Financial news

• Council pays rogue landlord £500,000 in housing benefit

  20-01-2019 16:32 via theguardian.com
  Bernard McGowan, who has £30m in property, received money from Brent despite being bannedA repeatedly convicted landlord, ruled unfit to rent out property in a north London borough in 2015, has since received more than £500,000 in housing benefit payments from the same council that banned him.The discovery that a local authority is directly paying public money to a landlord its own officers describe as “rogue” is the latest example of the ineffective regulations designed
  
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• Action not words needed over biggest public health failure of our time: pneumonia | Larry Elliott

  20-01-2019 12:47 via theguardian.com
  Global elite at Davos 2019 must do more than talk about real-world problemsDavos this year will be like Hamlet without the prince. Donald Trump was all set to be the star of the show for the second year running but has decided that giving a keynote address to a hall full of billionaires is politically problematical at a time when the US government is shut down.Emmanuel Macron is giving the World Economic Forum a miss for similar reasons. If you have been dubbed the president of the rich the last
  
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• How Orkney leads the way for sustainable energy

  20-01-2019 12:00 via theguardian.com
  A tech revolution – and an abundance of wind and waves – mean that the people of Orkney now produce more electricity than they can useIt seems the stuff of fantasy. Giant ships sail the seas burning fuel that has been extracted from water using energy provided by the winds, waves and tides. A dramatic but implausible notion, surely. Yet this grand green vision could soon be realised thanks to a remarkable technological transformation that is now under way in Orkney.Perched 10 miles b
  
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• The idea that Britain can develop an independent trade policy is absurd | Will Hutton

  20-01-2019 11:30 via theguardian.com
  When selling across borders is ever harder, life without European allies will be parlousSo devastated is the British economy beyond Greater London that only two regions are strong enough to be net contributors to the exchequer – the south-east and the east of England. The rest of the country depends on the buoyancy of London’s service-based economy and accompanying tax revenues to support their schools, hospitals and social benefits.It is this same economic and trading weakness that
  
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• HSBC tells Welsh customer not to complain in 'foreign' language

  20-01-2019 11:24 via theguardian.com
  Bank asked ‘shocked’ customer to resend message in EnglishA major bank told a customer who wrote to it in Welsh to complain that some services were not available in her language that she should communicate with it in English rather than a “foreign” tongue.Nia Lloyd, a classroom assistant from Wrexham in north Wales, wrote to HSBC pointing out that online services were not available in Welsh. Continue reading...
  
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• Expat news: Top retirement destination for British pensioners REVEALED - it ISN'T Spain

  20-01-2019 09:28 via feedproxy.google.com
  THE top retirement destination for British expat pensioners has been revealed with 20 percent of state pension claims being made from Australia last year, according to new research.
  
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• Lenders cut mortgage rates to give a kick-start to 2019

  20-01-2019 09:00 via theguardian.com
  As Brexit takes its toll on the property market, there is some good news for borrowersFirst-time buyers and homeowners remortgaging their properties have been given some good news at the start of the year as a number of lenders have cut their rates in an increasingly competitive market.Last week HSBC dropped rates on 31 different mortgages while the market-leading product for a 10-year fixed-rate loan also went down. Continue reading...
  
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• How shops sign away the self-worth of disabled people

  20-01-2019 09:00 via theguardian.com
  When a ‘chip and signature’ payment card is refused, the impact on a shopper’s dignity is hugeMy mother was gleeful. We had identified a pair of designer trainers coveted by her grandson and she had resolved to buy them for his Christmas present. She braved the Saturday scrum in Footasylum, queued on painful legs for the till and wrestled the shoebox into her shopping bag. It was then she was told that her custom was not allowed.Like many people with disabilities, my mother use
  
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• British bookies go from favourites to American outsiders

  20-01-2019 08:59 via theguardian.com
  No sooner has one law changed in gambling companies’ favour than another turns against them. Now all bets are off againWhat starts in the US, the cliche goes, inevitably ends up in the UK (burger restaurants, assaulting fellow shoppers on Black Friday and syphilis are favourite examples). But the Americans are not always so keen to embrace our exports.There are, of course, examples of Brits and our brands smashing it in the US: the broadcaster Alistair Cooke, the Beatles and (so the compan
  
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• You don’t need to be a computer scientist to work out why iPhone sales are down | John Naughton

  20-01-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The slowdown at Apple should surprise no one given that most adults on the planet already have a smartphoneIt must be tough being Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. Well, perhaps we shouldn’t be too sympathetic: in 2018 he took home $15,682,219, and his earnings since 2011 are estimated to be not far south of three quarters of a billion dollars. For that he has to run the world’s most successful tech company. But that’s probably a doddle compared with trying to manage the expectations
  
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• One thing to be grateful to Brexit for: Britons are buying less on credit

  20-01-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  Consumer borrowing is falling, which is no bad thing. But it’s uncertainty, not regulation, that’s acting as the brakeA sharp decline in household spending on the never-never, and especially spending on credit cards, is a trend that must surely be welcomed. The Bank of England said last week in its quarterly credit health check that high street banks were about to witness the biggest decline in such borrowing since records began 12 years ago.Threadneedle Street said its index of dema
  
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• The shutdown has exposed Trumponomics for what it is: a disaster | Robert Reich

  20-01-2019 07:00 via theguardian.com
  When the president is proud to close government and proud to slash taxes for the rich, American workers get shaftedOne of the least talked-about consequences of the partial shutdown of the US government – courtesy of Donald “I’m proud to shut down the government” Trump – is its negative effect on the US economy. Related: Republicans’ lack of alarm over the shutdown reveals a disturbing truth | Ross BarkanContinue reading...
  
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• The Observer view: the Hitachi fiasco confirms that our energy policy is in ruins | Observer editorial

  20-01-2019 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Ministers must act quickly to make up for the firm’s decision to axe its Wylfa nuclear power plantBy any standards, last week’s decision by Hitachi to end construction of its £20bn nuclear power plant at Wylfa in Wales was a major blow to Britain’s prospects of creating an effective energy policy for the 21st century. The move follows a withdrawal by Toshiba from the construction of a similar project in Cumbria last year and leaves Britain struggling to find ways to gener
  
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• Outside the Washington circus, shutdown havoc spreads

  20-01-2019 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The government closure has pushed workers into hardship – and weakened the very immigration system it was meant to bolsterBriana Libby is not a federal employee, and she is not into politics. She lives 2,500 miles from the US border with Mexico, where Donald Trump has demanded funds for a wall in exchange for ending the partial government shutdown.Nonetheless, the shutdown has hit Libby, 26, with devastating force. A mother of two daughters aged four and six, she was on the verge of buying
  
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