Business Comment

Stephen King: US downgrade just confirms what we already know – its economy is in a mess

Economic Outlook: The US budgetary position is a mess – in much the same way that the Pope is Catholic and bears do their business in the woods.

Inside Business Comment

Sean O'Grady: If the US can't bail out the world, then who do we turn to? Mars?

Sunday, 7 August 2011

So here we are. The debt endgame. The reckoning. The pain postponed is about be endured.

Hamish McRae: Leadership is what we should get, but competence would do for now

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Summertime but the living ain't easy. It has been particularly uneasy for José Luis Zapatero, who had to break his holiday and return to Madrid to crisis talks about the soaring interest rate on Spain's debts. But actually it has not been a bundle of fun for anyone involved in the financial markets – investors, of course, but particularly the political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Margareta Pagano: How to save the euro... or not

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Well, it would help if Europe's leaders jetted back from their holidays to set the markets straight – pronto.

Stephen Foley: America has just abandoned the unemployed

Saturday, 6 August 2011

US Outlook: The seven men and three women who sit down in Washington on Tuesday to debate US interest rate policy will almost certainly decide to do nothing. They may well say something, but action – desperately needed action – seems unlikely for the time being.

Stephen Foley: Has LinkedIn become an unlikely safe haven?

Saturday, 6 August 2011

US Outlook: The guys behind LinkedIn are fleet of foot. The social networking site made its sensational stock market debut in May, when bulls chased the stock to double the float price. Quick as a flash, Jeff Weiner has changed the firm's pitch to appeal to the bears that have been in charge this past week.

David Prosser: We can still win our money back on the black horse bank

Friday, 5 August 2011

Outlook If the Government was forced to "mark to market" its positions on Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland – the accounting requirement that regulators have imposed upon the banks when it comes to their own assets – the public finances would currently be in the region of £25bn less healthy. The taxpayer paid around £45bn for its stakes in Lloyds and RBS – 41 per cent and 83 per cent respectively – but the holdings combined are worth just £20bn today.

When the dust settles the global financial system will look very different

Friday, 5 August 2011

Hamish McRae: If currency holdings were to reflect trade patterns there would be much more significant holdings of the Chinese yuan and the Indian rupee.

David Prosser: Trichet can only do so much by himself

Friday, 5 August 2011

Outlook Jean Claude-Trichet is doing his best to hide it, but his irritation with Europe's political leaders is palpable. And who can blame him?

David Prosser: Mutuality isn't such a hard place for Northern Rock

Thursday, 4 August 2011

Outlook In the wake of the credit crisis, it is rather too easy to fall into the trap of judging banks bad and building societies good. While the mutual sector had a good war – particularly compared with the former mutuals that blew up during the crisis – the building-society movement was not without its own casualties.

David Prosser: Borrowers have never had it so good

Thursday, 4 August 2011

Outlook While contagion from the eurozone may yet do even more damage to Britain's faltering economic recovery, many mortgage borrowers have reason to be thankful for the events of the past few weeks. As a result of the crisis, fixed-rate mortgages have suddenly got substantially cheaper.

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