Thursday, May 25, 2017

Do markets react to information, do voters respond to poll predictions OR...

with the learning from the last election and polling debacle lead to a more accurate prediction, we will see:

https://www.ft.com/content/f61c219a-3f09-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58

2015 vs 20yrs before, 2017 vs 2015, has the trend continued?

Project fear V2.0 or not project fear: reality of forecasts and assumptions!

https://www.ft.com/content/ba31120a-4088-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2

ECB vs BOE


Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Merkel and Macron - EU, two countries or more!?

If Le Pen gets in then no one said they didnt try and delay and delay....

https://www.ft.com/content/b8a0c2a4-3724-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e

"Since the crises, these cost divergences have ceased to grow, yet not reversed. This means that if domestic demand in the French or Italian economies were to be strong enough to eliminate that part of unemployment due to deficient demand, their current accounts would go into significant deficit. If they are also to run balanced fiscal positions, their private sectors must also run substantial financial deficits (excesses of spending over income). But the French and Italian private sectors have run persistent surpluses, even at low interest rates. Thus substantial fiscal tightening is likely to cause significant domestic slowdowns. Germany’s proposed solution to divergences of competitiveness is for everybody to follow its own model. It has succeeded: in 2016, all members of the eurozone, bar France, ran a current account surplus. The eurozone's current account shifted from a deficit of 1.2 per cent of gross domestic product in 2008 to a surplus of 3.4 per cent in 2016. If France is driven into prolonged competitive deflation, Marine Le Pen might become president next time. Mr Macron must ask Angela Merkel whether the German chancellor is willing to risk this. Reform in France is essential. So is development of risk-sharing institutions. But the eurozone also needs a big jump in relative German wages. Will that happen? I fear not."

 martin.wolf@ft.com

Election 2017 UK Polling

This is going to be an interesting month to watch the data, analysis and narrative not to mention expectations, excitement or whatever:

https://www.ft.com/content/e9db20f2-398c-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec

some good data journalism in here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39927866

looking for some good visualisations to come!

#Election2017 
#UKpolling
#UKpolling2017

Monday, May 15, 2017

Just like with Hollande some years ago, hopes of reform are high in France and EU!

Lets revisit the excitement in 2022 shall we?!

https://www.ft.com/content/76ea7f30-394f-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec?hubRefSrc=email&utm_source=lfemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=lfnotification#lf-content=196038406:690269779

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Brexit get out of jail free card!

Its good that the UK public will be asking how can we help the EU countries with our £100Bn donation, I know it would go a long way in the developing world as it would equate to 10years of DFID ODA funding which save millions of lives.

There is a lot of information out there about how the French and German money is spent by the EU and they are not likely to be paying more in future so I guess they will be asking the same questions as us.

I know the Dutch, Spanish and Scandinavian countries will, as they are the ones likely to pick up most of the bill in the future when there are only 27 countries paying in.

A good read> https://europa.eu/european-union/topics/budget_en also> https://europa.eu/european-union/file/1088/download_en?token=AvThyJAT I think the transparency will be growing in the coming years> http://ec.europa.eu/budget/fts/index_en.htm #accountability #Budget4Results