Category Archives: Economics

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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‘A perfect storm’: supply chain crisis could blow world economy off course

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From Liverpool to LA, shortages of energy, labour and transport are threatening recovery from Covid

It was all going so well. Successful vaccination programmes were driving the post-pandemic recovery of the global economy, stock markets were back at record highs, and prices were rising just enough to make deflation fears a thing of the past.

But a supply crunch that initially put a question mark over the availability of luxury cars or whether there would be enough PlayStations under our Christmas trees is instead morphing into a full-blown crisis featuring a shortage of energy, labour and transport from Liverpool to Los Angeles, and from Qingdao to Queensland.

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China’s factory activity in shock slowdown as energy crisis hits home

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Output, orders and employment all fell in September, according to official data, as Beijing turns to Russia to ease its electricity shortages


China’s factory activity has shrunk unexpectedly amid curbs on electricity use and rising prices for commodities and parts, raising more concerns about the state of the world’s second biggest economy.

A closely watched survey released on Thursday showed that China’s factory activity contracted in September for the first time since the pandemic took a grip in February 2020.

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Fears for 1 million furloughed staff with Sunak set to finally end scheme

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After the success of the chancellors’s £70bn programme, there is uncertainty about the future direction of the economy

The biggest state intervention in the UK’s labour market in peacetime comes to an end this week when the government finally winds up its furlough support.

Barring an unlikely last-minute change of heart, a wage subsidy that has been in place for 18 months and has cost £70bn will no longer be open to struggling firms.

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The Guardian view on Europe’s centre-left: new grounds for optimism | Editorial

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There are signs that previously struggling social democratic parties are drawing the right lessons from the pandemic

In the wake of the financial crash in 2008, hopes were high on the left that a bona fide crisis of capitalism would significantly shift the political dial in its favour. Isolated victories and movements aside, it didn’t really happen. Instead, in the early 2010s, the bailout of the bankers was followed by the imposition of austerity across Europe and in America as governments sought to balance the books.

Premature predictions on the nature of post-Covid politics in the west are therefore to be avoided. But certain themes do seem to be emerging. Sketching out broadly communitarian territory, they chime with many people’s experience of how the pandemic played out and what it exposed; and there is some evidence that, in northern Europe, they might inform a revival and renewal of centre-left parties and movements.

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China sends jets and bombers near Taiwan as Beijing opposes island’s trade deal bid

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Nuclear-capable bombers entered air defence zone, says Taipei, amid simmering row over competing bids to join regional trade agreement

China has voiced opposition to Taiwan joining a major trans-Pacific trade deal as it flew 24 planes – including two nuclear-capable bombers – into the self-ruled island’s air defence zone, the biggest incursion in weeks, Taiwanese officials said.

Last week Beijing submitted its own application to become a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

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China growth forecast cut by ratings agency amid Evergrande uncertainty

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Downgrade by Fitch reflects jitters in markets as boss of Asia-focused bank HSBC says problems ‘concerning’

Ratings agency Fitch has downgraded its forecast for China’s economic growth because of concerns about a slowdown in the country’s colossal housing market and fears about struggling property giant Evergrande.

China enjoyed a swift economic rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic, but strict new rules on the country’s developers have caused a deleveraging rush and helped push housing giant Evergrande to crisis point.

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