Sean O'Grady

Profile: Full name: Sean O'Grady Area of interest: Economics, Finance, Private investment, Motoring Journals/Organisation: The Independent | The Independent on Sunday Email: s.o'grady@independent.co.uk Personal website: Website: Blog: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/author/seanogrady Representation: Networks:

Biography: About: Education: Career: Worked for: the BBC; the NatWest Group; Shell; was press secretary to Paddy Ashdown (when Lib-Dem leader); joined The Independent: in charge of the Motoring and Save & Spend sections, Economics editor Current position/role: The Independent: Economics editor; also writes motoring reviews also writes/has written for: Other roles/Main role: A former advisor to Paddy Ashdown Other activities: Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Broadcast media: Video: Controversy/Criticism: Medialens: Forbidden Links: Media, Advertising, Corporate Power And Climate Chaos (Criticism by media-watch project over stance on SUV's and the environment.) Awards/Honours: Scoops: Other:

Books & Debate: Latest work: Speaking/Appearances: Debate:

The Independent: Column name: Remit/Info: Economics, Finance Section: Business, Comment Role: Economics editor Pen-name: Email: s.o'grady@independent.co.uk Website: Independent: Sean O'Grady Commissioning editor: Day published: Varies Regularity: Varies Column format: Average length: see also: Econoblog

Articles: 2013 Keynes might have had time for the George Osborne plan - The target of Niall Ferguson's attack has also been traduced by economic convervatives - 6th May Reinhart and Rogoff vs Herndon: the austerity maths doesn’t add up – but the theory does - It is impossible to tax your way out of a chronic level of debt run up by a government. There does come a point when taxing and borrowing no longer yields the results governments seek - 23rd April How I wish I had got a piece of the Mongolian economic miracle - The country's economy is heading to be the world’s fastest-growing this year - 3rd April We might try to shop the pain away, but far better to face it and save - Saving's sheer dullness can stop people taking care of their money - 1st March

Articles: 2012 When a ‘sacred’ text is not so much the word of God as the word of man - Christians accept the reinterpretation of Jesus in a way that Muslims can’t with Mohamed - 22nd September Logic points inexorably towards political union - José Manuel Barroso is hardly the first European Commission President to call for a federation of..... - 13th September The German authorities seem to favour management by crisis - My understanding is that, even now, there is as yet no final, definitive policy that has been developed in Frankfurt or Berlin - 3rd August Life will be longer but poorer - We don't produce enough to pay for public services - 13th July

Articles: 2011 What kind of nation can't maintain its own roads? - The benefits of an efficient, fast road system accrue hugely to society as a whole - 20th March Instability will keep gold on a high, for now - Economic Studies: To all intents and purposes, gold is at an all-time high in its nominal price – now in excess of $1,900 an ounce in trading – and in real terms - 24th August Only right kind of jobs will avert a new lost generation - It is impossible to think about the latest depressing figures on youth unemployment without remembering the riots - 18th August Only a fool would call this a recovery - Economic Studies: It is a bad habit of economic journalism to focus hard on whether a given figure is marginally positive or marginally negative - 17th August A short-selling ban is short-sighted and could do more harm than good - Economic View: 'When I find a short-seller, I want to tear his heart out and eat it before his eyes while he's still alive." So said Dick "the Gorilla" Fuld, former boss of Lehman Brothers, before its downfall - 14th August Britain may not be as safeas you think, Mr Osborne - There is another danger closer to home, unacknowledged by the Chancellor; slow growth - 12th August Obama shouldn't have shot the messenger - Economic Studies: No matter what some agency may say," President Obama declared on Monday, "we've always been and always will be a triple-A country." Right and wrong, Mr President - 10th August If the US can't bail out the world, then who do we turn to? Mars? - So here we are. The debt endgame. The reckoning. The pain postponed is about be endured - 7th August Changes to top-rate tax are symbolic, not seismic - Purely in terms of the effects on government revenues and borrowings, moving the 50p rate to 45p in the pound will make little difference in the great scheme of things - 5th August Once again, the lessons of Keynes are being ignored - After a brief but spirited revival, John Maynard Keynes has been put back in his box. A panicked world re-discovered the merit of the master's teachings when a re-run of the Great Depression loomed in the autumn of 2008 - 2nd August Any reduction in America's credit rating will affect every person on the planet - Pretty much every bank, national treasury, pension fund, insurer and mutual investment fund in the world has got some money tied up in United States Treasury bonds - 1st August What to do with our 14-year-olds - When Digby Jones says that disruptive 14-year-olds should be allowed to quit school and "go out and earn a few bob", he ought to know that this is not really what they want - 27th July The rescue package was so warmly received because no one understood it - The UK's unfamiliar experiment with coalition government is delivering better results than the three great economic blocs - 25th July This deal ties Europe ever more closely – and leaves us on the margins - Analysis: The European project is much like riding a bicycle; the rider either pedals forward or falls over. The current sovereign debt crisis is forcing the pace of political integration in a way few thought possible - 23rd July For long-term gain, the EU will have to share the pain - So: will it work? Short term, it offers reassurance on three fronts - 22nd July The NHS is a religion and we'll all have to pay 'church tithes' to support its existence - Economic Outlook: Immigrants tend to be younger than the indigenous population, and that helps the demographics, crucial for fiscal health - 18th July Best way out is for the eurozone nations to pay up - It was Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, who put it best. The sovereign debt crises affecting so many of the eurozone nations are not of liquidity but of solvency - 13th July Ageing Italians on the slow train to ruin - Il miracolo economico of the 