Mark Carney

Markets doubt Carney’s claim to have saved 500k UK jobs

Last week as the BBC reported, Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, explained to an audience in Birmingham that the Bank had saved the UK economy after the Brexit vote in June: “Between 400,000 and 500,000 jobs could have been at risk if the Bank had not taken action after the referendum, he said.  ”We are willing […]

Brexit poll creates UK, euro interest rate rise risk

Financial markets are very bad at evaluating political risk.  They assume people will always be rational, and expect a ‘business as usual’ scenario to continue.  But as we all know, people are not always rational.  And emotion, as today over immigration may cloud their judgement. This week has seen the first signs of this complacency […]

Central banks have created a debt-fuelled ‘ring of fire’

A new article by an IMF economist makes the point that in April 2008, not a single one of the mainstream economic forecasts covered by ‘Consensus Economics’ was forecasting a recession in 2009. The IMF itself expected growth to continue, as did the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.  Even by […]

“Reservations are no longer necessary at many high-end restaurants”

Think back a moment to September 16 2008.  Newly released transcripts analysed by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reveal for the first time what was really going on that day at the world’s most important central bank. Lehman Bros, one of Wall Street’s largest investment banks, had just gone bust.  Merrill Lynch, another giant, had […]