Russia has to be considered to be at a crossroads. The Kremlin’s propaganda against the West and internal dissidents is taking on a life of its own and it is difficult to see how Mr Putin, even if he wanted to, can roll this tide back. The West will have to play a careful game…
Chart of the Week: Week 9, 2015: UK Interest Rates
Tomorrow’s Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meeting marks the sixth anniversary of their decision to reduce the Bank Rate to an “emergency” record low of 0.5%.
Chart of the Week: Week 8, 2015: Zero Hour Contracts
The Office for National Statistics published their annual survey of “Zero Hour Contracts” this morning, which suggested that the number of such contracts had grown to 697,000 in 2014, or 2.26% of all employees.
Chart of the Week: Week 7, 2015: Earnings vs. Prices
This week we’ve received two big bits of economic news: CPI inflation fell to just 0.3% in January, while earnings growth remained roughly steady at 1.7% in the three months to December.
Chart of the Week: Week 6, 2015: UK Production Index
Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics released the index of the output for the production industries in December 2014.
Chart of the Week: Week 5, 2015: EU Youth Unemployment
European unemployment figures for December 2014 were released at the end of last week, and both the headline figure and youth unemployment were down compared to the end of 2013 (unemployment was down from 10.6% to 9.9% and youth unemployment was down from 23.1% to 21.4%).