It is disappointing for the 150,000 would-be students who have failed to gain a place at university, but degrees wouldn’t be worth much if if they were available to everyone who wanted one.
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If employers cannot make staff retire at 65, will they have to make redundancy payments to force them to go? If so, few will leave voluntarily: they’ll hang on for the windfall payout.
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Hypocrisy and politicians may be natural bedfellows but just as the general election was called, a committee of 13 male MPs and one female issued a report criticising the City for not promoting women. Pots and kettles come to mind.
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United States citizens fill in their census forms on 1 April and it is just as well the ten-yearly statistical exercise is not used to assess employment.
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How appropriate that the terms of Marc Bolland’s recruitment to Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) were announced on the last day of the football transfer window.  M&S is paying a £7.5m fee to attract him from rival retailer Wm Morrison (LON:MRW).
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A report detailing the gap between Britain’s rich and poor has been met with universal shock and promises to narrow the divide. But why? Isn’t inequality not only inevitable but desirable?
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When companies need a new leader, why do they so often call in the City headhunters and search for external candidates instead of promoting from inside? Is it because the internal applicants’ faults are known while the unknown outsiders offer hope?
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Everyone agrees the government must return a sick economy to health. The disagreement is how quickly to do it. Too much medicine could kill the patient; too little allows the disease to fester.
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The official figures showing the recession is not yet over were a surprise. But what if they are revised to show the economy was actually growing after all? It would change not only our outlook but our faith in all statistics.
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Should capital expenditure be the first corporate cut or the last thing to go? Investment in plant or buildings is the basis for tomorrow’s profits, but delaying it is an easy way to boost today’s cashflow.
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