Financial news

Two-thirds of startups don’t last 10 years. The brutal truth is no one cares

08-12-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com

Why do so many businesses fail? Of course, there’s not just one reasonOf all the businesses started just 10 years ago, only one-third are still in existence. That’s according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One in five startups fail in their first year. Agriculture and forestry businesses survive the longest (but only half were in operation 10 years later), and a quarter of mining, oil and gas firms made it that far. The bottom line is that a whopping number of new busin

Read more
Labour is a sitting duck for its calculating rivals. The only solution? Build, build, build | John Harris

08-12-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com

It’s not immigration or lack of services fuelling Reform UK’s impressive gains in the polls but lack of housing. Huge investment is needed nowAt last week’s Spectator parliamentarian of the year awards, Nigel Farage took the stage in front of a large chunk of the Westminster establishment, including journalists in need of a story. Honoured with a seat next to the magazine’s new proprietor, he was there to receive the newcomer of the year trophy and deliver a pithy speech

Read more
Elon Musk’s rumoured $100m donation may just fuel a fresh look at UK political funding

08-12-2024 12:32 via theguardian.com

Though denied, the mere fact a foreign billionaire could chuck so much money at one party might just spur rule changesElon Musk has denied he is gearing up to chuck $100m at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, as it pushes to take on the Tories. But the very fact the question arose is a reminder of the pressing need for political funding reform on this side of the Atlantic.Musk is the living embodiment of economic power in the modern US: a multibillionaire, with spicy political views, who has

Read more
Employees are being marched back to the office. But why? | Eva Wiseman

08-12-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com

The pandemic gave us a valuable opportunity to change our ways, yet many workplaces have rebuffed the lessonWhen I work in the office (the canal flashing down to my left, to my right a desk of conversations that veer between fascinating and deadly, it being part of my job to lean in to catch the former before they dissolve) a piece that might take a morning to finish at home will here be stretched long into the evening. It’s 3pm and the sky is the colour of an infected eye, and the fluores

Read more
Advertisement
What determines whether a PM will sink or swim? Look to their chancellor | William Keegan

08-12-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com

In such a crucial double act, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves must be on the same page over the EUThe relationship between the prime minister and chancellor is one of the most crucial in British politics. My old friend Nigel Lawson (chancellor 1983-89) certainly thought so, which is why it pained him and Margaret Thatcher when they fell out over whether the UK should put the pound into the European Union’s exchange rate mechanism in the 1980s.Denis Healey (chancellor 1974-79) thought so too

Read more