The occasional baiting of Michael Fish over his famous weather forecasting error in 1987 has happened again. Andy Haldane, the Chief Economist of the Bank of England, recently issued a bit of a ‘mea culpa’ when he said that the…
Not a black swan One professional adviser publication produced a review of the year with a picture of a black swan on the front. It’s a clear reference to the results of the UK referendum and US election. Except…
Health and safety – Dangerous things conkers? Whilst walking this weekend in the pretty town of Wansford, Northants, I managed to slip on a couple of conkers. It reminded me of the story that, due to health and safety fears,…
Gold Medal Birthday Bonanza. Among all the headline grabbing Olympic statistics from the past two weeks, you can’t have missed this one. GB’s four most successful male Olympians were all born 23 March. Amazing isn’t it? Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir…
The 500 euro note has a habit of going missing. This blog draws heavily on the original, but also looks at the latest report from the Luxembourg Central Bank. In June I highlighted a Europol (European Police Office) report…
Pokemon deja vu The second coming of over one hundred catchable Pokemon as a phone app has created a lot of excitement. And ‘Pokemon Go’ has sent the blogosphere into full hyperbolic overdrive. I have to admit that even I’ve…
Letter to The Times, 24th June 2016 ‘Sir, It is now surely unthinkable that we can continue to call our country the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The only thing uniting us is our currency. Perhaps Poundland…
Stressed Out While the main media is consumed with the economics of Bremain versus Brexit, I am going to return to the topic of ‘negative interest rates’. It’s important to understand that, whatever the outcome of the referendum, that…
A Song For Europe A long time ago in a bar far, far away (Yokohama actually) a former colleague introduced me to a song called ‘The cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn’. The attraction of the song,…
Why the ECB has decided to stop issuing the 500 euro banknote by the end of 2018 Lost between the Panama Papers revelations and this week’s anti-corruption summit in London was the news that the European Central Bank (ECB)…