1960s was possible because a vast reservoir of underemployed agricultural workers could be lured into the cities - 12th July First ladies are America's royals - Jackie Kennedy was the most regal, sometimes eclipsing the famous dynasty she married into - 11th July Migrants can put the Great back in Britain - Ending immigration has never eliminated benefit fraud - 4th July The more people come to the UK, the better it is for us all - You may wonder what the latest population data might have to do with the wave of public strikes over pensions yesterday. The answer is: demographics - 1st July It wasn't like this when Michael Gove was on the picket line - I once stood on a picket line with Michael Gove. About 20 years ago we were working at the BBC - 29th June How to make the euro work - In the medium term, the best option would be for all the eurozone nations to hold themselves liable for each other's debts - 27th June IMF had no option in rush to prevent a horror show - The Greeks have everyone over a barrel, as the ECB, the French and the Italians see clearer than most - 17th June Riot all you want: the economic facts remain the same - The protesters in Athens can riot all they want, but they cannot alter the fundamental economic fact of their country – it is busted, mainly because it has been consuming more than it produces for many years - 16th June A choice between being run over by a lorry or a train - Analysis: The economists who object to George Osborne's policy are right and wrong. One reason for the financial crisis was that we saved too little to sustain investment and consumption at the levels we enjoyed. So we borrowed too much as a result - 6th June Southern Cross won't be the last private 'partner' to hit the rocks - As with the banks, so with care homes: some private enterprises are just too important to fail. Gordon Brown had to promise bank depositors their money was safe; now David Cameron has to make a similar promise to the residents of Southern Cross - 2nd June This generation has to learn that there's no God-given right to a home - The banking system is in no fit state to resume the borrowing binge seen in the bubble years - 31st May Not a job for Europe's rock star - The IMF used to be an organisation in which the rich economies of the West bailed out the distressed economies of the emerging world. Now the position is precisely reversed - 20th May A charismatic intellectual who is no stranger to scandal - Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be a loss. The world recovery is fragile, its financial system still weak, and debt is a problem almost everywhere - 16th May Split with Scotland would make for a messy divorce - Economic Outlook: The debt-to-GDP ratio of an independent Scotland might prove so large as to sink it financially before it was even born - 9th May Easter tips for bubble watchers: Ten signs of an impending bust - Economic View: Where will the next crash emerge from? I don't know, but I do know the past few years have challenged the efficient markets nostrum that you can never know a bubble until it bursts. Actually you can - 24th April America needs to get real before it is humiliated at the hands of the market - Economic Life: Debt is a hot topic on the US news channels but there is no sober expert taking you through how the US came to be where it is and what its options are - 22nd April Starvation isn't the fault of food traders - Economic Studies: is food speculation really bad? We did not, for example, thank the traders for cutting the cost of food and other commodities in 2009 - 20th April Delaying doomsday in Athens may help to stave off economic apocalypse - Analysis: The intelligent gossip in the markets is that Greek bond holders might face a "haircut" of 50 per cent - 19th April NHS pledge distorts the Coalition's spending choices - Economic Outlook: Had the Coalition listened to Mr Cable's initial advice, the pain in other areas might now be a little less acute - 18th April The all-too-real chance of an economic nightmare - As a collection of horror stories, the IMF's Global Financial Stability Report is right up there with the best of Edgar Alan Poe or Stephen King. Except, of course, that the IMF's tales have rather more chance of turning into terrifying reality - 14th April Unalloyed good news for us and for the Chancellor - For a long time now, no advance "insider" knowledge has been necessary to guess what was happening to British inflation; it would usually be a lot higher than anyone expected - 13th April Political risk is everywhere as the European debt crisis continues - The ECB's interest rate rise yesterday was badly timed and probably triggered Portugal's capitulation - 8th April If Spain fails, it will be too expensive to save - As the fourth largest economy in the eurozone a potential Spanish bailout has so far been too horrible for Europe's leaders to contemplate - 7th April Is Britain really going to have to pay for the bailout? - The UK will indeed be liable for about £3bn in loan assistance to Portugal if she is bailed out – but there is confusion over why - 26th March For Britain a one speed recovery beckons – slow - It may well have been called the 'growth budget' but it contained some highly disappointing indicators - 24th March Also-ran has so far confounded all his critics - Only a short but eventful year ago, George Osborne was no one's idea of a chancellor. He routinely trailed Vince Cable and Alistair Darling in polls of the City, the public and business for competence - 23rd March Time to get real about our crazy taxation system - Our graphic of the UK's chaotic system of taxation illustrates precisely what is wrong with it – it is erratic, irrational and unfair - 17th March For now this is a natural disaster. If it becomes nuclear, the economic fallout will affect us all - Serious nuclear contamination might make the Japanese – already inclined to save rather than spend – more fearful - 16th March In this together – but Mr Osborne should put women and children first - You can call it a patriarchal offensive if you wish; I would say it was an unfortunate accident of the way the economy happens to be structured - 14th March Austerity means different things to different folk - Public sector unions are on their own if they want to fight the Hutton reforms. The reponse by Labour's shadow treasury minister Angela Eagle was thunderous in its ambiguity - 11th March Consuming Issues: Stop moaning about your bank - just go somewhere else - Capitalism is an undemocratic system. Unlike democracy, some have more "votes" than others, because they own more shares in an institution, or because they