MoneyWeek

“We promise not to raise the rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT. We not only want to freeze taxes but to cut them too.” That’s the Conservative manifesto in 2019. “I want to see... over time... lower rates of tax because I just believe th

“Over the last 15 years Germany has come to be seen by many in Europe as a paragon of political stability”, says Ronald G. Asch in The Spectator. Now Angela Merkel, the country’s “perennial chancellor”, is preparing to retire. An election on 26 Septe

Japanese stocks have hit a 30-year high following the resignation of prime minister Yoshihide Suga. Suga, who has only been in office for a year, had become widely unpopular as his government failed to get on top of a surge in Covid-19 infections. A

The special purpose acquisition company (Spac) boom is going global. Spacs are shell firms that list on the stockmarket in order to raise cash. They then use the money to buy an existing company. Spacs provide the acquired firm with a route to a stoc

On Wednesday, Boris Johnson asked MPs to support his “manifesto-breaking £12bn tax-raising plan to fund health and social care”, as he raised Britain’s tax burden to 35.5% of GDP, the highest rate since 1950, says George Parker in the Financial Times

Uncertain employment outlook: Job growth in August was a “huge disappointment”, with the closely watched nonfarm payrolls data showing total new hiring of just 235,000 compared to consensus forecasts of 720,000, says CNBC. The monthly gain is the wea

The question of how to recruit and train enough lorry drivers to keep the country running has suddenly exploded into front-page news, with driver shortages creating big problems for businesses, consumers and politicians. The Road Haulage Association

In Britain, labour shortages are getting more and more acute every week. Some supermarkets are running low on stock at critical points in the week because there are not enough truck drivers to make all the deliveries (see page 12). Restaurants are tu

city-journal.org Britons are so used to the “abject failure” of our government, over everything from its “political dithering” to its “self-evidently wrong and costly decisions” to its “bureaucratic incompetence and moral corruption”, that we “sta

The ideal investment for uncertain market conditions would be a trust with a great performance record and a strong chance of preserving value in a bear market, yet one whose shares trade at a significant discount to net asset value (NAV). That’s a lo

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” asked The Beatles in their 1967 song. Today vast numbers of over-65s are being needed and fed. They comprise the biggest and one of the wealthiest demographic groups in the developed worl

Britons are staying in work longer and in larger numbers than ever before. Already, 8% of people over 66 – the age at which you can begin claiming the state pension – are still in employment, according to research from the Centre for Economics and Bu

“The credit-card model is simply unsustainable for consumers,” Klarna’s billionaire founder, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, told investors last month. They clearly agree, says Bloomberg. In a recent funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, the wildly

“There’s nothing like watching a troupe of risk-taking horse riders enact the Wars of the Roses [at Warwick Castle] to make you feel better about pandemic life”, says Susie Mesure in The Daily Telegraph. It was almost disappointing when the two sides

South Sands House, St Margaret’s Bay, Dover, Kent. A three-storey house in need of some updating in a conservation area with panoramic views over the English Channel towards France. It has open fireplaces and a triple-aspect rotunda. 6 beds, 4 baths,

Most collectors are happy to pursue their hobby knowing they are unlikely to ever lay their hands on a 1933 Double Eagle gold coin or the “inverted Jenny plate block” of stamps from 1918, featuring an aeroplane erroneously flying upside-down, and, ac

The three surviving granddaughters of Al Capone have put up for auction possessions belonging to their grandfather, says Maria Cramer in The New York Times. There is, for instance, a black and white picture of Capone and his mother beaming at each ot

The Who’s Roger Daltrey may have hoped to die before he got old, but his rivals in the Rolling Stones are still touring nearly six decades after they were first founded. Sadly, they are now one member smaller following the death of drummer Charlie Wa

Some people work for wages. Some work for pleasure. Some just work out of habit. And some don’t work at all. In today’s America, fewer and fewer people are working. The labour-force participation rate has been going down for the last 20 years. And la