Faisal Islam has left Channel 4 News. This is an archive of his blogs.
ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND – In the grounds of St Andrews’ famous Fairmont hotel there are some acclaimed championship golf courses. I doubt very much that the G20 finance ministers and central bankers arriving here tonight will be teeing off. Having “saved the world economy” in Act 1, Act 2 appears to be the no less…
It’s a cosmic game of pin the tail on the donkey. The tail is the amount of money creation that the Bank of England deliberates over. The donkey is the British economy. The Bank has just voted to increase its money creation exercise to £200 billion. A £25 billion increase is a little less than…
Following on from Bailout 1.0 (the banking system) and Bailout 2.0 (the economy), Bailout 3.0 focuses on the RBS and Lloyds, two banks in which the government has acquired a significant stake.
Were the home secretary ever to appoint a panel of independent economists to advise on drugs, those economists might note that there are alternatives to the present drugs policy which could wipe out certain types of crime altogether.
Channel 4 News reporter Faisal Islam examines America’s economic figures.
News that the government is to extend another £12bn in loans to Northern Rock suggests the nationalised bank is a tool of government pump priming.
I was returning from holiday this morning through Miami airport expecting to report on the end of the British recession. In the US, the economic situation is now commonly referred to as “The Great Recession”. I think on that basis, following today’s third quarter GDP numbers our own quagnmire can confidently be termed “The Greatest…
Havana, Cuba seems an oddly appropriate place to be hearing the unsurprising renewed furore over bank bonuses in state-helped banks. I’m holidaying here, but there’s much to remind of home.
Why the £13bn the Tories claim to save by raising the state pension age is debatable.
House prices are back at 2008 levels. On average the value of our castles are now back where they were before the Lehman calamity. So is it hooray! three cheers! and high fives all around?
When they can pull themselves away from their framed copies of The Sun, the close of the Labour party conference offers the Conservatives some clear choices on economic policy and the banker bonuses. Despite the Chancellor’s impressive deal with Britain’s top five banks, there are senior voices in the government who wanted to go…
Populism does not come more de-robed than what we will get on bankers from Labour’s pre-election conference. It starts today with the Chancellors speech. There will be an elaboration of the bank bashing theme.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein on the wisdom of allowing big banks to fail.
It was brave of Lord Turner to take his controversial take on the future of finance directly to an audience of black-tied bankers at the Mansion House. He was heckled, and the mood music in the City, and apparently at the dinner too, seems to resemble the attitude of a teenager who has been banned…
Cracks were showing in Britain’s banking powerhouses as early as 2005, as bad debt was sold and consumers were sucked into a credit vortex. An “ugly” correction was on the cards.