have more to spend on certain things in certain places - 27th February Markets get jitters as oil price heads for the sky - Fears that the unrest in North Africa and the Middle East could seriously disrupt oil supplies and throttle the world economy turned to reality yesterday and propelled the price of oil to more than $108 a barrel - 23rd February See: Concerns over oil supply cause spike in prices as uprising hits exports If the jobs aren't there, the stick won't work - There is a big lie at the heart of the Government's welfare-to-work plan: that the reason people are unemployed and on benefits is because they prefer to be – what the Chancellor calls a "lifestyle choice" - 18th February Yet another squeeze on households will be felt across the whole economy - The truth is, we don't need the Office for National Statistics, the Bank of England or anyone else to tell us inflation is high – we feel it every time we fill up the car, do the weekly shop or buy a season ticket - 16th February I'm sorry Sir, but the dog ate my quarterly inflation and GDP forecasts - Mr King has been very unfortunate indeed; it's just hard to believe that anyone could bequite so unlucky - 14th February Osborne's plan arrives too late for economy - The most damning indictment of Project Merlin – the Government's deal with the banks that green-lights big bonuses in return for promises of more lending to businesses – is not so much that it is too little, but that it is too late - 11th February Osborne's City 'friends' may be in for a shock - George Osborne is not a stupid man, though often underestimated. He and Vince Cable know that nothing would be more damaging to the Coalition parties than a public perception, lovingly nourished by Ed Balls, that they are "The Bankers' Friends" - 9th February Egypt's troubles look likely to give us all a new 'oil shock' - Analysis: In many ways events in Egypt are reminiscent of the Iranian revolution of 1979 - 31st January The real pain of the financial crisis is only just beginning - Well, what would you do if you were George Osborne? What would you do if you were Mervyn King? For both men, the dilemmas are exquisitely difficult - 26th January Why is all our fury directed at Bob Diamond and the 'fat cat' bankers? - If we want to have a fair society we must face up to human nature and treat all rich the same - 14th January Inflation isn't as bad as it feels, but it will be painful, all the same - At the risk of sounding like a Mervyn King stooge, you just can't make policy like that. A war in Korea would push up inflation. So would a scrap over Iran - 10th January

Articles: 2010 What's that coming over the hill? - Inflation, and lots of it. We know about Vat going up to 20 per cent on 4 January, but it's what's going to come after that should really worry us, for a depressed economy is no barrier to rising prices, as we will shortly see - 29th December The good news and the bad news after Britain's very old-fashioned slump - It doesn't take much imagination to see how higher rates would now be crucifying mortgage holders if we were suffering from a Greek-style crisis - 13th December Population rise gives India the edge over one-child China - Economic View - 12th December The truth is that Mervyn King is the leader of the Bank of England Party - Economic Life: The Governor did cross an important line in May. If he agrees with the Coalition, as he has said, then he necessarily disagrees with Labour - 10th December PFI firms should give money back - It is one thing to be fleeced by a bank; quite another to be fleeced by a bank you actually own - 9th December With the rescue Eire's troubles really begin - The trouble with being rescued, as the Irish may discover, is that the people from the European Union or the International Monetary Fund who fly in to run your economy have no more a monopoly on wisdom than the "Useless gobshites" who have recently been relieved of that duty - 8th December Don't be fooled – the federalist agenda in Europe is still being slowly accomplished - Economic View - 5th December Economy won't win even if football does come home - Would hosting the 2018 World Cup be in the national interest? It is hard to be definitive, but talk of a boost to the economy should be taken with a pinch of salt - 2nd December If Portugal is small enough to rescue, Spain may be "too big to save" - Spain's small regional banks, the cajas, are virtually bust as a result of reckless lending into the now-collapsed property market - 22nd November A bailout is on the way, if the markets are to be believed - When it comes to bewildering financial crises it is usually best to start with the crisp wisdom of Nouriel Roubini, the man who called the credit crunch right - 18th November Higher tuition fees will be paid for in lower house prices - Outlook: Cutting back 'reckless' lending means those without a thriving Bank of Mum 'n' Dadwon't have access to the property market's leveraged returns - 7th November Crisp new fivers are on the way – but that's the least of our problems - Economic Life: Things must be getting back to normal if the Governor of the Bank of England has returned to where he was rudely interrupted in 2007 - 29th October Where is this promised land where anyone can find a job? - There is a pernicious – and frankly fairly insulting – assumption that lies at the heart of much government thinking. It is, as Iain Duncan Smith put it on Thursday night, that "the jobs are out there" - 23rd October He may have gained the confidence of global investors, but he's shredded it at home - Sometimes a politician only has to open their mouth for confidence to drain from an economy - 21st October Bonfire of quangos? More of a damp squib - These cuts may cost more than they save - and could leave lucrative opportunities for beady-eyed City types - 15th October Where is Gordon Brown, just when we need him again? - What happens if everyone deflates at the same time? You don't have to be Keynes to work it out, though it was he who first offered the world the revolutionary intellectual insight - 7th October Joblessness, the crucial factor in the welfare equation Osborne has ignored - Analysis: Some 800,000 more Britons are out of work because of the recession, not because being on the dole is so cushy - 5th October This is not Paris 1968, and it is probably self-defeating - Just as Ed Miliband tells his party to set its face against "waves of irresponsible strikes" to resist the cuts, the Europeans show the British how it's done - 30th September If corporates ship out, burden falls on families and small firms - The truth about corporation tax is that someone, somewhere will