Hill+Knowlton Strategies

When the economy stalls we turn to central banks for stimulus measures. Throw in significant sovereign debt issues and central bankers here in Europe and in the US have plenty to contend with. 

Debate and speculation around interest rates and quantitative easing programmes is widespread. Financial markets are looking for any sign of a shift in attitude from central bankers as to their views on what may be needed to turn the situation around. That is why here in Britain, the release of the monthly Monetary Policy Committee meeting minutes has become something of a media event in its own right.

We noted with interest recent analysis on the Zerohedge blog of the US Federal Reserve’s Maturity Extension Program or “twist.” The policy was introduced to combat perceived weakening of the US economy. The post demonstrates the way in which those following these announcements analyse the wording on the economic outlook:

The description of the outlook suggested Fed officials now see slower growth and have a more pessimistic view on the labor market. Committee members expect growth to pick up “very gradually” (adding “very” to the previous language) and think the unemployment rate will decline “only slowly” (as opposed to “gradually”).

 It all goes to show how carefully central banks must word their outlooks with so many interested parties looking for a guide to what is in store.

After several weeks of speculation, the government of Spain this weekend confirmed that money would be accepted to help support the country’s banking system.

Spain’s politicians have been at pains to point out that this is not a bailout of the kind witnessed in countries such as Greece and Ireland where outside officials will effectively be making decisions about the countries’ public finances.

Spanish minsters have clearly been briefed to communicate the distinction as the following quotes from Mr de Guindos, the economy minister, in the initial Financial Times article indicate:

• “What is being requested is financial assistance. It has nothing to do with a rescue”
• “The conditions will be applied to the banks, not Spanish society”

I’d argue that Spanish ministers have effectively made their point but in a situation which continues to develop at pace, and where details are easily forgotten, they may well be lumped together with those who have requested funds before as the dust begins to settle on the decision. As a collegue pointed out, it could well be seen as an exercise in putting lipstick on PIGS…

THIS POST IS FROM MARIE CAIRNEY

Today Programme’s Jim Naughtie stood corrected this week when he credited Ed Miliband with coining the term ‘omni-shambles’ after he used it in PMQs to describe the Tories monthus horribilis. It was of course comedy writer, Armando Iannucci, who came up with the great summation in his painfully funny political satire, The Thick of It. So there is nothing new under the soundbite sun after all it seems but I’m wondering what does this say about art and politics when a piece of satire is hijacked by the brunt (or equivalent ) of the satirist’s joke. Does it make the joke even funnier or the reality even more tragic? Probably a bit of both I suspect. Does Ed have his finger on the pulse of popular culture or is his level of self-awareness so low that he can’t see what Iannucci’s mirror is reflecting. Or perhaps he just has a great self-deprecating sense of humour. Or perhaps, more likely, the sound-bite machine and LHQ racked their brains, had a brainfart and spat it out – oh how they must have giggled at the irony! Almost reminds me of a scene from a TV programme, what’s-it-called… ah yes, The Thick of It.

ps. LOVING Twenty Twelve on BBC2 on Fridays; The Thick of it for those with a more delicate disposition and who are adverse to proper swearing. Brilliant.     

Image from Metro.co.uk

Bookmaking and bezzies

Every now and again I take a trip to the online bookmaker. Winning is fun, losing is not. I try to stick to more obscure sports like athletics where there is some chance I know more about the likely outcomes than those setting the odds. However, for the most part I rely on knowledgeable friends for tips and advice on whether KJ Choi is up to the task of winning the US Masters or whether Mon Mome has another Grand National left in him.

Professional investors aren’t so different when it comes to picking a stock or perhaps more importantly a company or a nation’s bond debt.

While I rely on tips from friends, professional bond investors look to credit rating agencies for a steer on the likely risk associated with their investment. These agencies are supposed to tell you whether the company or government you are lending to can afford to pay you back, but as Phillip Stephens points out in an excellent piece in today’s Financial Times, these agencies aren’t always right.

