Economic Roundup, Friday 3rd April 2009

Andreas Paterson — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:08:32 +0000

Clearly the most important issue of the economic world this week is the decision by your correspondent's employer to up the prices in the canteen, here are a few less important issues:

First up, we learn that not every traditional Building Society has been able to weather the credit crunch as we saw from the collapse of the Dunfirmline Building Society and the subsequent rescue attempt by Nationwide (with the help of HM Treasury, naturally).

All the world's eyes looked to London and the forthcoming G20, but around the world, stuff happened. Spain bailed out a bank, Japan is on the brink of deflation, it's already happening in Zimbabwe (although the no one noticed them adopting the US dollar) and the European Central Bank looks like it's about to follow or lead and undertake quantitative easing, but not just yet.
With the coming of the G20, we had a glorious carnival of protestors, a bit of controversy and a few sad tossers who need to get with the program.
Despite brinkmanship from Sarko and Merky and endless pre summit pessimism, the end result appears to be rather good. Stricter financial regulation, a limit on financial sector pay, more money for the IMF, measures to improve trade and a crackdown on tax havens. More on this later, for now, your correspondent will simply salute the greatness of our glorious leader.
And finally, we come to the markets. The FTSE is up above 4,000 (at least it was last time I checked), the pound is up against the euro although slightly down against the dollar. House prices also appear to be up, although you're correspondent has no intention of suggesting green shoots just yet.

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Economic Roundup, Friday 3rd April 2009