Financial news

• Welfare shakeup 'will push a quarter of a million children into poverty'

  02-04-2017 21:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Analysis for the Guardian finds changes due on 6 April will also wipe thousands off payments for bereaved familiesA government shakeup of welfare payments being introduced on Thursday will push a quarter of a million children into poverty while wiping thousands of pounds off payments for bereaved families, according to research.Analysis for the Guardian reveals that a family whose third child is born before midnight on Wednesday could be up to £50,000 better off over 18 years than one whos
  
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• Decent housing a necessity for a healthy society | Letters

  02-04-2017 20:16 via theguardian.com
  
  “There is a lack of political will to fix our broken housing market,” says your leader (28 March). In fact, there is political will not to fix it, because to offer any degree of stability to today’s nascent and growing families would need more than “flatlining” house prices; it would need prices to fall back to a realistic multiplier of local earnings, which is something this government will not have, as evidenced by the outrageous shovelling of public money to deve
  
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• The lost generation: ‘I’m 30-something and still depressed and broke’

  02-04-2017 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  In 2010, Andrew Hankinson wrote about the dire financial plight he and his generation faced. Seven years on, he tells us not much has changed for those whose futures were crushed by the credit crunchIn 2010 I wrote a boo-hoo feature for this magazine about intergenerational unfairness – unaffordable houses, expensive education, crap jobs and diminished pensions. It created a modest stir: it was quoted in the Irish parliament, cited by other writers, and I was invited to discuss it on radio
  
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• Serious Fraud Office boss warns big names to play ball – or else

  02-04-2017 08:01 via theguardian.com
  
  As an inquiry into Barclays goes on, SFO chief David Green says that firms which do not cooperate with him will not be able to benefit from new settlement dealsDavid Green, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, has warned that British businesses should not consider deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) the “new normal” if they are caught misbehaving.Green was speaking to the Observer after Tesco and the SFO announced they had reached a DPA over the accounting scandal that rocked
  
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• The RAC has blown my chances of driving our super-reliable Toyota

  02-04-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A patrolman was called when my battery went flat but all the electrics were ruinedI was collecting my daughter from university when I left the radio on and flattened the battery on my trusty Toyota RAV4 car. I called the RAC and, after a long wait, a patrolman arrived. When he found I was not going to commit to buying a new battery he became less interested. Then, as he made a long personal call with his phone tucked under one ear, he put the recharging leads on the wrong way round and blew the
  
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• The car-loan boom isn’t the housing bubble. But there still might be a crash

  02-04-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The growth in credit and fall in savings have alarming echoes of the financial crisis. But at least regulators are no longer asleep at the wheelCould it be 2005 and 2006 all over again? Industry figures last week showed that UK credit-card debt has soared while the savings rate has plunged to an all-time low. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, data shows that late last year car loans were being taken out at a faster rate than any time in US history.Almost everyone in America leases a car or buys it
  
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• Industrial heartland is in no fit state to pump up UK exports

  02-04-2017 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  With its manufacturing and engineering tradition, the West Midlands should be at the forefront of British hopes for exporting beyond Europe. Sadly, on most measures, it is in no position to do soBrexit, according to its cheerleaders, offers British businesses the chance to expand trade beyond Europe to the rest of the world. Trade minister Liam Fox infamously said the easy option of shipping goods across the Channel had deterred businesses large and small from looking further afield. They had be
  
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• Robbing Paula to pay Peter in the boardroom

  02-04-2017 07:59 via theguardian.com
  
  A new twist on the Peter Principle suggests that, unlike men, most women are employed below the level of their competenceThe 1969 book The Peter Principle is practically unique among management texts, in that it’s based on a good gag.The premise is that employees are promoted until they reach a job at which they prove incompetent – a line that’s funny because of its truth, be that for sales directors, banking bosses or foreign secretaries. Continue reading...
  
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• As demand rises, the reputation of new-build homes is crumbling

  02-04-2017 07:59 via theguardian.com
  
  A hole where a window should be, no cavity wall insulation and uneven stairs are just a few of the problems developers have left behind, with owners struggling for solutionsHarron Homes promises that its newly built houses will “surpass all expectations”. The £324,995 home that James Uttley bought was certainly beyond his imaginings.There was a large hole where the bathroom window should be, he says. No carpets had been laid and there was no sign of a fitted wardrobe for which
  
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• Flogging the dead horse of neoliberalism isn't going to improve the economy | Greg Jericho

  02-04-2017 02:18 via theguardian.com
  
  ACTU secretary Sally McManus was lambasted by the right for saying neoliberalism is dead, but she was just stating the obviousThis week brought fresh outrage from conservatives as the new secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sally McManus, told the National Press Club “neoliberalism has run its course” and Paul Keating, seen by many as a neoliberal champion, agreed with her. But rather than provoke cries of communism and class warfare, for anyone who has been paying
  
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