Whether investors need to find some better informed “friends” is a big question but what is not in doubt is the huge significance of these agencies views on European sovereign debt in 2012.

How soon is now?

An interesting development this week for those of you interested in ‘nowcasting’ (No? No one at all?).

On Monday (16^th Jan 2012) the Spanish bank, BBVA, announced it was teaming up with Google to provide improved real-time economic forecasts for its clients. BBVA will apply its research team’s forecast models to Google’s search engine data in an attempt to provide more accurate and timely economic indicators. The first iteration of this will see BBVA and Google measure current and future demand in the Spanish tourism industry.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/145000/images/_146120_weather_map_300.jpg

The Financial Times reported this story as the latest attempt to try and use Google search engine data to provide ‘nowcasts’.  For those who don’t know, ‘nowcasting’is the prediction of the present, very recent past and very recent future (we’re talking hours and days rather than weeks). It is a meteorological term that has been increasingly applied to economics in recent years, particularly since the financial crisis. The idea that drives nowcasting use in economics is that so much economic data, particularly official data, is out-of-date before it is even collected and released. Economic conditions change so quickly that it’s not much use knowing what happened last quarter when you’re trying to make policy decision today. To put it in the meteorological context, it’s like trying to decide what to wear today based on what the weather was like 3 months ago.

What’s particularly interesting about nowcasting (no? still just me?) is the role that businesses can play in helping create new economic indicators. Central banks, investors and traders want to know what’s happening in the economy today and what better source of information is there than the businesses who themselves find they are capturing more and more data about consumer and business activity.

Google have been quick to realise that the search engine data they capture can provide unique insights into the economy. The Bank of England has already realised the power of this data as highlighted in this FT Alphaville article from last year. Tim Harford also wrote a very interesting article on this in the FT back in 2010.

This desire for more accurate data from different sources presents a great PR opportunity for many businesses; an opportunity many have yet to capitalise on. Using a business’s data for PR purposes is not a new idea. However, where this often falls down is in trying to turn the data in to something that tells a wider economic story, rather than a story about the business itself.  There must, however, be a huge number of companies with interesting data of their own that can be turned into economic indicators. The data of haulage companies, payments systems and mobile phone companies in particular, spring to mind. The key to success is in creating credible indicators which is why partnering with economics consultancies helps. This requires investment but if a company can create something that is used by media, investors and even central banks, then the PR and stakeholder relations benefits will surely outweigh the costs.  

A second PR opportunity lies in the co-opting of the term ‘nowcasting’ into a business environment. As mentioned, it has already moved from meteorology to economics but being able to know what is happening today, rather than last month, is as relevant to businesses leaders as it is to economists. Any company that works in providing management information or using big data may want to look at how building a proposition around ‘nowcasting’ could differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Bread is getting cheaper (sort of)

The monthly inflation figures rolled around again this week and finally gave Sir Mervyn a chance to let out the top button on this shirt – both CPI and RPI inflation dropped below the magical (by which we mean ‘hideous’) 5% rate at which it had been stuck for several months.

Good news all round then? Well, not really. For one thing, at 4.2% CPI is still double the official target set by the Bank of England, meaning Merv’s fountain pen won’t be getting a rest any time soon. For another, inflation is still way above wage increases, meaning we’re all battling against dwindling real incomes. And for another, despite the Government keeping interest rates at practically zero (thus encouraging, in part, high inflation), economic growth is unlikely to rise above a rasping cough when Q4 figures are published next week. We’re trying to be positive, we really are. But it’s still looking far from rosy.

The Labour party: Time to cut its losses

Despite UK unemployment reaching a 17-year high this week, Labour leader Ed Miliband was still unable to land a clean hit on David Cameron during this week’s PMQs. Instead, the Prime Minster cleverly navigated Ed’s questions, even landing some of his own punches when he sneaked in a few sound bites about Ed not even being able to do a U-turn, relating to his apparent support of Government cuts,  that were sure to lead news coverage of the session. When the Opposition leader doesn’t score when unemployment is as high as it is, alarm bells should be ringing.