undercut you - 28th September My tangles with HMRC's culture of bullying and fear - A polite, rather sterile word for the way that HM Revenue and Customs interacts with the general public would be "asymmetric" Shoot out at Jackson Hole - the world's central bankers take aim at deflation - Economic Life: Nouriel Roubini, sage of our time, wants more concerted action for fear of something much worse. He says the US faces a revival that is sub-par for many years - 27th August Mervyn to TUC: I'm on your side. Sort of - Like a comic at the Glasgow Empire performing after both Rangers and Celtic had lost at home, the Governor of the Bank of England will be lucky to escape a hostile reception when he faces the Trades Union Congress in Manchester next month - 25th August There are alternative policies, but Labour hasn't yet discovered them - Older readers may recall Tina – "There Is No Alternative". Many books have been written about the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s, but none sums up The Iron Lady's approach better than that little gem of a soundbite. which summed up the "tough-but-unavoidable" message - 22nd August (IoS) Double trouble: The banks don't want to lend and we don't want to borrow - Economic Life: Confidence, that hot-house flower, has wilted under the frosts and harsh winds of successive economic crises - 20th August China's growth has shaky foundations - Sino-scepticism is something of a minority interest, less fashionable than Euro-scepticism, but the case for it is strong - 18th August Confidence has slumped but 'double dip' is not in the Bank's vocabulary - Outlook: Why is the Bank of England so chirpy? - 16th August The car makers show us how to speed out of a slump - Economic view: Blessed be the car makers, for they shall inherit the earth - 15th August Slowflation' – the combination the Bank of England fears most - Growth will be slow but prices will be higher thanks to commodity prices rising and the depreciation of the pound - 10th August Wrong inflation forecasts and mixed messages can lead to dizzying confusion - Outlook: This week, the Bank of England will present its latest Inflation Report to the world - 9th August A Government of straight, white, privately educated men - If Britain looked like its government, about four million adults would have gone to Eton, there would be no black people, and for every one woman there would be six men - 7th August Who's in charge in a crisis? It is now very much Mervyn, but it should be George - Outlook: It may – or may not, looking at recent events across the Channel – be too early to ask the question: "Who's in charge in a financial crisis?" But the Treasury's latest proposals on banking regulation do not in any event answer it very satisfactorily - 2nd August Celebrating the boom? Me neither - The brutal truth is that we won’t get back to normal levels of output until about 2012, maybe later. Your living standards will take equally long to get back to normal - 24th July This seems like good news – but the cuts will soon bite - It will be a miracle if employers suddenly decide, as the Chancellor claims, that Britain is 'open for business' - 15th July Economic crisis has created unlikely alliances for Cameron - These must be heady days for Conservatives, and especially for David Cameron. Not so long ago the easy prediction was that a Tory election victory would mean a new cold war between Downing Street and Brussels - 26th June If Greece was Northern Rock, Spain is Lehman Brothers - Unlike the football result, Spain's financial fiasco was entirely predictable - 17th June Franco-German entente over the euro is not so cordiale - What is the difference between "economic government" and "economic governance"? Though technical, it lies at the heart of the rift between the German and French governments - 15th June They think Africa's dark age is all over... but is it? - China and India have escaped from their history with spectacular results and Africa could do the same - 11th June In Chancellor's 'Axe Factor', which cut will you vote for? - What would you rather see closed – your local library or the swimming pool? - 9th June America has become a hostage of its own quest for energy security - America faces a problem, a dilemma so fundamental that not even the political skills of Barack Obama can disguise it, heightened by, but not originating in the BP affair So who's going to take the blame for triggering a second credit crunch? - This looming funding gap is a hulking great iceberg that ought to be worrying ministers and the rest of us as much as it worries the bankers - 7th June The diplomatic temperature rises, but the people stay cool - As you drive along one of the 12-lane freeways out of Seoul, a capital city uncomfortably close to the border with the North and a million-man army led by a lunatic who has pledged to destroy it, there is little sign of war-fever - 27th May If you get all the bad news out at once, the only way left to go will be up. Or will it? - Alastair Campbell, who understood such matters better than most, said that all governments need a "narrative" – a simple, straightforward way of saying what they are about - 18th May Pragmatism will hold Osborne and Cable together - For months and years the coalitionists will face the wrath of disillusioned voters - 13th May Brown out. PR back on the table. Has Clegg snatched victory from the jaws of defeat? - The last time the Liberal party joined the Tories in a coalition the party split three ways - 11th May Soon there will be nowhere left for the losses to go - The echoes of 2007 and 2008 are striking, and terrifying. Instead of worthless mortgage-backed securities backed by sub-prime mortgages, we now have worthless Greek government securities backed by a sub-prime economy - 7th May If only our banks would back some risky ventures... - Tighter regulation of the banks would mean lower economic growth. A financial system that was rendered purely "utility" – like an old-fashioned building society – would mean fewer dragons in the den for start-ups to turn to - 5th May Greece is a problem – but Spain could destroy the euro - Like a bacillus coursing its way through a weakened body, the Greek debt crisis is infecting the eurozone, and spreading though a variety of channels - 30th April All the candidates were economical with the truth - Judged by the brutal test of whether they made their numbers add up, all the leaders failed badly - 30th April Three-party politics is here to stay - Tories could usefully stop claiming that a hung parliament - already priced in by the markets - or a proportional voting system would lead to a