Yeo, in which her body is constructed from collaged images cut from porn magazines.

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Johnsonism wins budget battle but will Sunakism win the war?

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Analysis: chancellor left with little choice but to go PM’s way, though one passage of his speech was telling

Rishi Sunak may see himself as a future prime minister but this budget confirmed he is very much Boris Johnson’s chancellor.

Rumours about ructions between the pair have gripped Westminster for months. Sunak, who told last year’s Tory conference his party had a moral duty to fix the public finances, was known to be queasy about the government’s national insurance increase, for example.

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Budget 2021: what’s really going on in the UK economy?

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Rishi Sunak will be looking at key indicators such as GDP growth, public debt levels and inflation as he draws up his autumn budget

Britain’s economic recovery from Covid is at growing risk from severe shortages of workers and materials, as well as mounting living costs for households, as Rishi Sunak prepares his budget and spending review.

Here are five key charts that will underpin the chancellor’s statement on Wednesday afternoon.

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Oil prices climb to fresh highs, UK petrol price hits record – business live

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After Tesco’s website and app were down for most of the weekend, leaving many frustrated customers unable to shop online, HSBC’s business banking portal (called HSBCnet) had some issues this morning.

Large corporate customers only had intermittent access via the website or app for about an hour, from 9.10am, but the problem has been fixed, according to HSBC.

This is truly a dark day for drivers, and one which we hoped we wouldn’t see again after the high prices of April 2012. This will hurt many household budgets and no doubt have knock-on implications for the wider economy.

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English cities to receive transport boost of almost £7bn in budget

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Funding will be used to help ‘level up’ regions including Greater Manchester and West Midlands

Almost £7bn will be allocated in next week’s budget to “level up” urban transport in cities around England, the government has said.

City regions will receive a total of about £5.7bn in sustainable transport cash, while another £1.2bn will go towards improving bus services.

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House passes bill to raise US debt ceiling through early December

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  • Legislation raises government’s borrowing limit to $28.9tn
  • Hard-fought House vote passes entirely along party lines

The US House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to a Senate-passed bill temporarily raising the government’s borrowing limit to $28.9tn, putting off the risk of default at least until early December.

Democrats, who narrowly control the House, maintained party discipline to pass the hard-fought, $480bn debt limit increase. The vote was along party lines, with every yes from Democrats and every no from Republicans.

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Covid pandemic has pushed poor countries to record debt levels – World Bank

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‘Tragic reversal’ has set back progress, president says, as he calls for a comprehensive plan

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a “tragic reversal” in development and pushed debt in poor countries to record levels, the head of the World Bank has said.

David Malpass, the bank’s president, warned the virus had widened the gap between rich and poor nations, setting back progress by years and, in the case of some countries, by a decade.

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Tunisia: president appoints new government 11 weeks after power grab

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Kais Saied will technically head administration after paring back powers of PM’s office

Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, has appointed a new government by decree, 11 weeks after firing the last one in a power grab, as the country faces acute economic and political crises.

State television broadcast a swearing-in ceremony of the cabinet headed by Najla Bouden, the north African country’s first female prime minister.

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Nobel economics prize jointly awarded to labour market expert David Card

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Canadian-born academic wins prize with Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens

A labour market expert whose work influenced the introduction of the UK’s minimum wage has been named as a joint winner of the Nobel economics prize.

David Card, a Canadian-born economist, was one of three US-based academics given the prestigious award for their work on whether economic theory is supported by real-life situations.

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Rishi Sunak to save billions by counting IMF cash as aid for poor

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Exclusive: chancellor criticised by former Tory international development secretaries for planned use of $27.4bn windfall

Rishi Sunak is to save billions of pounds by counting as aid financial assistance to poor countries being provided as a result of a windfall Britain has received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a move that has been condemned by former Conservative international development secretaries, the chancellor has chosen not to use the UK’s share of a new $650bn IMF global fighting fund to increase the share of national output spent on aid.