Furthermore, he has faced criticism from allies: Lord Glasman, who was previously seen as a committed supporter of Ed. Glasman wrote an article for the New Statesman that appeared to question his leadership which the media lapped up, whilst more recently he has been on the end of union bosses’ wrath for supporting the Government’s public sector pay freeze. Clearly there is discontent in the Labour ranks, even if it isn’t at the core of the party yet.

As Matthew d’Ancona wrote in the Evening Standard last week, Government ministers are praying for Ed Miliband to remain as Labour leader as he currently seems incapable of steering the Labour ship back to recovery. The media appears to know this, as do the electorate, so why is Labour allowing the elephant in the room to remain?  

To say that Labour missed a trick by not selecting Ed’s charismatic and believable brother David as leader last year, is a significant understatement.  Ed Miliband has had a poor start to the year leaving his and Labour’s future unclear. Sometimes you need to cut your losses when something is not working, this should be a growing thought for the Labour party and its incumbent leader.

A perspective on the Concordia disaster

Last week 11 people died and 24 are currently still missing in a tragic incident that has captured the attention of the world. A seemingly self-inflicted disaster of this magnitude is unusual and as all involved, including the media, struggle for clarity on how events unfolded, speculation has been rife.

The last week has seen press coverage that poses serious questions about the safety of modern cruise ships, tales of heroism but also a lot of wild conjecture, some of which has been in poor taste.

The role of the captain has been the focus for much of the media and below we have selected a number of articles which highlight the breadth of ways in which the disaster has been covered in the information vacuum that followed. Without clear communication from those involved we will know little about the truth of the matter until the inevitable enquiry begins.

Where was the captain?

Costa Concordia captain ‘was greeting friend ashore’

Drinking in the bar

Dining with a mystery woman

 That’s it for this week. Thanks to Matt Battersby, Dave Chambers, Ross Gillam and Sallie Bale for their contributions.

Cast your mind back to the autumn of 2008 when the world’s financial system appeared to be on the brink. Financial stocks tumbled. The Goldman Sachs share price for example went from $235 in October 2007 to $53 by November 2008.

Markets have moved on and this week JP Morgan tapped up investors for $1.25 billion by issuing bonds. The bank managed to issue this corporate debt at an interest rate of 5.4% over 30 years making it the lowest coupon achieved by a US bank since Dealogic started monitoring the market in 1995.  

Compare the JP Morgan rate to government debt and you’ll see how the financial crisis has evolved. Investors might still be worried about the financial system and many of the businesses within it, but they are more worried about states.

It is a sign of the times that Italy is currently paying over 6% to borrow, highlighting the shift from companies to state, a theme which 2011 will no doubt be remembered for.

As Christmas party season reaches its messy peak, no doubt many of you are rubbing bleary eyes today and wondering why you had that last glass of Prosecco.  We’ll keep the Friday Fiver soothing this week and I can guarantee that there are no flashing images below.  

In a slight detour from our usual news review we’ll dust down our crystal balls and gaze at the year ahead. We have handpicked a series of largely unrelated predictions for your reading pleasure.

 Economic

Anemic, uncertain and indebted are the buzz words for the economic outlook, particularly in the Western world. It’s not a pretty picture as Nouriel Roubini outlines in the Guardian.  

Upcoming policy decisions both in Europe and the US are likely to have a significant bearing on the year ahead. In his 2012 outlook, Morgan Stanley economist Joachim Fels states:

Policy make or break: We expect upcoming policy decisions in the US and Europe to hold the key to the global growth outlook. With a recession in Europe, anaemic growth in the US and a further dimming of emerging market economies’ growth prospects as our base case, we see global growth falling below its long-term average. 

