Author Archives: pro.manchester CEO

Sunday Times and Croissants – CEO’s weekly update 9th October

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John Ashcroft

Watching the Osborne speech, at times the Chancellor appeared to stare at the auto cue with a fair degree of incredulity. Such is the danger of auto cue when ideas can be added at the last minute, even the Chancellor appeared bemused by some of the material. This must have been the case with the idea of credit easing. This is a new idea which no one, including the Chancellor, knows anything about. The project appears to suggest SMEs will issue long term bonds with a low coupon, packaged into a series of CDOs, AAA rated by Standard and Poors, bought by the Treasury, sold to the Bank of England and placed off balance sheet in a structured investment vehicle backed by a RMBS (Rumours of Monetary Backing Somewhere) then written off over thirty years.
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Sunday Times and Croissants – CEO’s update 2nd October

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John Ashcroft

The Labour attacks on government policy were so thin that Andrew Tyrie, the formidable Chairman of the Treasury Select committee decided to help out. Tyrie is unimpressed by the Big Society and the lack of a growth strategy, suggesting economic policy is inconsistent, incoherent, contradictory and at times irrelevant. Who would have thought? Tyrie has a point, why spend billions on a Libyan adventure and then try to save millions making 1000 sailors redundant?
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Regeneration is more than a phase – The Times Business Insight today

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John Ashcroft

At present businesses and economies in Manchester and the North West are having to react and adapt to a economic outlook which offers low growth and a higher level of inflation. One in which incomes are squeezed by higher food, energy and utility prices putting real incomes under pressure for the foreseeable future.
A government policy aimed at rebalancing the economy involving the march of the makers, rebuilding the workshop of the world is a novel trope. The desire to rebalance the economy and an external deficit which has been out of synch since The Treaty of Versailles and beyond, is misplaced.
A monetary policy, which undermines the exchange rate, leads to a depreciation of Sterling and generates price inflation compounds the problem, more QE will compound the problem. The private sector has to accept the challenge, of policy priorities misplaced.
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Sunday Times and Croissants – CEO’s update 25th September

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Sunday Times and Croissants – CEO’s update 25th September

According to Vince Cable, the world is in a difficult place. Plans are afoot to relocate to another part of the Galaxy, where the gravitational pull of sovereign debt on growth is much lower. The head of the World Bank warned the world is in a dangerous zone thus ruling out relocation within the Milky Way as a short term solution. The IMF World Economic Outlook produced a down grade for growth in the world and the UK. The elegant Christine Lagarde gets the terminology right suggesting the world is in a difficult phase. Here but not forever.
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