sterling crisis - 23rd April Comparisons with 1976 do not stand up to scrutiny - There was a television dramatisation of the crucial cabinet meeting; someone wrote a book about it called Bye Bye Great Britain; and it was a trauma that even now sends aftershocks though the body politic - 21st April Bailout or not, the Greek crisis will last until her economy is fixed - Economic Life: There is nothing to stop a state in a single currency zone from defaulting. Look at New York City in 1975 - 9th April So much for the fabled 'big choice' - We could easily have a 1930s-style National Government to overcome the crisis - 7th April Get ready for Vince in Number 11 - A Lib-Lab coalition has the air of inevitability about it - 2nd April It's a lot of money for overseeing library fines and speeding tickets - Why are chief executives of local councils paid so much? According to their own propaganda, it is because they compete with, and are comparable to, bosses of large private companies - 1st April Mr Darling got away with it but the pain has been postponed – again - Mr Darling disclosed limited information about where the new cuts would be found - 25th March It was a Budget for the many, but even they won't prosper - The financial crisis means Britain will be a grimier, meaner, nastier place to live - 25th March Just the beginning of the car's evolution - The name Leaf puts me in mind of a famous quotation of Chairman Mao's: "Let a thousand flowers bloom." This, it is fair to say, is what is happening in the motoring world now. Alternative – and practical – technologies are blossoming, and they are mostly greener than we have ever seen before - 19th March Where will the pain be felt? Nobody wants to say - Though the angry political exchanges may disguise it, the Government is already embarked on one of the tightest fiscal squeezes among the advanced economies, or in British history - 17th March How to set up a European Monetary Fund and avoid a sequel to Greece - The EMF should be encouraged to lean on surplus nations to reflate as often as it urges deficit countries to deflate - 15th March Expect few surprises and plenty of caution - Apart from the date, Gordon Brown gave little away about the Budget or any longer-term plans to tackle the budget deficit - 11th March Could a European Monetary Fund work? - 10th March He has one last chance to preserve his legacy - Alistair Darling has a claim to be the most unlucky Chancellor of the Exchequer since the Second World War. He moved into Number 11 just before the credit crunch and will leave office, in all likelihood, before the slump has properly ended - 25th February What would happen if the country really went bust? - A British sovereign debt crisis would make sub-prime look like a tea party - 23rd February Trouble on the streets – and in the markets - We're in this together, you might say. While all the talk has been about fixing the national public finances – with so far no real consensus on how this is to be done – local government, as ever, will find itself under even more pressure -19th February So where on earth have all the proper jobs gone? - We are witnessing the slow death of the full-time job -18th February Meet Motorway Man, the decisive voter in Election 2010 - He is in his thirties. He drives. He voted Labour in 1997, and has a small family -18th February So does this mean interest rates are about to go up? - British inflation always seems to end up higher for longer than anyone thinks - 17th February Europe's economy stumbles - First the Greek crisis, and now the eurozone recovery is faltering - 13th February The mess the Pigs are in will affect us all - In the eurozone, contagion spreads instantaneously among economies - 8th February Mervyn King didn't quite get the temperature right - Have you ever, like I have, had trouble using the shower controls in a strange hotel? - 5th February This time the jokes are on Toyota - Reliability is the main selling point – perhaps the only one – of its colossally dull cars - 5th February Curried rye bread, African scarves and the 'magic of Davos' - 28th January (Davos) There is little to celebrate in these latest feeble figures - Where's Plan B? The UK's abysmal economic performance is reminiscent of the 1970s, when we were last the undisputed sick man of Europe: Hardly a moment to break out the Bollinger - 27th January 2010

Articles: 2009 Review of the Year 2009: Economics - Recession, but no Depression - 23rd December The master of the dismal science – with equations - Economics students must age themselves in 'Samuelson years - 15th December Shadow of the IMF looms over Darling - To recall a political campaign song rarely heard these days, can things only get better? - 10th December Sarkozy can celebrate as France wins in Europe - The British have only themselves to blame for this poor deal - 3rd December Who'll be the next victim? Take your pick - Dubai is not the first state, and will not be the last, that finds itself in difficulties in this financial crisis - 28th November The banks are in the right - Maybe, just maybe, we have now reached the natural limits of the crass, facile consumerism that kicked off the 1970s with Esther Rantzen, heaven help us, as its vicar on Earth - 26th November A neat sidestep of an age-old dilemma, but only if Labour lose - At first sight, Nick Clegg has devised a neat way of avoiding the tricky question that has trapped Liberal leaders from Asquith to Ashdown – "whom do you prefer?" – by simply bouncing the question back to the electorate - 23rd November The worst is yet to come - There are three powerful reasons why the financial pain is far from over - 12th November Economy's house of horrors has frightened the Bank - Spooked. Though the Bank of England and its Governor, Mervyn King, would never use such indelicate language, it was not just the Hallowe'en experience that has them quaking. The Bank is spooked – shocked might be a better word – by the economy's continuing weakness - 6th November (See: The Big Question: Is quantitative easing creating more problems than it is solving? Why governments care so much about saving their car firms - What's so special about the car companies? Why save them? - 6th November These ladybirds are bugging me - This is one of the moral dilemmas unleashed by climate change - 5th November (Comment) We'll be paying for this for decades to come - Forget, if you're not already inclined to do so, the dizzying merry-go-round of billions of pounds circulating between the government and the banks they own. It is bad news – the equivalent of the schools budget being ploughed into keeping the financial system afloat (again) - 4th November Bank sell-offs aren't a great move, but they are a good one NEW - Forget, if you're not inclined to do so, the merry go round of billions of pounds circulating between the government and the banks they own - 3rd November Will the euroland centre hold? - We Europeans have far less in common than we might think. It has taken the crisis to show us this - 2nd November Big banks cannot fail because a depression would result – and they know it - We have become mesmerised by the City and the contribution it makes to the economy - 21st October Forget the numbers. Think of the grannies - "The cheque's in the post" will soon be a more legitimate excuse - 14th October Why mass immunisation is essential - Whatever the cost to the taxpayer of immunising people against swine flu turns out be, it will almost certainly be money well spent if it helps slow the spread of the disease and minimises the gigantic damage to the economy it is likely to inflict in terms of days off sick and lost output - 7th October China will overtake America, the only question is when - Few things would be more powerfully symbolic of the shift in the balance of global economic power than to have oil traded in the Chinese renminbi rather than the American dollar - 6th October Peanuts: the true value of Brown's economic pledge - What are the economic consequences of Mr Brown's speech? They're pretty minimal, and not just because few expect him to be Prime Minister for long - 30th September No winners in the global blame game - Who do you blame for the economic crisis: the bankers, or the Chinese? - 26th September Economy shows signs of new life - Germany has been on a rollercoaster ride. Despite the fact that she was conspicuous by her absence from the Anglo-Saxon credit party, Germany's recession has been the sharpest among all the major advanced economies, with the exception of Japan - 18th September It would never have happened in France - It is very difficult to suppress a suspicion of betrayal when you examine what happened to MG Rover - 12th September A few anoraks shouldn't keep us up all night - The nostalgia for the all-night election show is overdone. Before the 1970s it was normal for many constituency results, especially rural ones, to be counted and declared the next day - 11th September In the alphabet soup that is world economics, the skewed W is my bet - Well, which is it to be: a W or a V? Economists seem to enjoy this parlour game, and you'd be surprised at how inventive they can be when describing the likely trajectory of the economy in figurative terms. The "V" school obviously think we're in for a rapid recovery, though I'm not sure what they think will happen next - 6th September It may be time to thank the G20 for getting us out of this mess - Splits. Rows. Insults. We should expect no less from a G20 meeting. Expecting the finance ministers and central bankers of the world's most powerful economic powers to have a love-in in the middle of what remains the most severe financial crisis in three-quarters of a century is probably to ask a little too much - 5th September Our debt hangover is stopping us joining the global growth party - We need to pause and drink in the pure milk of Keynesian orthodoxy, and remind ourselves of the paradox of thrift - 4th September The empty words returning to haunt Brown - I'm sure the PM has a copy of his 1989 book on a shelf somewhere. It's worth digging out - 19th August Brown must resent France and Germany's growth - The modest upturn in Europe’s largest economies is more than we have seen - 14th August Is quantitative easing working? The Bank's latest projections won't tell us - In a few days' time we ought to get a definitive view from the Bank of England about the prospects for the economy over the next couple of years. Definitive, though not necessarily right - 9th August A feelgood Roller for plutocrats with a conscience - An electric Rolls-Royce is a shockingly good idea. Replacing its V12 internal combustion engine, its noise and vibrations already well-suppressed, with a practically inaudible electric motor would lend the firm's Phantom limousine still greater levels of refinement - 7th August Blaming bonuses will get us nowhere - Bankers are no more greedy than the rest of us, apart from a few Buddhist monks - 5th August The Bank has two big questions to answer about quantitative easing - When the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee meets this week it will have to answer two straightforward questions - 3rd August More quantitative easing could hold the key to economic recovery - Which should have been the most significant news event of last week, at least as far as Gordon Brown's future is concerned? The political or the economic news? - 27th July Brown's revenue predictions were irrational - the National Audit Office has refused to sign off part of the Treasury's accounts over its exposure to vast potential losses on the money it has used to prop up the banks and the wider financial system - 21st July Time the boot was on the other foot - Wheel-clamping abuses cause untold distress. Action is needed - 10th July We are supposed to worship brutality - Once my city boasted Roman walls, medieval halls and Georgian terraces - 23rd June Forget about 'V' for victory, this recession is more of a wobbly 'W' - The first of our Double-Us is mostly behind us. You can understand how this might be mistaken for a V, and a V-shaped recovery declared. V for victory, indeed. That however is premature, even if the worst is behind us - 22nd June Labour has a good-news story. And it might just be true - There is every prospect relief for Brown will arrive in time for the election - 11th June Why the UK's van makers are disappearing over the horizon - LDV's collapse yesterday may mark the final chapter in the story of a British industry - 9th June The long march out of the Celtic fringes continues - The next few years could be extremely cheerful for the Liberal Democrats. There has long been a law stating that exhausted Labour administrations are bad for the third party... But it is not so true now - 6th June We'll bounce back for sure, but what goes up must come down - This is a recession like no other we have seen in 75 years because the banks are broken - 26th May This exposes Labour's poverty of ambition - That relative poverty – the gap between rich and poor rather than the absolute availability of basic necessities – should be higher than it was when Harold Macmillan was prime minister is a galling discovery - 8th May (see: Labour's record on poverty in tatters) The report was damning – but there's light on the horizon - With