Posts Tagged Britain
A slippery problem
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, European Union, Politics on 21/02/2011
It was reported over the weekend that the Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson, has called for a national referendum on the new plan for repaying British and Dutch loans made as a result of the ‘Icesave’ fiasco. The two countries loaned Iceland €4 billion to bail out the country’s deposit insurance scheme, which could not afford to compensate British and Dutch depositors, when the Icesave savings scheme collapsed. Aside from the political ramifications of the on-going dispute, it raises wider issues about international financial supervision and insurance schemes, as well as a more pressing problem about financial responsibility.
Cool Britannia™
Posted by David Merlin-Jones in Economics, Family, Marriage and the Culture on 30/09/2010
As abstract concepts go, ‘coolness’ has to be one of the hardest to define. The uncool Oxford English Dictionary has had a go, suggesting: ‘informal, fashionably attractive or impressive’. While this is rather ambiguous, suffice it to say that the idea that being cool is a state of mind, a quality based on a person having a touch of je ne sais quoi, has been replaced by a focus on shiny things. The company CoolBrands has drawn up a materialistic list of, unsurprisingly, the coolest brands in Britain. And what a lot it says about us. Read the rest of this entry »