Business and Economics

Britain has often been criticised for looking to other countries for ideas and solutions instead of solving things for itself, and now it seems that Mayor Boris Johnson has taken some inspiration from Indonesia for a way to alleviate traffic problems in the city. Boris was taken on a bicycle tour of Jakarta by President Joko Widodo and was rather impressed with the car-free Sunday system that the city has implemented for the last 16 years. Although he admitted that...

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...

A new study has revealed electricians are Britain’s most trustworthy tradespeople, with a survey of 2,000 Brits finding sparky's are trusted over all other tradespeople. The research examined modern perceptions of today’s tradespeople to see who we believe to be the most trustworthy, with window cleaners and plumbers also deemed to be honourable folk. But scaffolders, glaziers, and tilers still have a lot to do – featuring bottom of the list of trusted tradesmen. The research, which was commissioned by...

Jack Peat on TLE's story so far “While Jack Peat reports a far more balanced article concerning the failings of the Football League and not just Leeds bashing it doesn't cover up the inept report from one of his journalists which is why it had so many replies. If this is some sort of half-hearted attempt of an apology for the aforementioned report it doesn't come close.” – Steve Perception is a funny thing in publishing. When we were a one-man blog nobody really gave a toss about...

By Mark Sait, CEO of leading energy-saving specialists SaveMoneyCutCarbon.com Carbon inefficiency is costing British businesses billions of pounds. 90 per cent of British businesses say rising energy prices pose a threat to their competitiveness and 83 per cent of SMEs say they will miss their growth targets this year because of energy price rises. Utility bills have doubled in the past decade and are forecast to double again in the next 10 years.  And the Government has repeatedly warned that...

UK-founded ecommerce conversion company Ve has been forced to expand outside of the UK due to a skills shortage in the country. The company has opened a major new office in Madrid and an engineering hub in Bilbao due to the shortage of highly-skilled developers in London. The Madrid office will employ 25 people and 60 developers will be hired in Bilbao by March, with more than 200 applications for each position in Bilbao been received since the decision to move was...

The meter has long been the cornerstone of a fair and functioning taxi industry in London but finds itself under siege by a 21st century shake-up in the form of m-commerce which has placed the meter in the pocket of the consumer. The legality of minicabs that use Uber as a fare meter has been the cause of uproar amongst London’s brotherhood of cabbies. Private prosecutions have been launched, strikes called and the transport authority has been inundated with a...

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...