[More detailed article here]

[Work to do on the production lines]

Political

The biggest foreseeable political event of next year is likely to be the US election but given the social upheaval we have seen both at home and abroad in 2011, who knows what is in store.

In the States, Obama will be defending his position against an as yet undecided Republican candidate. Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are all still in contention.

[Newt Gingrich – A face of 2012?]

A quick scan of the betting odds, suggests that Obama is still the favourite but much could happen between now and polling day.

Olympic

It’s hard to talk about 2012 without mentioning the London Olympics. Looking back at the 2008 medal table, China came out on top with Great Britain in fourth spot. Will we beat 47 medals in 2012?

Clive Woodward is of the view that hosting the Games should act as an additional incentive to our athletes and our medal count is likely to increase next year. Michael Johnson, a man who knows a thing or two about Olympic competition, is of the view that athletes may relax too much whilst at home. It didn’t seem to do him any harm in Atlanta however…  

Apocalyptic

Depending on your interpretation of the Mayan calendar our days may also be numbered. According to the calendar we have just over a year as the world may end on December 21^st 2012. We had better get busy in that case…

 On that cheery note, I ask you to consider the importance of your New Year’s resolutions and bid you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The FPS team has once again prepared a news smorgasbord for your consumption. This week we’ve served up our thoughts on new prime ministers, unemployment, a bank sale, a possible change of heart and the ever present issue of sovereign debt.  Thanks to Ed and Dave for their contributions this week.

EUROPE’S TOP TABLE…Conspiracy theorists and to a lesser extent the mainstream media were left considering the consequences of three senior appointments within the Eurozone this week. Europe has two new prime minsters, Mario Monti in Italy and Lucas Papademos in Greece. The European Central Bank also has a new President, Mario Draghi.

These three men have something in common. They have all worked for Goldman Sachs. GS is known for its search for talented and driven individuals and in many ways it is not particularly surprising that the three men have found themselves dining at Europe’s top table.

[Image from The Independent]

However, given the interconnected nature of debt markets, European politics and Goldman’s business, the appointments have left a number of commentators wondering what the situation says about the state of European democracy.

I know little about the men in question, but I suspect they will all have been shaped by their former employer’s organisational culture to some extent.

Organisational culture defined – “A pattern of shared basic assumptions invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration”

CAMERON LOOKING FOR AN ANGELA OVER EUROPE…Four weeks ago, Cameron witnessed over 80 Conservative MPs defy him on Europe. This was the biggest Conservative revolt against Europe. EVER.

[Picture from The Guardian]

Fast forward to this week and the PM’s annual speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet on foreign policy and you will notice a stark shift in his approach to Europe. His language was sharp: “We sceptics have a vital point. We should look sceptically at grand plans and utopian visions,” playing up to the wailing of the backbenchers. “We’ve a right to ask what the European Union should and shouldn’t do and change it accordingly…, in Britain’s case, for powers to ebb back instead of flow away.” Sounding remarkably like an effort to repatriate powers from the EU, precisely what his backbenchers wanted a few weeks ago. Whether this is just positioning from our premier will be revealed after his showdown with Angela Merkel today, we’re watching it closely.  

OLDER WORKERS – HANGING ON IN THERE…This week’s UK unemployment figures were a little grim. In fact, for many in the media, they were very grim. The main focus of attention fell on the number of young people now lacking a job topping the 1m mark. David Miliband added his thoughts on the issue as well, labelling it a “tragedy” and an economic “timebomb”.

[Picture from The Daily Telegraph]

Public sector job cuts and a lack of new private sector jobs are undoubtedly a central cause of youth unemployment, but is it the only one? It wasn’t explored this week, but the issue of increasing life expectancy may well be another cause. People are living longer, and increasingly therefore looking to work longer. The Government has indicated its comfort with this, recently abolishing the default retirement age and giving the green light for people to work as long as they like. And why shouldn’t the Government do so? After all, the alternative to paying young people jobseekers allowance is paying older people state benefits if they don’t have sufficient income to live off in retirement. The question for the Chancellor is which one is more expensive now, and in the longer term.   

