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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This is an old-style financial crisis but not all the old answers will work. Freezing the pay of doctors and judges may have worked for the Wilson and Heath governments but it has little impact when inflation is negligible or negative.
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Just as Britain comes out of recession, swine flu threatens to crush the green shoots. Even if it kills few, it will mean millions being away from work.
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The debate now is not whether to cut pay but how to do it. British Airways asked its staff to work for no pay; now the CBI is proposing people are paid for doing no work.
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The Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) chairman’s agreement to forego £1m of bonus doesn’t simply show a fear of shareholders rejecting the company’s remuneration report, it reflects overgenerous rewards agreed in less critical times.
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This blog was bearish while others still basked in the boom and turned bullish this year when others said Britain was bust. But beware: the optimists are in danger of getting ahead of themselves: recoveries have a self-correcting mechanism.
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