Britain

House prices in Britain rose another 0.5% in November, putting them up 2.7% year-on-year. This is the seventh consecutive month of gains. All of the charts are looking spectacularly good. The only fly in the ointment is employment. …

The Financial Times reports that British regulators have now opened up to reveal more of the details surrounding the emergency aid banks received during the most acute periods of stress to date in the financial crisis.  Meanwhile, in…

After British chain WHSmith backed out of a deal with Borders, the British retailer, formerly a subsidiary of the U.S. megastore bookseller, is desperately looking to stave off bankruptcy and Chapter 7 liquidation. I love Borders and have…

I have been reading press accounts of the GM decision to back out of the Opel/Vauxhall sale to the Magna/Sberbank consortium from various countries. There are a lot of different perspectives on this event in the U.S., Belgium, Spain,…

Nils Pratley’s piece at the Guardian on RBS and Lloyds is very good.  Two quotes sum up the situation quite well. First,regarding Lloyds, Pratley says: Royal Bank of Scotland's shares down almost 20% in two days; Lloyds's shares…

Lloyds are looking to avoid the embrace of government by going to existing shareholders to raise capital and sidestep the draconian break-up solution foisted upon RBS by Neelie Kroes. According to Bloomberg, this is the largest rights issue…

At the weekend I wrote about Alistair Darling’s about-face on breaking up to big to fail financial institutions. Apparently, this was not a case of labour changing tack and finding regulatory religion, but rather of the European Union…

In a clear break with US economic policy, the UK government have decided that too big to fail is too big to exist. As a result, three large financial institutions now owned at least in part by government are to be dismantled. Moreover, talk…

The Nationwide monthly index of house prices came in this morning showing a 0.4% bump in October from September. While this was less than last month’s 0.9% rise, it was the sixth consecutive month of price increases and it marked the first…

When it comes to the housing meltdowns in the richest economies, the US has been matched only by Spain, Ireland and the UK. All four countries have seen spectacular losses of wealth in the housing sector over the last two years. The…