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“The man who warned of recession.” That’s how Nottingham University billed their star speaker last night.  His warnings, claimed the promotion to advertise the speech, had been “ignored by the Bank of England.”

The fact that the venue is likely to have been packed underlies what a good recession Professor David Blanchflower is having.

The British-born MPC member, who lives in America, voted consistently for interest rate cuts from October 2007, the month after Northern…

Source: Business Listings

My second and final day at Davos. To be frank, there are more questions here than answers. Everyone is agreed that the world economy is desperately sick. The half of the world that saves too much (represented here by the Chinese Prime Minister) blames the half of the world that spends too much (represented here today by Gordon Brown).

What is not so clear is how we unwind these global imbalances without a devastating deterioration of living standards. There is, at least, an emergin…

Source: Business Listings

Damn, we are all sitting here in open-mouthed astonishment.

Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan has just stormed off the rostrum after calling Israel’s president Shimon Peres a “killer” to his face.

Mr Peres in turn has been thundering and fulminating at the top of his voice for 25 minutes — while the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sat in embarrased silence next to him, mostly looking at his shoes.

 The incensed leaders then walked out passed packed ranks of…

Source: Business Listings

The US Congress has been busily adding knee-jerk, selfish provisions to Barack Obama’s giant fiscal stimulus package to favour American iron and steel companies. This is the sort of shortsighted protectionism that led the world down its disastrous path in the 1930s. No wonder the European Commission <A title=”EU response” href=”http://www.eubusiness….

Source: Business Listings

The setting remains as incongruous as ever: hundreds of business leaders, journalists, charity chief execs and, of course, politicians scurrying from one meeting to another across the snow and sub-zero temperatures of a ski resort.

But the mood of Davos is very different even from last year. This is no longer a celebration of prosperity and success. The talk is of failure - the failure of global markets and the failure of
global institutions.

Even as an opposition politic…

Source: Business Listings

That is the plea from the Singapore government as its trade-dependent economy slides into an ever-deeper recession. While other governments are focusing solely on fiscal and monetary stimulus packages for their economies, Singapore is also pushing ahead with its sexual stimulus plan as it seeks to shore up its flagging growth prospects.

With one of the most rapidly-ageing populations in the world and fears that <A title=”Link to Times news story” href=”http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

Source: Business Listings

So Absolute Radio is an absolute disaster. The station formerly known as Virgin lost 461,000 listeners in the few months since it changed its name to Absolute Radio, under new owners The Times of India Group.

The company says listeners are taking their time to recognise the brand. But something has clearly gone wrong if Virgin’s loyal old listeners, bound to know about the name change, no longer want to tune in anymore. Absolute Radio’s programming is large…

Source: Business Listings

Is the tie back? Just when I have got used to not wearing one, it would appear that things have swung back to the neck tie.

Mark Zuckerberg in more casual times

Last night I met Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Congratulations on your amazing company, I said. But why the t…

Source: Business Listings

I never thought I’d live to see a room full of Masters of the Universe putting their hands in the air to vote that bankers and financiers should have their bonuses clawed back off them.

But that is precisely what happened this afternoon, when the World Economic Brainstorming session I was helping co-ordinate turned a little nasty. I was in charge of chairing one of the 20 tables decked with Davos mainstays, economists, businessmen (shamefully it was mostly men - spouses not i…

Source: Business Listings

News International is the latest subject of job cuts talk. Sources say that, following the completion of a review by Boston Consulting Group, redundancies are close.

While the newspaper group tonight refused to comment, it is thought cuts will come soon.

Speculation has centred on production cuts and pay freezes, but there is also talk that some high profile columnists could be shown the door. The Sun would be the likely target of such a move.

Aft…

Source: Business Listings