headlines and chatter about "green shoots" growing, the media might be even be accused of talking us into a recovery - 7th May (see: MPs demolish Budget forecasts as 'optimistic') Only two people can get us out of this mess, and they're both French - there is a growing likelihood that, whoever wins the next general election, the economic policies of the UK will be set by gentlemen from the International Monetary Fund - 26th April G8 set out to fight famine, war, pestilence and death - Less glamorous than the G20, this weekend's food summit is still crucial - 18th April Balancing the books: Repairing the public finances - Last year the Government shredded its fiscal rules; in next week's Budget it must show that it has a credible plan to repair the public finances - 16th April Each new scandal erodes the vestiges of faith in politicians - The Treasury has been a nursery of these tough-but useless types - 15th April Scrappage scheme sells the UK motor industry short - Good news: according to some reports, at least, the Government is ready to help the motor industry. The bad news? We'll be helping the French, German, Korean, Polish, Czech, Slovakian and Korean motor industries rather than our own - 14th April Only time can dispel the charges against electric cars - Anyone watching a late 1980s movie nowadays is reduced to giggles when they spot someone using a "mobile" phone the size of a cornflakes packet. Perhaps in 15 years' time we will look back at today's electric vehicles with the same bemused nostalgia - 8th April Hey big spender – how's your hangover? - As any heavy drinker will tell you, while one "cure" for a hangover may be to have another drink – a "hair of the dog" – that will surely result in a worse headache in due course - 7th April Fragile east European economies are the zombies stalking the IMF - When the leaders of the G20 sat down to their Jamie Oliver dinner at Downing Street last week there was a ghost at the feast - 6th April Not so much green shoots as seeds of hope, but welcome all the same - Good news: the Germans may be right. There are straws in the wind that suggest that the economy may indeed improve more rapidly than seemed possible even a few weeks ago - 3rd April Caution, not recklessness, is the problem now - It would be easy to dismiss the threats by President Sarkozy to wreck the G20 summit with a Gallic walkout as a typical piece of French chauvinism - 2nd April Next stop in the crisis could be the collapse of the euro - It makes no sense in a single-currency zone if one country does its own thing - 1st April Forget the protesters: someone separate the leaders - On the basis of the text of the G20 summit communiqué, leaked comprehensively yesterday, it seems pretty clear that the event will be a flop. But could Thursday's G20 Summit do more harm than good? - 31st March Millions are caught in the new inflation trap - City shocked as weak pound triggers food and petrol price rises, but spectre of deflation remains - 25th March G20: Do what we say, not what we do - The G20 finance ministers may have yet again reaffirmed their opposition to protectionism, but there's plenty of it around - 17th March Steering clear of 'sub-prime on wheels' - the Bank of England prefers to stay aloof from attacks on its dignity. It prefers covert disciplinary actions. Gentle as the Bank's rebuke to Peter Mandelson is, it is unprecedented - 13th March Popular? Yes, but that doesn't mean it's right - At first glance, paying an employer to take on or retain staff seems a no-brainer. Lower the cost of something – labour – and you will increase the quantity demanded. Jobs done, so to speak - 12th March When it seems too good to be true... - How did Madoff's victims ever allow themselves to be taken in? - 12th March The Bank's £200bn gamble - The Bank of England will this week announce its intention to flood the economy with 'helicopter money', its latest attempt to tackle the recession - 3rd March As the number of jobless continues to soar collapsing confidence will create vicious circle - Unemployment tends to lag behind the economy's fortunes, so the jobless numbers will not decline significantly until the economic recovery is well under way – which could take many years - 12th February Forget the mindset of the past and cut interest rates again - Outlook: Who cares about the pound? Not, by the looks of things, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee - 4th February A world out of work - UK unemployment is on the verge of breaking through 2 million, but joblessness is a global epidemic and the number of workers at risk is without precedent - 3rd February Deglobalisation: What is it? And why Britain should be scared - Traditionally one of the most outward-looking economies, a power that built the greatest empire the world has ever seen on the back of its international trade and commerce, Britain has more to lose than most from a revival in protectionism and a disintegration of the world economy - 31st January We'll get poorer faster than since Attlee's time - The IMF's forecasts are more than merely embarrassing. It isn't simply that the Treasury misjudged the prospects for the economy when the pre-Budget report was unveiled in November - 29th January Rate cut puts Britain in uncharted waters - Bank of England sets lowest base rate in 315 years in response to 'synchronised downturn' - 9th January Why I'm glad we are not in the euro - How much more painful it would be without the flexibility of a floating pound - 7th January

Articles: 2008 We're at a turning point for capitalism - People are about to be thrown out of work and their homes for no rational reason - 31st December 2008 Recession fears grew through 2008, but 2009 will be wonderful for some - Is the media talking us into a deeper recession than we might otherwise suffer? Will 2009really be that bad when interest rates and prices will be falling? As a proxy for the intensity of what passes for a "national conversation" about the economy, you can count the number of times the word"recession" appears in the press - 22nd December 2008 'Imaginative companies' try to keep skilled staff - Increasing numbers of companies are imposing pay freezes, deferring wage settlements, offering part-paid "sabbaticals" and even cutting pay in an attempt to preserve skilled workforces as they try their best to survive - 18th December 2008 (with Jonathan Brown) Economic row with a political sub-plot - The unity of the EU has become the latest victim of the recession and the scene of an unprecedented war of words between London and Berlin, shattering the previously robust international consensus over the best