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IMF to issue downbeat outlook as spectre of stagflation looms

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Fund set for a gloomy annual meeting as supply chain issues and inflationary pressures hobble global recovery

Weaker global growth, vaccine protectionism and the spectre of 1970s-style inflation haunting large economies. As the International Monetary Fund prepares for its annual gathering this week, the contrast with the spring could not be more stark.

Back in April, at the Washington-based fund’s last virtual bash, there were sharp upgrades for global growth amid a sense of optimism for the road ahead, led by stronger-than-expected recoveries in the US, UK and other advanced economies. Vaccines would pave the way for the swift unlocking of pandemic restrictions, fuelling a rapid recovery from the worst global recession since the 1930s Great Depression.

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Ireland ends 12.5% tax rate in OECD global pact

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Low-tax policy of past 18 years had attracted multinationals such as Google and Facebook to Dublin

Ireland has dropped its cornerstone low-tax policy of the past 18 years, which helped persuade some of the world’s biggest companies, including Google and Facebook, to site their European headquarters in Dublin.

The decision comes after months of wrangling over the fine print of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) agreement to operate a 15% minimum tax rate in more than 130 countries.

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‘Economically illiterate’: PM’s Tory conference speech gets frosty reception

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Next boss, thinktanks and unions criticise Boris Johnson, saying ‘shortages cannot be blustered away’

Boris Johnson’s vision for the UK has had a frosty reception with business and union leaders, with one thinktank condemning the prime minister’s speech to Conservative conference as “economically illiterate”.

The Adam Smith Institute’s head of research, Matthew Lesh, also called Johnson’s address “bombastic but vacuous”, while the travel industry union chief, Manuel Cortes, said it was “nothing but hot air”.

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Global deal on 15% minimum tax rate for multinationals edges closer

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Almost 140 countries understood to be in final OECD talks on measures to stop firms moving profits to tax havens

Almost 140 countries are edging closer to a global deal on the taxation of multinationals, with agreement on a minimum 15% rate of corporation tax set to be announced as part of a landmark statement at the OECD in Paris on Friday.

Governments representing more than 90% of the world economy are understood to be in the final stages of talks on a global minimum rate and other measures designed to stop multinationals shifting profits into tax havens.

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IMF boss Kristalina Georgieva ‘faces coup plot’

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Renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz says chief is victim of conservative ‘hatchet job’ using unfair report to discredit her

The International Monetary Fund boss, Kristalina Georgieva, is the victim of a plot to oust her, according to a Nobel prize-winning economist, after a report alleged that she applied “undue pressure” on staff to boost China’s standing in global rankings while in her previous job at the World Bank.

Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, said a report prepared by the law firm WilmerHale on concerns about China’s influence at the Washington-based organisation was being used unfairly to “discredit and oust” Georgieva.

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Boris Johnson: petrol crisis and pig cull part of necessary post-Brexit transition

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PM’s remarks come as Liz Truss insists it’s the role of business, not ministers, to resolve such problems

Queues for petrol and mass culls of pigs at farms because of a lack of abattoir workers are part of a necessary transition for Britain to emerge from a broken economic model based on low wages, Boris Johnson has argued.

His comments, on the first day of the Conservative conference, came as Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, insisted it was the role of business, not ministers, to sort out such problems.

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Outcry in Brazil over photos of people scavenging through animal carcasses

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Pictures of destitute Brazilians searching scraps for food lay bare scale of economic and social crisis

Heart-wrenching photographs of destitute Brazilians scavenging through a heap of animal carcasses for food have laid bare the hunger crisis blighting Latin America’s most populous nation, where millions have been plunged into deprivation by the coronavirus pandemic and soaring inflation.

The images, taken in Rio last week by the prize-winning photojournalist Domingos Peixoto, show the group rummaging for scraps in the back of a lorry that had been transporting the discarded offal and bones to a factory that makes pet food and soap.

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