The BBC’s informative infographic on the subject of unemployment can be found here.

GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK…A good week for consumers looking for a bank account this week. The sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money should in theory increase competition on the high street for current accounts, thereby leading to better rates for customers. As we noted last week though, start-up banks are finding it tough.

[Picture from The Evening Standard]

On the flip side, a bad week for consumers in their role as taxpayers following the sale of the Rock. With the bank being sold for £747m, taxpayers are theoretically sitting on a £650m loss – the Government has injected around £1.4bn into the bank since taking the decision to nationalise it. The maths may not be quite that simple, as Robert Peston pointed out, but even so, it doesn’t bode particularly well for the eventual sale of the Government’s share in RBS and Lloyds.

I.O.U €10.9 trillion…We’ll leave you with another visual feast in the form of an I.O.U infograpic, yet again from the Beeb. It’s a handy guide to sovereign debt and the scale of debts relative to population size and economic muscle. 

The infographic can be found here.   

Debt, money printing, market volatility, political instability and behavioural economics – these are just a small selection of the interrelated factors currently determining the seemingly meteoric rise of the price of gold 

The extent to which current valuations are fair, sustainable or sensible is a source of some debate and I’d encourage anyone with an interest in the subject to have a listen to a short podcast just posted on The Motley Fool website.

The conversation [which can be found here] with David Kuo and the effervescent Merryn Somerset Webb is well worth a twenty minute investment of your attention.

[graph courtesy of MoneyWeek]

There’s a heady mix of central banking, political shuffling and cat hair in the Fiver this week. Feel free to let us know what you think. 

Thanks to Dave, Marie and Ed for their contributions this week. 

From thin air… The virtual printing press is being turned on once again. This week the Bank of England announced its plans to inject a further £75 billion into the economy through quantitative easing. Ed Conway of Sky has a handy explanation as to what this actually means and what it is meant to do. You can find it here.

 While perusing Twitter for reaction to yesterday’s QE announcement, a comment [below] from Mark Cobley of Financial News caught my eye.

What if this money were put into people’s pockets – like a Euromillions jackpot for us all – rather than circulated through the City?

 Three initial thoughts came to mind:

1)      Low consumer confidence and consumption is one of the key problems facing the UK economy – this might act as a shot in the arm

2)      However, eliminating the consequences of personal debt would set a dangerous precedent and potentially a “too big to fail” mentality even amongst the collection of individuals

3)      We’re meant to be moving to a more export driven economy rather than relying on the consumer spending

 My musings are of little consequence as it’s never going to happen, but to read Peter Wilby’s more considered explanation of the idea click here.

Good week/bad week… Pretty tough to find anyone who’s had a good week whereas the list of those feeling the 7 day blues is distinctly long. The winner of the latter probably has to go to George Osborne though, if nothing else than for his quote two years ago that “printing money {quantitative easing} is the last resort of desperate governments”. I wouldn’t be surprised if some young Labour party workers had printed a few copies of that phrase and attempted to infiltrate the Treasury to plaster it on various noticeboards.

Searching hard for a good week, about the best we can do is one of the winners from Labour’s shadow cabinet reshuffle, namely Rachel Reeves. Barely in Parliament for a year, she’s scored a top job as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Reeves had been capturing attention as a forthright and capable shadow pensions minister, and it’s fair to say those in the pensions community aren’t overly happy at yet another MP stepping so quickly off the pensions treadmill.

 Cat-gate… As a massive fan of felines a.k.a being a sad old cat lady, I find myself in camp Clarke on the issue of cat-gate. Teresa May clearly hasn’t felt the warmth of a purring  hairball on her lap as she tucks into a jumbo-sized Galaxy and watches Corrie in her PJs, or else she would never have ridiculed the process that kept the Bolivian bloke and his much-loved moggy together in the UK. It made perfect sense to me, despite some of my own reservations about the impact of the Human Rights Act.

