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Sunday, 26 April 2009 |
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 April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s budget for the year leading up to the next election marks the end of the era known as “New Labour.”
By slapping a 50 percent tax on those earning 150,000 pounds a year ($217,000) or more and allowing debt to explode, Brown appealed to his party’s base and reversed policies dating from Tony Blair’s election in 1997 that rejected income-tax increases and encouraged wealth creation. |
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Sunday, 26 April 2009 |
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 April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Grace and John Pitts got a 4 percent interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage when they bought their Cape Cod-style home in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1951. That was about the lowest rate anybody got in the next 60 years. Those days may be returning as history provides Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke lessons on how to rescue the U.S. from the housing slump. Home loans may go as low as 4 percent if the economy worsens, said Robert Edelstein, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Record foreclosures, falling home prices and an economy that has lost 5.1 million jobs since December 2007 will pressure Bernanke to further reduce borrowing costs. |
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Sunday, 26 April 2009 |
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By Anchalee Worrachate April 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K.’s plan to sell a record 220 billion pounds ($318 billion) of gilts this year to revive the economy may cause investor “indigestion,” according to some of Britain’s biggest bond traders. The amount, 50 percent more than the 146.4 billion pounds sold in the fiscal year that ended March 31, may be too much for the market to absorb, according to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. The issuance plan, announced by the London-based Debt Management Office yesterday following the government’s budget report, is a “surprise,” according to Barclays Capital. |
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Wednesday, 15 April 2009 |
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By Bob Willis and Shobhana Chandra April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Retail sales in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in March for the first time in three months, raising concern the biggest part of the economy may falter once again heading into the second quarter. Purchases fell 1.1 percent, with declines from car dealers to electronics stores and restaurants, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Only pharmacies and grocery stores saw a gain. The Labor Department said wholesale prices fell last month, indicating that deflation risks remain. |
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Monday, 13 April 2009 |
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April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s wholesale prices fell at the fastest pace in almost seven years, adding to signs the world’s second-largest economy may return to deflation. Producer prices, the costs companies pay for energy and raw materials, sank 2.2 percent in March from a year earlier, the biggest slide since May 2002, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today. That compares with a median estimate of 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News for a 1.8 percent decline. The Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan survey this month showed manufacturers expect the costs they pay for goods and materials to fall to the lowest level in seven years. Expectations of lower prices ahead can prompt consumers to delay purchases, eroding corporate profits and forcing firms to cut wages, causing a downward spiral in demand. |
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Monday, 13 April 2009 |
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By Bob Willis April 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. retail sales probably rose in March even as a drop in factory production and slower inflation signal the recession is far from over, economists said before reports this week. Purchases increased 0.3 percent, the second gain in the last three months, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey before the Commerce Department’s April 14 retail report. Industrial production dropped 0.9 percent, the 14th decline in the last 15 months, figures from the Federal Reserve may show. |
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