LONDON | If more than 99% of all European businesses are, in fact, small businesses that shape the true back-bone of the European economy, European governments are clearly missing the chance to generate at least a few millions of new jobs.
The aggregate of the main European banking institutions has lost almost half a billion of euros in market value, from €670 billion to just over €200 billion during the last five years. The average drop has been 65 percent. But Italian and French banks have led the fall with a 70 percent of their stock price wiped out in the aftermath of the credit crunch. As readers are well aware,…
LONDON | The UK’s trade body of financial mutuals AFM is not happy. The organisation this week launched a frontal attack against taxpayer-aided listed banks and their directors’ bonuses. Who could blame them? After all, in the City race, mutual insurers, friendly societies and others have lost most ground: for instance, the sector’s insurance services today represent around 6% of the British market, while their share stood at over 50% just 15…
We've selected some comments from Saturday's demonstration in Times Square. Achei (African American, employed, in her 50's): “This young people who have gone to school and took a loan they can't pay back because they don't have any jobs to pay back. People who bought their homes are getting foreclosed, they're getting thrown out of their houses.” Gerry Crane (American, employed, in his 60's, has helped the Green Party): “A famour author,…
We've selected some comments from public remarks published on social websites by demonstrators and observers of this weekend's globalised protests against the financial state of things. @Izaakson: Occupying the London Stock Exchange twitpic.com/70npad #occupy Sophie Payne What books on economics should we read? Mises and Hayek? Are we allowed to educate ourselves by reading Keynes or Galbraith? Or even…Marx? DMReporter PROTEST: Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters vow to give up worldly possessions and close their bank…