Category Archives: Economics

Governments put ‘green recovery’ on the backburner

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G20 countries aim their pandemic bailout spending at fossil fuel industries, leaving Paris climate change targets in doubt

Governments are spending vastly more in support of fossil fuels than on low-carbon energy in rescue packages triggered by the coronavirus crisis, new data has shown, despite rhetoric from many countries in support of a “green recovery”.

Data from the Energy Policy Tracker, a new research effort by several civil society groups, shows that at least $151bn (£120bn) of bailout cash has been spent or earmarked so far to support fossil fuels by the G20 group of large economies. Only about a fifth of this spending is conditional on environmental requirements such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions or cleaning up pollution.

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Bono campaign group accuses UK of wasting international aid budget

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Campaign group One, founded by U2 frontman, is calling for a reorganisation of aid spending

A development campaign group founded by Bono has accused the UK government of wasting a large chunk of its international aid budget and called for spending on overseas assistance to be cut by £1.6bn.

In a report that echoes criticisms by some Conservative MPs, the U2 singer’s One campaign said there was too much spending on projects that failed to reduce poverty.

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Global ‘catastrophe’ looms as Covid-19 fuels inequality

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Job losses, homelessness, school closures and acute hunger set to rise dramatically without urgent support, Christian Aid warns

The pandemic has exposed and reinforced deep inequalities across the world, with the true extent yet to be seen, according to a major new report.

The crisis in the poorest countries threatens to escalate into a catastrophe as job losses and food insecurity mount. “The economic, social and political impacts are only starting to unfold,” says Building Back with Justice: Dismantling Inequalities after Covid-19, to be published by Christian Aid later this month.

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Covid-19 has revealed a pre-existing pandemic of poverty that benefits the rich

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The World Bank’s flawed and misunderstood poverty benchmark has led to a deceptively positive picture and dangerous complacency

  • Philip Alston is the outgoing UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

Poverty is suddenly all over the front page. As coronavirus ravages the globe, its wholly disproportionate impact on poor people and marginalised communities is inescapable. Hundreds of millions of people are being pushed into poverty and unemployment, with woeful support in most places, alongside a huge expansion in hunger, homelessness, and dangerous work.

How could the poverty narrative have turned on a dime? Until just a few months ago, many were celebrating the imminent end of poverty; now it’s everywhere. The explanation is simple. Over the past decade, world leaders, philanthropists and pundits have embraced a deceptively optimistic narrative about the world’s progress against poverty. It has been lauded as one of the “greatest human achievements”, a feat seen “never before in human history” and an “unprecedented” accomplishment. But the success story was always highly misleading.

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China has shown it is willing to pay the economic price of suppressing Hong Kong | James Lim

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Now that it has its own financial hubs on the mainland, Beijing may be prepared to risk the fate of its golden goose

Last week, the Chinese government passed a broad national security law criminalising dissent in Hong Kong. While the law has already had a chilling effect on protests, the consequences for Hong Kong’s economy are unclear. Since 1 July, Hong Kong’s stock market has climbed. Some foreign businessmen in Hong Kong have dismissed the law’s potential effect on business. This incredulity is unsurprising: for decades Hong Kong has thrived as a gateway for international capital into and out of China. Surely Beijing wouldn’t kill its own “golden goose”?

But investors and businessmen, used to the unencumbered movement of capital, may have lost sight of recent changes. Contemporary China is different today to just 10 years ago, let alone to the 1990s when Hong Kong was handed over by the British. Now a global power that commands one-sixth of the world’s GDP and is increasingly authoritarian, it is approaching Hong Kong with a new rationale that is both political and economic.

