Current Events, Climate change
The chief reason the British voted to leave the EU was the issue of immigration. Before the vote, David Cameron (Britain’s Prime Minister) “re-negotiated” the relationship of Britain with the rest of the EU. However, he was unable to get any concessions on EU immigration because it is one of the “four freedoms” which is central to the EU.
Could there be a conspiracy at work?
In his first trip to the US, Boris Johnson, Britain’s new Foreign Minister and a leader in the Brexit campaign, claimed that UK financial firms will keep EU ‘passporting’, which allows banks to sell their services to clients across the EU. He claimed that the “City” (as London Financial district is called) offers the deepest pools of liquidity, talent and skill for the capital formation needs of businesses across Europe (Julian Ambrose, in Daily Telegraph, July 23rd).
The “talent and skill” is crucial. As someone who was brought up in the UK, I cannot shake the suspicion that, for every financial whizz-kid in the City, there are ten upper-class twits (good example of an upper-class twit – John Cleese in the Monty Python sketch “The Ministry of Silly Walks”).
Is Johnson’s optimism justified? Several reasons suggest that it is not: Continue reading “Is Boris Johnson’s Optimism about London’s Financial Centre Justified?”
There has been much talk of the top “one percent”. It makes for great slogans, but putting the top 1% (whether by income or by wealth) into a single group is an over-simplification. When hearing about the “one-percent”, most people immediately think of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim. However, in a recent article about US millionaires, the Economist stated that the average millionaire drives a Ford. This apparent contradiction needs to be resolved.
Within the “one-percent” there is a distribution of incomes/wealth which approximates to a log-normal distribution i.e. increasingly fewer members the higher up the scale you go.
In fact, the top 1% can be divided into six distinct groups. Based on wealth, over and above their principal residence, these are: Continue reading “Not all “One-Percenters” are Equal”
I am starting this blog because I believe I have insights, views and opinions which are not expressed elsewhere, whether in the media or by other commentators. My main items of interest are:
Future topics on this blog include:
The following describes my attitudes and credentials on the main topics: Continue reading “INTRODUCTION”