Economics

By Dr Nigel Mellor Buddhist economics will be forever associated with the work of Ernst Friedrich (Fritz) Schumacher. He brought us the powerful ideas of ‘intermediate technology’ and ‘small is beautiful’. In promoting ‘limits to growth’ and ‘sustainable development’, he was far ahead of his time. Schumacher wanted to restore the dignity of work, within economies built around a ‘middle way’, with ‘appropriate scale’ production. These concepts helped build his enlightened Buddhist economics which is still very relevant today (the...

The annual economic outlook for 2015 has been released by Invesco, revealing that faster growth of the quantity of money is desperately needed to avoid deflation. Despite a more positive economic outlook in 2014 we’re still hearing warning signs about the state of the global economy from all directions. Figures from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, have shown that the Eurozone experienced deflation of 0.2 per cent in December compared to the same month last year and...

By Valentina Magri    "Computers double their speed and memory capacity every 18 months. The risk is that computers develop intelligence and take over. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded”. Stephen Hawking's prediction of the future of the human race has rattled a few people. The physicist, who has motor neurone disease and uses a system designed by Intel to speak, essentially grounded sci-fi prophecies of robots out-thinking humans that have been...

A new report has revealed a cultural change in banks may take a generation, with the cost of poor culture far exceeding previous estimates. British retail banks and building societies have paid out at least £38.5 billion in fines and redress for customers over the last 15 years, with at least £27 billion of that due to the mis-selling of PPI. Poor culture also resulted in poor customer service, with banks have receiving 20.8 million complaints between 2008 and the first half of 2014, and 25 million between 2006 and...

By J T Coombes    www.globalmagnacarta.com    @GMagnaCarta Many years ago I had a bank manager as a next door neighbour. He was a lovely man, a bit like Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army, who cared about people but without the pomposity. After he retired we began to see the closure of bank branches and the centralisation of banking services. When I asked his view on these changes he said that we were now witnessing the end of banking in...

By Valentina Magri Inequality has been one of the most heated topics of economic debate in 2014 after the great success of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. The book was awarded the 2014 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year prize on 11 November 2014. Mr Piketty, who is in China promoting his book, said in the accepting video that “issues about economic wealth and capital and public debt are too important to be left to a...

Thomson Reuters IP & Science has today revealed that its list of the top 100 most innovative organisations in the world contains no UK companies. The fourth annual Top 100 Global Innovators list has been released today with UK companies nowhere to be seen. The list shows that, while the French economy may have continued its sclerotic performance in 2014, the country is still home to seven of the top 100 innovators, down from 12 in 2013. Germany also outperformed the UK with...

By J T Coombes    www.globalmagnacarta.com     @GMagnaCarta In this new millennium 21st century Society is saddled with systems way past their sell by date. . . . A 15th century democratic system, complete with glass ceiling . . . An 11th century monetary system that increasingly holds the world to ransom . . . A 2000 year old surveillance system being replaced by modern technology Voting with what we now have will never solve the problems we now face  In this...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic  Every year since 1856, as the first leaf buds appear on trees and daffodils can be seen in terraced gardens and along the banks of public parks, Oxford and Cambridge eights race along the River Thames as part of the most watched university competition in the country between the two oldest and, for now, most respected institutions in the country. But could they about to be displaced by university colleges that reside...