Classical Mag

  Britain’s recovery is picking up steam, but its engine is weak   THE crisis that started in the dodgy mortgage markets of California, Florida and Nevada did more harm to Britain than to America. Britain had the first bank failure, and it had the biggest one. In just 18 months between 2008 and 2009 GDP dropped by 7.2%, more than it had in the 1930s. As unemployment rose, benefits kicked in and the budget deficit swelled: by 2010 Britain had the largest of any G20 nation. Given this list of woes, the fact that Britain is now outstripping all its rich-world peers seems suspicious. But it is true. The headline figure—GDP growth—looks great. At an annualized rate of 3.2% British growth is higher than in any other G7 country (see chart). The number of people working in Britain is, at close to 30m, the largest ever. Income-tax receipts have risen, helping the exchequer. And outgoings are falling as the number claiming job seeker allowance, the main out...

China’s new air-deference zone suggests a worrying new approach in the region HE announcement by a Chinese military spokesman on November 23rd sounded bureaucratic: any aircraft flying through the newly designated Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea must notify Chinese authorities in advance and follow instructions from its air-traffic controllers. America’s response was rapid. On November 26th Barack Obama sent two B-52 bombers to fly through the new zone without notifying China (see article). This face-off marks the most worrying strategic escalation between the two countries since 1996, when China’s then president, Jiang Zemin, ordered a number of exclusion zones for missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, leading America to send two aircraft-carriers there. Plenty of countries establish zones in which they require aircraft to identify themselves, but they tend not to be over other countries’ territory. The Chinese ADIZ over...

In today Pakistan we are facing many problems. Like energy problems, terrorism, drones attacks, unemployment and inflation. These are main problems of today Pakistan. First of all I am talking about energy crises An energy crisis is any great shortfall (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy. It usually refers to the shortage of oil and additionally to electricity or other natural resources. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27 has brought light to the major issues that are confronting Pakistan today. “The country may face energy crisis by the year 2007 following healthy growth of 13 per cent in electricity demand during the last quarter, which will erode surplus production in absence of commissioning of any new power generation project during this financial year,” informed sources told The Nation. The report maintained that the difference between firm supply and peak demand is estimated at 5,529 MW by the year 2009-10 when firm ele...

(Reuters) - China's economy grew at its quickest pace this year between July and September in a rebound fuelled largely by investment, although signs are already emerging that the pickup in activity may lose some vigor. Gross domestic product in the world's second-biggest economy rose 7.8 percent from a year earlier, official data showed, marking only the second quarter in the last 10 in which growth has accelerated. An unexpected fall in exports in September, and easing growth in factory output and retail sales suggested the economy was already slowing down at the end of the quarter. Authorities are also expected to cool credit growth as inflation pushes to a seven-month high, another factor analysts say will drag on economic activity. "The growth peak was behind us in the third quarter," said Ting Lu, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. "We believe the People's Bank of China will slightly shift its monetary policy from a mode...

The forward march of globalisation has paused since the financial crisis, giving way to a more conditional, interventionist and nationalist model. Greg Ip examines the consequences.   FIVE YEARS AGO George W. Bush gathered the leaders of the largest rich and developing countries in Washington for the first summit of the G20. In the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the leaders promised not to repeat that era’s descent into economic isolationism, proclaiming their commitment to an open global economy and the rejection of protectionism. They succeeded only in part. Although they did not retreat into the extreme protectionism of the 1930s, the world economy has certainly become less open. After two decades in which people, capital and goods were moving ever more freely across borders, walls have been going up, albeit ones with gates. Governments increasingly pick and choose whom they trade with, what sort of capital they welcome and how...

THE European Union is supposedly always enhancing its “four freedoms”: the untrammelled movement of goods, people, services and capital. For European motorists, however, life is becoming ever more oppressive. As it is, seven EU countries, along with Switzerland, levy “vignettes”, fees to use roads for a particular period that tend to favour local drivers over foreign ones. In April Britain will start charging foreign lorries up to £10 ($16) a day to use its roads. Belgium and Latvia are considering similar levies. In Germany the leader of one party in talks on the formation of a coalition government says it will not join unless Bavaria is allowed to adopt higher tolls for foreign cars and lorries. In this section Charging foreigners more tax than locals falls foul of EU rules. To get round them, most of these schemes involve taxing all cars or lorries, but in effect refunding domestic drivers by reducing vehicle taxes. The trick with vignettes...