[Oose - author Marie’s cat]

On a serious note though, Ken Clarke did raise some interesting and serious issues over the use of rhetoric and polarising positioning in public speaking and politics. Whether the cat or the case exists isn’t the whole point of his disagreement with May, it is the fact that she taking on the role of an alarmed Daily Mail headline writer about an issue which is fundamental, complicated and potentially explosive that irked him and rightly so. But the masses applauded and job done for Mrs. May and her speech writer. Meanwhile the real debate about Human Rights gets lost in the farce the story has now become. That said it did helpfully distract people from Cameron’s credit crackdown gaff but the Conference managers must also surely feel it was an unhelpful distraction overall.     

Umunna roll – Chuka’s meteoric rise… This afternoon, Ed Miliband confirmed what had widely been reported yesterday, that John Denham, the widely respected Labour figure would be resigning from his post as Shadow Secretary of State for Business. He would be joined by John Healey the Shadow Health Secretary and Ivan Lewis the Shadow Culture Secretary who was demoted.

What will surely grab the headlines however is the meteoric rise of Chuka Umunna – the British Obama – who has been promoted to replace John Denham and Shadow the wise old head of Vince Cable at the Department for Business. It has been pointed out Mr Cable, everybody’s favourite Liberal Democrat, is not only twice Chuka’s age, but has also spent longer in the Labour Party! 

Family Friendly… To finish the week, we’ll take a look at a piece of work conducted within the H&K FPS team. Working with leading children’s savings provider Family Investments, we wanted to help the business demonstrate just how well they understand their customers and family audience – particularly ahead of the new forthcoming Junior ISA which is going to be a competitive market. 

The FPS team created the Family Friendly Hotspots Report, a unique analysis revealing the best places to bring up children in England and Wales. The report was compiled using a unique analysis model combining more than 60 sets of data including education attainment from Ofsted, Land Registry property prices, police crime figures and ONS population data. 

These were all aggregated to generate overall scores for every single postcode region in England and Wales. The report listed the top 20 postcodes to bring up children and a tool was created for the Family Investments website which enabled individuals to type in their postcode and see how it scored.

Launched on 26^th September 2011, the Hotspots report has so far generated over 200 pieces of coverage including 12 national articles, BBC online and BBC News pieces as well as 150 regional articles and no shortage of national debate.

The horsemen of the apocalypse were heard rumbling across financial markets this week. These developments top the Fiver but we have also found time for social media blunders and an aggressive hand puppet amongst other items. Thanks to Ed, Dave, Jo and Ross for their contributions to this week’s Fiver.

 An uncomfortable ceiling

 The Western world is in trouble again. On both sides of the Atlantic politicians and investors have been fretting about huge, almost incomprehensible amounts of money relating to the indebtedness of governments.

This week was perhaps the most dramatic instalment of the credit crisis since the collapse of Lehman Brothers back in September 2008. It started in the US with Democrats and Republicans at loggerheads over the country’s debt ceiling. Without an agreement to raise the country’s self-imposed credit limit, the US faced the prospect of not being able to meet its debt commitments.

A deal was eventually agreed with compromises and winners and losers on both sides of the political fence. The sums of money involved are truly staggering as the graphics below illustrate. The full graphics can be found here – http://t.co/w7nWFAv

[$100million in one hundred dollar notes]

[$114 trillion - !!!]

For years now we have been talking of these developments in terms of a crisis but to me, the images above suggest a new political and economic reality for government’s of the West. It will be some time before even the world’s richest nation can reduce an overdraft of this magnitude.

Letters from lawyers

Letters from lawyers never seem like an optimal solution to life’s problems, least of all if you’re Newcastle United and Joey Barton is the catalyst. In an interesting article in the Guardian today it is apparent that Newcastle United has sent a legal letter to their players warning them against the use of twitter to comment of club affairs.

