The distress call went out to the Canadian coast guard station after midnight on an October night. The Nathan E Stewart, an American-flagged tugboat, sailing through the light winds and rain of the central British Columbia coast, had grounded on a reef. The captain tried to reverse, moving the rudder from hard over port to … Read more
Good morning. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was designed to be an institution that crunches numbers quietly in the background. Instead, over the past week, it has found itself dragged kicking and screaming into the political spotlight. On the day attention should have been fixed on Rachel Reeves’s economic plans, many instead watched the … Read more
US private payrolls unexpectedly declined in November, the ADP employment report showed on Wednesday. Private employment decreased by 32,000 jobs last month after an upwardly revised 47,000 increase in October. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private employment rising by 10,000 jobs after a previously reported 42,000 rebound in October. The ADP report is jointly … Read more
The EU has unveiled a €3bn (£2.63bn) strategy to reduce its dependency on China for critical raw materials amid a global scramble triggered by Beijing’s “weaponisation” of supplies of everything from chips to rare earths. The ReSourceEU programme will seek to de-risk and diversify the bloc’s supply chains for key commodities with a funding initiative … Read more
Have you heard that a family of four in the US is now considered poor if their household income is under $136,500 (£103,300) a year? Don’t @ me about the maths – I’m just the messenger. The person behind this calculation is Michael Green, who is chief strategist and portfolio manager for Simplify Asset Management. … Read more
A leading thinktank has warned Rachel Reeves that tight government spending and higher taxes will restrict consumer expenditure, despite it predicting the UK economy will grow at a faster pace than France, Germany and Italy next year. Analysts at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said the government’s ongoing “fiscal consolidation” – meaning … Read more
The Office for Budget Responsibility complained to senior Treasury officials in the run-up to the budget about a flurry of leaks that it said spread “misconceptions” about its forecasts, it has emerged. Prof David Miles of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee told MPs on the Treasury select committee on Tuesday that the watchdog had raised … Read more
Had Richard Hughes not resigned as boss of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) on Monday amid the indignation over the accidental publication of Rachel Reeves’s budget, the Treasury might now be under pressure over the tsunami of leaks that preceded it. The OBR’s David Miles told MPs on Tuesday the leaks had been so … Read more
Your editorial (The Guardian view on OBR v the Treasury: ministers have embraced the theatre of errors, 1 December) correctly flags the huge uncertainty in trying to come up with a five-year forecast of the difference between taxes and spending. Although markets like big fiscal headroom numbers, they seem to ignore the wise words of … Read more
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Bank: corporate defaults could impact bank resilience and credit markets The Bank of England also cites the credit markets as a potential risk to the economy. It points to the failure this autumn of US companies First Brands and Tricolor, which … Read more