way to fight the economic downturn - 12th December 2008 The road to recovery - Few economists believe the Chancellor has yet done enough to save Britain from a serious recession, but what other policy options does the UK have left? - 9th December 2008 Suddenly, the old certainties have gone - A few years ago, you knew where you were. If you took a job in the private sector the chances were you'd enjoy a higher salary, but have a little less job security and a rather less generous pension than if you became a public servant - 28th November 2008 Ripping up the fiscal rule book - It's 11 years since Gordon Brown made his fiscal rules the cornerstone of Labour's economic policy. Now they are to be replaced by a vague set of principles - 26th November 2008 No matter what Darling does, this is not going to be a short, sharp shock - 25th November 2008 Mr Darling seems to believe our economy will soon enjoy a Lazarus-style comeback - 13th November 2008 China's New Deal - The Chinese government has unveiled a boost to its slowing economy that is worth almost $600bn - 12th November 2008 A speech with echoes of Lincoln and Nixon - It seems a strange thing to say about such a fresh figure, but the President-elect's victory speech was vintage Obama - 6th November 2008 The crisis in manufacturing - Manufacturing accounts for half of UK exports, worth £150bn a year. But despite the sharp fall in sterling, the sector is still bearing the brunt of the downturn - 4th November 2008 Who was to blame for the credit crisis? - 3rd November 2008 Darling's credibility has been devalued as much as sterling - 30th October 2008 Japan's roads to nowhere and the danger of deflation - There is no tax cut large enough to make you spend if you are scared you will lose you job - 17th October 2008 The financial crisis – the vital questions answered - 11th October 2008 Bailout? Over to you, Gordon - With the US set to get its bailout after all, does the UK need its own silver bullet? Sean O'Grady reports on the options - 3rd October 2008 Safe havens for troubled times - Where do investors put their spare funds when banks are no longer regarded as invincible institutions? - 26th September 2008 Banking relies on confidence – and there isn't any - 18th September 2008 The world depends on the two Fs - "Too big to fail" is an expression that suits Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two institutions "are so large and interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would create great turmoil in financial markets" - 8th September 2008 Critics rain on Government's parade of housing reforms - The markets dismissed Alistair Darling's attempts to arrest crashing house prices as a 'drop in the ocean'. But is it the Chancellor's responsibility to save private homeowners anyway? - 3rd September 2008 A windfall tax would be a disaster - The truth about a "windfall tax" on the energy companies is that it would raise a lot of money and wouldn't raise much protest - 27th August 2008 I mourn the death of ITV's glory days - 11th August 2008 No gold medal for Alistair Darling - 8th August 2008 Gesture politics may be just enough to make difference - Wednesday, 6th August 2008 A missed chance to give world a tax cut - Wednesday, 30th July 2008 Economic View: Our best chance of staying out of recession may be to back the Treasury against the Bank - Sunday, 27th July 2008 The unfortunate fall guy for Gordon Brown - Wednesday, 23rd July 2008 A freeze in fuel duty will do little to ease motorists' pain - Tuesday, 1st July 2008 Now Brown must tell us how he can defeat stagflation - Wednesday, 18th June 2008 What links Scotland to Donald Trump? Nothing... - Thursday, 12th June 2008 The global economy will have to adjust – and it will - Wednesday, 11th June 2008 The euro answered a question we didn't ask - What if Britain has joined the single currency 10 years ago? It might have been a disaster - Tuesday, 3rd June 2008 UK oil profits are largely an illusion - Saturday, 31st May 2008 Hooray! House prices are falling again - Friday, 2nd May 2008 How the Bank became a pawnbroker - Tuesday, 22nd April 2008 Rich countries have ability to solve (food crisis) problem - Saturday, 12th April 2008 What difference will the currency crunch make? - Isn't the euro meant to be a "toilet currency"? - Thursday, 10th April 2008 Fall in house prices is cause for celebration - Tuesday, 8th April 2008 Darling has the chance to practise what he preaches - Wednesday, 5th March 2008 Recession? He simply doesn't know - 'In 2001, Mr Brown turned on the public spending taps. All Darling did was wave his Budget box as he drowns' - Thursday, 13th March 2008 A bewildering week of bad news – so how did the market recover? - Saturday, 26th January 2008 Their spending power may save us all from recession - Tuesday, 1st January 2008

The Independent: 'Private Investor' Column name: Remit/Info: Private investment Section: Money / Invest & Save Role: Economics editor Pen-name: Email: s.o'grady@independent.co.uk Personal website: Website: Independent.co / Business Comment;Invest & Save Commissioning editor: Day published: Saturday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length:

Articles: Bottom-fishers beware: net ITV at your peril... - 9th August 2008 I'm putting my money into couch potatoes - 2nd August 2008 One man's evil is another man's wise investment - 26th July 2008 B&B pulls it back from the brink – phew... - 28th June 2008 Dirt cheap doesn't mean it's a bargain - 21st June 2008 House-builder limbo - how low can they go? - 14th June 2008 I can still spot a gleam amid the banking gloom - 7th June 2008 The restaurant sector's making me feel queasy - 31st May 2008 Seduced by the romance of black gold - 17th May 2008 Now's the time to buy some bank shares - 10th May 2008 I'm banking on an upturn – but not just yet - 3rd May 2008 What's wrong with taking up my RBS rights? - 26th April 2008 Why I'm taking the long-term view with BA - 19th April 2008 If the boiler room calls, boil 'em right back - 12th April 2008 Forget equities – put your cash in cars instead - 15th March 2008 With Arriva, at least dividends arrive on time - 8th March 2008 Don't ever bank on an A&L takeover - 1st March 2008 Don't get mad about Northern Rock, get even - 23rd February 2008 Without money, I'll just have to grin and bear it - 16th February 2008 Feeling brave? Ride the tiger and you'll profit - 9th February 2008 In uncertain markets, even banks gamble - 2nd February 2008 Don't waste your sympathy on shareholders - 19th January 2008 It's my money, taxwoman: ask me nicely for it - 12th January 2008

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