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Coronavirus Australia live update: ‘extremely high’ chance Victoria outbreak has spread to NSW as Melbourne enters lockdown

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The NSW premier is expected to announce new restrictions today as the state tries to contain ‘high-risk situation’. Follow live news and updates

2020 motto: Please scream inside your heart

Japan’s theme parks have banned screaming on roller coasters because it spreads coronavirus. “Please scream inside your heart.” https://t.co/DJjC40H0Ap

Just re-upping, because it seems relevant

The Armchair Epidemiologist pic.twitter.com/t4CvJo3KCL

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Coronavirus Australia live update: prime minister Scott Morrison holds press conference on Covid-19 response as Victoria records 134 new cases

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Confusion over NSW-Victoria border closure as the state’s northern border closes for the first time in a century and Melbourne prepares for lockdown. Follow the latest news

Someone asks about some sort of foreign travel tax? I don’t know - there is a lot in the question, and it’s involving shiz that none of us can even think about until at least July next year, because I’m not sure if this is common knowledge or not - but Australia’s international borders ARE CLOSED.

Scott Morrison:

Well, there’s a lot of speculation on all those questions. So I don’t intend to engage in what is the normal budget speculation when you lead up to a budget.

Those matters will be addressed in the budget.

On what we are planning on doing with Hong Kong residents, Scott Morrison says:

We continue to be concerned about issues in Hong Kong as many nations are, and we have remained in close contact with other like-minded countries about this issue.

This is about how we, as a nation, are responding, domestically, to these issues.

On the issue of the broader shutdown of Melbourne - this is a matter that the Premier advised me of and, of course, based on their advice and the advice that I have received from the chief medical officer, then this was necessary.

I hope it isn’t for that long. I hope it’s for a shorter period as possible.

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‘We squandered a decade’: world losing fight against poverty, says UN academic

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Goal to eradicate poverty by 2030 ‘completely off track’, says outgoing special rapporteur, with Covid-19 likely to impoverish millions more

International institutions are losing the fight against global poverty despite “self congratulatory” messages to the contrary, according to the UN’s outgoing special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

In his final report in the post, the Australian academic Philip Alston warns that states and global organisations are “completely off track” to meet the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, with more people instead likely to become highly impoverished by new shocks, including coronavirus and existing challenges like the climate crisis.

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‘New deal’ risks fuelling emissions and eroding building standards

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Green campaigners and housing experts warn Boris Johnson’s recovery plan could swiftly become a liability

Boris Johnson’s plan to build tens of thousands of new homes risks locking in high carbon emissions for decades to come, if they are built to today’s poor efficiency standards instead of being designed for net zero carbon.

The prime minister’s plans to “build, build, build” form the centrepiece of his “new deal” to lift Britain’s economy out of the coronavirus recession. About £12bn will go to building 180,000 new homes to relieve the housing crisis, while new hospitals and schools will be constructed to improve degraded public services.

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Global stock market rally is a gamble, IMF warns investors

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Report identifies gap between market optimism and depressed state of economies

The global stock market rally represents a gamble by investors that central banks will ignore the risks of a buildup in debt and continue to provide support at the current record levels, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

In an update to its half-yearly global financial stability report, the IMF said central banks had been pivotal in the recovery of share prices from their Covid-19 trough but there was now a gap between the optimism of financial markets and the depressed state of economies.

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UK begins talks with Australia and New Zealand on free trade deal for post-Brexit era

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Australian and New Zealand ministers say they are eager to do deals with the UK as their economies emerge from the coronavirus crisis

Australia and New Zealand are about to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world.

Simon Birmingham said Australia was “ready to help the UK find new beginnings post-Brexit and in doing so, open up new doors for our farmers, businesses and investors”.

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The Lancet’s editor: ‘The UK’s response to coronavirus is the greatest science policy failure for a generation’

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Richard Horton does not hold back in his criticism of the UK’s response to the pandemic and the medical establishment’s part in backing fatal government decisions

There is a school of thought that says now is not the time to criticise the government and its scientific advisers about the way they have handled the Covid-19 pandemic. Wait until all the facts are known and the crisis has subsided, goes this thinking, and then we can analyse the performance of those involved. It’s safe to say that Richard Horton, the editor of the influential medical journal the Lancet, is not part of this school.

An outspoken critic of what he sees as the medical science establishment’s acquiescence to government, he has written a book that he calls a “reckoning” for the “missed opportunities and appalling misjudgments” here and abroad that have led to “the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of citizens”. 

