The Renegade Economists' view on global events
Independent: Forget about mortgage debt – become a happy renter instead
June 27, 2010 | 10:54 am | One Comment

First-time buyers are suffering, and mortgage rule changes could lead to yet more misery, so perhaps it’s time to consider the benefits of being a tenant, writes Laura Howard

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Telegraph:Poor in UK dying 10 years earlier than rich, despite years of government action
July 2, 2010 – 8:27 am | No Comment

Telegraph:Poor in UK dying 10 years earlier than rich, despite years of government action

The life expectancy gap between rich and poor people in England is widening, despite years of government and NHS action, a hard-hitting National Audit Office report reveals today. Read the full story »

Popularity: 10% [?]

Canada Free Press: PR vs. Truth: Corporate Charity and the Billionaire’s Ruse
June 22, 2010 – 3:12 pm | No Comment
Canada Free Press: PR vs. Truth:  Corporate Charity and the Billionaire’s Ruse

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are acting as if they’ve discovered the fountain of youth as they are now telling other billionaires they don’t need to spend their lives addictively pursuing and hoarding wealth.  …

Telegraph: Gordon Brown’s henchmen are rewriting history as we sink into the red
June 11, 2010 – 8:23 am | One Comment
Telegraph: Gordon Brown’s henchmen are rewriting history as we sink into the red

If you’re less than thrilled by today’s World Cup kick-off, fret not: there’s plenty of good sport elsewhere on television. My favourite viewing is the disintegration of Labour’s effort to defend its disgraceful record …

Coalition government and the prospects for LVT
May 28, 2010 – 5:08 pm | 4 Comments
Coalition government and the prospects for LVT

If the claims of David Cameron and Nick Clegg are to be taken at face value, here in the UK we now live under a radical transforming government unprecedented in its progressive ambition.  Of …

Telegraph: Behind the drama in Europe lies a global crisis
May 20, 2010 – 10:16 am | One Comment
Telegraph: Behind the drama in Europe lies a global crisis

The euro is under threat – along with our entire free-market system, warns Edmund Conway in today’s Telegraph.

It is now accepted, even by Angela Merkel, that as Europe battles its financial crisis, the very …

CFP: Goldman Sachs, Chess and the Godfather
May 4, 2010 – 4:18 pm | 2 Comments
CFP: Goldman Sachs, Chess and the Godfather

From Damon Vrabel, Canada Free Press.
Between the SEC charges and the congressional panels, the government is finally doing its job going after Goldman Sachs, right?  And this last week in April ends with the Justice …

Philippe Legrain: Tax land or carbon emissions, but not hard work
April 12, 2010 – 5:25 pm | 8 Comments
Philippe Legrain: Tax land or carbon emissions, but not hard work

With Britain’s £167bn ($257bn) budget deficit looming, tax is becoming a key election battleground. Businesspeople are rallying to the Conservatives after they pledged to cancel most of the government’s planned rise in national insurance contributions …

The Guardian: Treasury saw buy-to-let threat to first-time buyers
April 12, 2010 – 3:22 pm | One Comment
The Guardian: Treasury saw buy-to-let threat to first-time buyers

The Treasury acknowledged privately as early as 2004 that a burgeoning buy-to-let market could be crowding out first-time buyers, according to a government report released by campaigners who lambast the authorities for allowing the landlord …

Telegraph: UK house prices face prolonged bear market
April 6, 2010 – 8:41 am | One Comment
Telegraph: UK house prices face prolonged bear market

The housing market may now be trapped in a long-term bear market and may not bounce back to the peaks it reached in 2007 for generations, a leading economic consultancy has warned.

Telegraph: Gordon Brown accused of cover-up over gold sale
April 2, 2010 – 11:20 am | No Comment
Telegraph: Gordon Brown accused of cover-up over gold sale

An email released under Freedom of Information laws shows that in December 1998, senior Bank of England officials refused to support a Treasury proposal to sell almost 400 tonnes of Britain’s gold.
But hundreds of pages …

The Guardian: The mystery of Tony Blair’s finances
December 3, 2009 – 12:28 pm | 2 Comments
The Guardian: The mystery of Tony Blair’s finances

The former prime minister Tony Blair has received millions of pounds through an unusual mixture of commercial, charitable and religious income streams. Since he stepped down from office in 2007, his financial affairs have been …

The Independent: Britain faces return to Victorian levels of poverty
November 30, 2009 – 6:32 pm | One Comment
The Independent: Britain faces return to Victorian levels of poverty

Labour’s strategy for tackling poverty has reached the end of the road and Britain risks a return to Victorian levels of inequality, according to a major two-year study seen by The Independent.

The Guardian: Cool the cutting fisticuffs – take a long, hard look at tax
November 24, 2009 – 6:20 pm | 4 Comments
The Guardian: Cool the cutting fisticuffs – take a long, hard look at tax

The leaders were still shadow-boxing at the Confederation of British Industry conference yesterday. In the red corner Gordon Brown thumped out his warning that “choking off recovery too soon would be fatal”. In the blue …

Times: Bank gave RBS and HBOS ’secret’ £62bn loan
November 24, 2009 – 1:44 pm | One Comment
Times: Bank gave RBS and HBOS ’secret’ £62bn loan

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS were secretly kept afloat with £62 billion of emergency Government support at the height of the credit crisis last year, it was revealed today.
The Bank of England kept …

The Times: IMF warns second bailout would ‘threaten democracy’
November 24, 2009 – 12:28 pm | No Comment
The Times: IMF warns second bailout would ‘threaten democracy’

The public will not bail out the financial services sector for a second time if another global crisis blows up in four or five years time, the managing-director of the International Monetary Fund warned this …

The Globe: What Niall Ferguson thinks now
November 23, 2009 – 7:34 pm | One Comment
The Globe: What Niall Ferguson thinks now

Here is The Globe’s second interview with Niall Ferguson. He shares some interesting thoughts about destabilisation – both monetary and socially, and the road ahead.

Bloomberg: U.K. Housing Market May Not Recover Peak Until 2014
November 23, 2009 – 6:47 pm | One Comment

Thanks to Tony Beckworth for bringing this interesting article to our attention.   They simply can’t be right about 2010, can they…?!

Money Morning: Britain and its Near Death Economy
November 9, 2009 – 5:42 pm | 2 Comments
Money Morning: Britain and its Near Death Economy

Money Morning has described Britain as now being “actually insolvent” compared to being “technically insolvent” when it went begging to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1976. 

Yahoo Finance: IMF sells 200 tonnes of gold to India
November 4, 2009 – 11:16 am | One Comment
Yahoo Finance: IMF sells 200 tonnes of gold to India

The International Monetary Fund announced Monday the sale of 200 tonnes of gold worth 6.7 billion dollars to India’s central bank to shore up IMF finances. 

Forbes Magazine: Ron Paul – Be Prepared for the Worst
November 2, 2009 – 12:59 pm | One Comment
Forbes Magazine: Ron Paul – Be Prepared for the Worst

In the segment ‘On My Mind’, Ron Paul discusses his thoughts on why large-scale government internvention in the economy is going to end badly.  The False Recovery is underway.

Telegraph: It is Japan we should be worrying about, not America
November 2, 2009 – 12:50 pm | No Comment
Telegraph: It is Japan we should be worrying about, not America

Japan is drifting helplessly towards a dramatic fiscal crisis. For 20 years the world’s second-largest economy has been able to borrow cheaply from a captive bond market, feeding its addiction to Keynesian deficit spending – …