[It’s definitely all ok]

Sport, and football in particular is unique, predominantly because of the potency of player power. Contracts are signed in an ever closing window and the stakes are high. What isn’t unique however is the fact football clubs are struggling to grapple with social media, it’s something every business, small medium or large is having to deal with. 

There is however, a relatively simple solution to this, it’s called Social Media Guidelines, and every member of staff is made aware of them when they join the company and reminded of on a regular basis, leaving no room for doubt and entrusting employees to make the right judgements and be good ambassadors for your business. Whilst Newcastle, following Man United’s lead, may have finally found it, a lawyer’s letter is perhaps not the best form of delivery. This week we came across a list of social media guidelines from a wide range of businesses, and it’s worth spending a couple of minutes to see how different companies approach their staff guidelines.

Continuing on the Twitter theme…

Collectively MPs send around 2,500 tweets a week equating to 1,000 hours a year spent tweeting, according to new research by Westminster Public Affairs. Undoubtedly, some constituents will see this as evidence that their MP is a time waster simply spending unnecessary time thumbing messages into their Blackberry. However, these constituents would be wrong.

For those that follow active MPs on Twitter, you quickly build up a personal picture of what they are like – something most constituents struggle with when they think of their MP. Twitter also allows MPs to deliver punchy messaging and highlight their ongoing campaigns; Stella Creasy MP barely writes a tweet without mentioning ‘legal loan sharking’ which allows her to keep up a sustained campaign and certainly builds traction. Whilst old fashioned excellent oratory skills that can be exercised in the House of Commons should be something that all MPs retain, other channels of communication, of which Twitter is one, will increasingly play a influential role.

If you’ve got a message to convey, tweeting alone will not suffice. But, co-ordinated alongside traditional channels, tweeting can certainly bring a personal touch and facilitate previously difficult direct interaction with your audience. John Prescott certainly believes in the power of Twitter:  Just buying a simple all in one fax, printer, copier. Any recommendations? (from 3^rd Aug)       

Summer slump

Last week we talked about the ever declining choice of retailers as they struggle against a dire economy. This week it’s the turn of travel companies with the collapse of Holidays 4 U, affecting over 50,000 holidaymakers planning on catching some rays in Turkey. According to experts this is an unusually early time of year for such a collapse but it emphasises the rising costs and change in attitude towards booking holidays.  

[schools are out]

Being in the middle of the school summer holidays, there are likely to be many tearful children and disappointed parents who were looking forward to a week in Bodrum or similar (I on the other hand may have been slightly relieved at spending a week there), and now starts the long wait for refunds and compensation.

For those that are lucky enough not to be going to Turkey or having booked with Holidays 4 U then you might want to have a read of the 2011 guide to holiday money hosted on Visa’s website which includes top tips from around the world on how to save some money to haggling in Marrakesh and tipping in Chicago.

 Good Week/Bad Week…

 Given the turmoil that’s affected markets this week, there perhaps aren’t too many people who’ve enjoyed a good week in the most literal sense. One group who’ve perhaps fared less badly though are workers with final salary pensions. Unlike their colleagues in defined contribution schemes, whose pension pots rise and fall with the markets, their level of benefits remain largely guaranteed regardless of the markets.

On the bad week front, we could probably name half the City, leading politicians who’ve taken a beating for being on holiday during the turmoil, or indeed the aforementioned DC pension holders. Instead though, we’re going to plump for Paul Daniels. The man married to Debbie McGee was the unfortunate victim of one of those rare, (but all too comic) freak accidents that you really find it hard to believe could cause a hospital admission. We could describe it for you, but ultimately, we think this article in the Metro does a pretty good job of it. As an aside, it’s worth following his ‘attacker’ on Twitter as well, purely to see what happens next.

[Sooty's all smiles. Then he turned..]