DEADLINES are a mixed blessing. A ticking clock can focus minds, but it may also leave too little time to resolve hard choices. Either outcome is possible as negotiations on several big trade deals reach their final weeks. The good news is that there is lots of activity. In February America announced plans for an ambitious Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Europe. Its name is an echo of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a planned tie-up among Pacific-rim economies that grew in importance when Japan joined the talks in March. More encouraging still was the revival of the Doha round of multilateral trade talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These had collapsed in 2008 but resumed last year with an eye towards completion of a deal this year. In this section The bad news is that many of these negotiations have hit rough patches. That is partly a function of deadlines: both TPP and Doha are due to conclude ne...

Typhoon Haiyan swept through the central Philippines , leaving a trail of destruction that affected as many as 11m people. At least 2,300 people are known to have died; the eventual toll will be far higher. A senior politician said the government had been overwhelmed by the storm, one of the most powerful ever recorded, with winds of up to 315km an hour (196mph). Aid agencies struggled to reach remote areas. Nasiruddin Haqqani, one of the most senior leaders of a militant Pakistani network with links to the Taliban , was shot dead near Islamabad. He was the group’s fundraiser and the son of its founder. He was also on the American list of global terrorists. It is not known who killed him. In this section   Chinas leaders issued a communiqué outlining reforms after a meeting in Beijing of the 370 most senior Communist Party leaders. The document promised to let the market play a bigger role in the Chinese economy. It also announce...

: A damaged street in Uras, central Sardinia, after Cyclone Cleopatra hit.  A state of emergency has been declared after at least 18 people were killed by a cyclone on the Italian island of Sardinia. The north of Sardinia took the brunt of Cyclone Cleopatra, with 450 millimetres of rain falling in 90 minutes. In the worst storm in decades, rivers burst their banks, cars were swept away and bridges collapsed in the towns of Olbia and near Nuoro. Among the dead is a family of four who were in their ground floor apartment when the flood waters came through. A police officer died when a bridge collapsed as he was escorting an ambulance over it. A number of people are still unaccounted for, while hundreds have been forced from their homes. The Red Cross has set up temporary accommodation in sports halls and other centres. "This is a national tragedy," prime minister Enrico Letta said. The declaration of a state of emergency will allow resourc...

Capitalists, not just greens, are now questioning how significant the benefits of shale gas and oil will be for America. N A new book, “The Frackers”, Gregory Zuckerman says of the late George Mitchell, a pioneer of the technique of hydraulic fracturing to tap “unconventional” reserves of oil and gas, that “his impact eventually might even approach that of Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell.” Yet of late doubters have been making themselves heard too. In October Peter Voser said that one of his biggest regrets as boss of Shell is the $24 billion his firm has invested in North America’s shale beds. This summer, the firm took a big writedown on this investment and slashed its production targets. Also last month BHP Billiton, which spent around $20 billion in 2011 in a bet on shale, said it would auction half of its oil and gas acreage in Texas and New Mexico. It is not just the biggest energy companies that have turned sceptical on shale. More than a dozen chief execut...

If Switzerland is getting sick of fat-cat bankers, maybe a revolution really is brewing. The tiny Alpine nation, long known as a haven for the rich, may soon enact a new law that would put strict limits on executive pay, with Swiss voters set to decide the fate of a “fair pay” initiative that would cap CEO salary at 12 times what the lowest-paid worker in a company earns. So if a company employs somebody earning a minimum wage of $10 an hour, the CEO’s salary would top out at around $250,000. For most of today’s big-company CEOs, that’s barely tip money. About 36% of Swiss voters approve of the idea, while 54% oppose it, according to The Wall Street Journal . That means it might take a late rally by backers of the proposal before the Nov. 24 vote to put it over the top. Still, exorbitant CEO pay has become a hot topic virtually everywhere. In the United States, CEOs earn about 354 times the average worker’s pay, according to the AFL-CIO . That’s up from a 201-to-1 ra...

THAT America’s department of justice has dropped its opposition to the merger of American Airlines and US Airways will come as a profound relief not just for the two carriers, but to an industry craving stability after years of turbulence. For nearly two decades airlines in America have been racking up big losses, going bust or briefly making profits that then brought accusations of gouging consumers on busy routes. Meanwhile powerful low-cost carriers led by Southwest Airlines have been transforming the industry and eroding the competitive position of the established carriers. Although the start-ups operate only simple point-to-point services, the sheer proliferation of such flights provides a shadow network that challenges the expensive (if convenient, for the traveller) hub-and-spoke services pioneered by American Airlines 35 years ago. The DoJ’s opposition to a merger that would have sealed a process of painful consolidation came as a thunderbolt in mid-August. After all, h...