Drilling Down: Red Web Sites Versus Blue Web Sites Sites popular with Republicans tend to be explicitly directed at conservatives, while those most popular with Democrats contain relatively nonpolitical fare intended for a mostly black audience.... Read Full Article White House Is Confident Of Broad Support On Iran The Bush administration expressed confidence on Tuesday that it had rallied international support to intensify diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran’s government.... Read Full Article Sergey Brin’s IPhone Adventure In Davos For a company that is busy building its own cellphone operating system, Google shared a lot of love for the iPhone on its earnings-related conference call Thursday.... Read Full Article Olympics Will Shed Light On Ethical Issues When the Olympics finally hit Beijing next year they will put China under the global spotlight.... Read Full Article In Science Classrooms, A Blast Of Fresh O<sub>2</sub> Some of the direst noises about our nation’s scientific prospects may be premature; students seem to be embracing challenging science courses.... Read Full Article |
Ability NewsHumberts shares suspended over financial fearsShare trading was suspended today in Humberts, one of England’s largest chains of estate agents part-owned by Vincent Tchenguiz, over doubts about its financial viability.Read Full Article Top estate agents firm close to collapse after credit crunchOne of Britain’s largest estate agents has fallen victim to the slowdown in the housing market, prompting fears for thousands of jobs around the country. Shares trading was suspended in Humberts, which has 80 branches from Central London to Hampshire, amid doubts about its viability.Read Full Article Mervyn King to grimace and bear bad newsWhen the Bank of England’s Governor unveils its latest prognosis for the economy this week, he is likely to adopt his sternest demeanour. The message from Mervyn King may not be quite as bleak as Churchill’s famous admonition that he had “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”, but it may not be far off. The Bank’s hardline decision last week to keep interest rates on hold despite the latest spate of dreadful news over worsening economic conditions gave a foretaste of the granite-hard façade that it is set to present to the country in its latest quarterly Inflation Report on Wednesday. The “no change” verdict on interest rates from Threadneedle Street can only have appeared to much of the country at large like an exercise in monetary sado-masochism. Yet the harsh reality that confronts the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is that it remains trapped between an economic rock and a hard place. Far from easing as the economic outlook has grown darker, the conflicting pressures confronting the MPC – from faltering growth and activity on the one hand and simmering inflationary pressures on the other – have intensified. The deluge of ever more dismal economic indicators now leaves little doubt that the economy is facing its most testing two-year stretch since the early Nineties. Yet as the going gets much tougher, the persistence of the inflation threat condemns the Bank to talk, and act, tough, too. The MPC’s mission to ensure that inflation hits its 2 per cent target over the medium term leaves it scant room for manoeuvre. It is forced to act only cautiously, even as the demands for more aggressive and urgent action escalate. The Bank’s dilemma seems set only to be become more acute through the summer, as the Inflation Report is likely to spell out. If anything, the MPC’s latest assessment is likely to understate the full scale of dangers to growth prospects that have emerged. At the heart of the heightened risks is the increasingly dire straits of the housing market, which appears to be locked into a vicious downward spiral triggered by the mortgage lending drought. The severe squeeze on the availability of home loans is combining with falling house prices to cause demand in the property market to dry up, with cautious buyers holding out for the much lower prices they expect in future. As demand and market activity drop, and the supply of unsold houses grows, prices fall farther and faster. In turn, that farther deters would-be buyers and makes lenders become even more cautious, fuelling an ever steeper downward slide. The scale of these trends is underlined by the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ data, highlighted by Michael Saunders, of Citigroup, which shows the drastic tightening of lending conditions since the start of the year. The number of new home loans agreed plunged by more than 30 per cent in the first quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier. In March, approvals of new mortgages fell to the lowest since 1992. Although the Bank of England’s £50 billion lifeline, designed to ease the funding pressures on lenders, may limit the squeeze, Mr King has been bluntly candid that it is far from intended as a cureall for the mortgage market. The clear peril for the economy is that the toll on sentiment and household wealth from an increasingly severe housing correction now sees the credit crunch mutate into a brutal consumer crunch as households pull back their spending. The Bank tends to play down the repercussions of falling house prices for consumer demand. Yet signs are already accumulating that the consumer may embark on a full-scale retreat from the high street. Consumer confidence has slumped to 15-year lows, while polls show that concern over the state of the economy is at its highest levels since 1993. As other signs of