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Stock markets tumble as another 1.5m Americans file for unemployment

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Dow Jones loses more than 1,800 points while S&P down 5% after US coronavirus infections hit 2m

Stock markets tumbled in the US and Europe on Thursday amid growing fears over the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The sell off started after the US labor department announced another 1.5 million people had filed for unemployment benefits and the number of coronavirus infections passed 2m even as states across the US continued to relax their quarantine measures.

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US has officially entered first recession since 2009

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National Bureau of Economic Research says economic growth in the US peaked in February and has since entered its first downturn since 2007 to 2009

The United States is officially in a recession, ending the longest economic expansion in US history, the committee that calls downturns announced on Monday.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) said that economic growth in the US peaked in February and has since entered its first downturn since 2007 to 2009.

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Europe’s big two kiss and make up for pandemic rescue deal

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Germany amazed the whole continent with last week’s stimulus package, but it paves the way for countries such as France to agree an effective coronavirus response

From champion of austerity to Europe’s biggest spender – Germany has travelled a long way in just a few months. The notoriously frugal ministry of finance has agreed to spend €130bn – a sum equal to 4% of national income – on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth across the country.

This breathtaking investment programme comes on top of the almost 30% of GDP the government has so far spent on rescuing businesses and protecting jobs during the coronavirus crisis.

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Angela Merkel has become the spend, spend, spend chancellor | Larry Elliot

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With its €130bn stimulus package, Germany is showing others how to do the recovery

And in one bound she was transformed. For Angela Merkel, the days of being lampooned as the archetypal Swabian housewife keeping tight control over the purse strings are over. Now, courtesy of a €130bn (£116bn) stimulus package, she is the spend, spend, spend chancellor.

Make no mistake, much of the past criticism of Germany’s frugal approach to government spending and budget deficits was justified. Saving some money for a rainy day is one thing but running surpluses worth 8% of national output was unnecessary and harmful to the global economy.

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UK car sales slump as 2,000 workers lose their jobs in Covid-19 crisis – business live

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Live coverage as Aston Martin and car dealer Lookers announce costs savings plans

Young’s pub chain intends to open all of its 276 sites by the 3 August, and is hopeful the business can “bounce back” once its pubs are allowed to reopen, but expects trading to be “materially below average” for the rest of the year.

Another interesting detail from the SMMT data: Tesla’s Model 3 was the most popular car during May.

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EU has no legal duty to give UK trade privileges, document says

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Paper concludes EU does not have to offer privileges given to others in previous deals

The EU has no legal duty to grant the UK privileges offered to other countries in trade deals, an internal European parliament paper has concluded ahead of a crucial round of Brexit talks this week.

The document, drawn up by officials for the parliament’s UK coordination group, is a short analysis of arguments made by the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, in a letter to his counterpart, Michel Barnier. Frost accused the EU of treating the UK as an “unworthy” negotiating partner by denying the UK “the kind of well-precedented arrangements commonplace in modern FTAs [free trade agreements]”.

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EU green recovery package sets a marker for the world

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The bloc is showing the way in rebuilding coronavirus-ravaged economies to fight the climate emergency

The European Commission has put down a marker for the world with its green recovery package. It sets a high standard for other nations, using the rebuilding of coronavirus-ravaged economies to tackle the even greater threat of the climate emergency, in principle at least.

With the world fast approaching the point when climate chaos becomes inevitable, how the trillions of recovery dollars – or euros – are spent is a use-it-or-lose-it moment, so what the EU does really matters. Climate change is a global crisis, meaning all nations must act and some must lead the way.

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More than 10m workers paid £21.8bn in UK government coronavirus support – business live

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Live coverage of business, economics and financial markets

In total the coronavirus government support for UK workers has come to £21.8bn, if you add together the money paid for furloughed employees and income support for self-employed workers.

More than 10m British workers have been given some form of income support, if furlough numbers are added to those who have claimed self-employed support*.

More struggles for the British property sector:


British Land, which owns shopping centres including Sheffield’s Meadowhall and Drake Circus in Plymouth, has written down the value of its retail portfolio by more than a quarter due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Related: Shopping centre owner British Land slashes value of retail portfolio

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