economic weakness pile up, it is becoming painfully clear that Britain, far from being better placed than its rivals to weather global economic squalls, as the Chancellor and Prime Minister claim, is markedly worse off. As Mr Saunders argues, the UK is left badly exposed by the highest household debt burden in the Group of Seven leading industrial economies, alongside severely inflated house prices and low household savings. The price of a protracted period of living beyond our means may now have to be paid. Long years of high spending, as well as heavy borrowing excess. are making the fallout from the credit crunch more painful and the boost from the Bank’s limited easing of interest rates less potent. Yet, worse still, the same past excesses, in the form of a swollen current account deficit, are adding to the acute pressure on a sharply weakening pound, already hit by Britain’s worsening growth outlook. Sterling’s steep slide – by about 12 per cent in the past year - is aggravating the Bank’s inflation headache by raising the nation’s import bills and further curbing its scope to cut base rates to underpin faltering growth. With the pound set to tumble still farther, oil prices having surged to record levels of above $120 a barrel and the cost of food in global markets soaring, the City expects that the Bank will raise its forecasts for inflation this week. It is likely to give warning that headline consumer price inflation will rise above 3 per cent over the summer, forcing Mr King to pen what will be only his second explanatory letter to the Chancellor. Against this background, the Governor can be expected to make it brutally plain on Wednesday that further easing of interest rates will be only limited and gradual. Ultimately, the extent of the slowdown now taking hold in the economy will quell the inflationary threat that the Bank is, for now, compelled to prioritise over risks the growth.$Read Full Article EasyJet offers Bank clues to way aheadIf the Bank of England fails to cut interest rates today (a better than evens probability) and is, as a result, blasted by bruised retailers and housebuilders (a cast-iron certainty), it could do worse than point to the recent experience of easyJet to justify its hawkish stance.Read Full Article Rice prices hit records amid Burmese disasterThe cyclone that has devastated Burma is not only set to push world rice prices higher but may have jeopardised the country’s long-term ability to feed its own population, Asian food experts say.Read Full Article External News for: abilityHealth care reform vote is a big test of President Obama's ability to govern - The Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)CBC.caHealth care reform vote is a big test of President Obama's ability to governThe Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)The Obama argument is basically that their fate, like it or not, will rest on the public perception of his ability to command his party and lead the country ...The Sunday Word: The Big VoteNew York Times (blog)Democrats Predict Slim Margin in Health VoteNew York TimesUS Democratic Lawmakers Predict Passage of Health Care Reform BillVoice of AmericaSpartanburg Herald Journal -UPI.com -Foreign Policyall 13,738 news articles »Health care reform vote is a big test of President Obama's ability to govern - The Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)CBC.caHealth care reform vote is a big test of President Obama's ability to governThe Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)The Obama argument is basically that their fate, like it or not, will rest on the public perception of his ability to command his party and lead the country ...The Sunday Word: The Big VoteNew York Times (blog)Democrats Predict Slim Margin in Health VoteNew York TimesUS Democratic Lawmakers Predict Passage of Health Care Reform BillVoice of AmericaSpartanburg Herald Journal -UPI.com -Foreign Policyall 13,738 news articles »Tiger Woods Wishes He Had The Ability To Make You Sore - hecklersprayhecklersprayTiger Woods Wishes He Had The Ability To Make You SorehecklersprayIf alleged mistress Joslyn James is to believed, Tiger Woods managed to get her into bed with a text message reading “I wish I had the ability to make you ...and more »Health care reform vote is a big test of President Obama's ability to govern - The Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)CBC.caHealth care reform vote is a big test of President Obama's ability to governThe Star-Ledger - NJ.com (blog)The Obama argument is basically that their fate, like it or not, will rest on the public perception of his ability to command his party and lead the country ...The Sunday Word: The Big VoteNew York Times (blog)Democrats Predict Slim Margin in Health VoteNew York TimesUS Democratic Lawmakers Predict Passage of Health Care Reform BillVoice of AmericaSpartanburg Herald Journal -UPI.com -Foreign Policyall 13,738 news articles »Tiger Woods Wishes He Had The Ability To Make You Sore - hecklersprayhecklersprayTiger Woods Wishes He Had The Ability To Make You SorehecklersprayIf alleged mistress Joslyn James is to believed, Tiger Woods managed to get her into bed with a text message reading “I wish I had the ability to make you ...and more »Have kids lost the ability to spell and communicate properly? - LiteracyNews.comHave kids lost the ability to spell and communicate properly?LiteracyNews.comActually this is a rhetorical question. I'm just interested in what others think and how many have noticed the situation. I'm old enough to realize there ... |
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