Hamish McRae

One of the country’s most respected financial journalists and commentators Hamish McRae is an associate editor of The Independent. He was named Business and Finance Journalist of the Year 2006 at the British Press Awards. His latest book What Works was published in 2010.

Hamish McRae: Sovereign defaults in the eurozone are inevitable

It is about Ireland of course. But it is not just about Ireland – indeed it is mostly not about Ireland but about the rest of the eurozone and about taxation in Europe. To see why, consider the sequence of stories of the past few days.

Recently by Hamish McRae

Hamish McRae: This summit marks a shift in power to the East

Friday, 12 November 2010

Power is shifting East and if you want to take a moment when this has become glaringly evident, this week in Seoul is as good as any. It is not just that Korea is the host. Nor even is it the fact that the Group of 20, encompassing the largest emerging economies, is taking over from the old "rich club" of the Group of Seven. No, it is simply that this week it has become clear that the emerging countries have coped with the global downturn far better than the old developed world. Europe and North America go to the G20 hobbled by the debts of the most serious recession since the Second World War. Asia and much of Africa go there without having had a recession at all.

Hamish McRae: Is it time to return to the gold standard?

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Gold is making a comeback. Keynes called it a "barbarous relic" but actually its allure is deeply embedded in our early civilisation, as King Midas discovered to his cost. And of course the draw is as powerful now as ever: Olympians win gold medals, wedding rings are made of gold – and poor old Gordon Brown gets stick for selling off our gold reserves at a knock-down price.

Hamish McRae: Our path to recovery has diverged from America's

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

We are not there yet and won't be for some months to come but it is time to start thinking about the first rise in UK interest rates. The logic is simple. Rates are artificially low, far below inflation, and this is not sustainable in the medium-term. The economy is growing at a decent pace and inflation is way above target and not showing much sign of coming back down.

Hamish McRae: Figures that help cut the Coalition a bit of slack

Wednesday, 27 October 2010

The long march back to full output continues. The UK economy has now regained a bit more than one-third of the ground lost as a result of recession. The third-quarter GDP figures, which showed growth of 0.8 per cent, an annual rate of more than 3 per cent, were welcomed and rightly so. We are pulling out of this recession a touch faster than we climbed out of the one in the 1980s, the one that most closely resembles the current cycle.

Axe Wednesday: The future starts here

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Hamish McRae: Why the cuts signal a new era of lower ambitions for government and a shrinking public sector.

Hamish McRae: A new rule book for the Eurozone

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Economic Studies: Meanwhile across the Channel the Eurozone is struggling too to find some way of curbing fiscal deficits. Our own understandable preoccupation with the spending cuts has drawn attention away from efforts by France and Germany to figure out some way of preventing another breakdown in confidence in the Eurozone such as occurred last spring.

Hamish McRae: We must stay out of this US-China tussle

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

In currency wars, as in real wars, non-combatants sometimes get caught in the crossfire. And so it may be for Europe and the UK after an increasingly noisy series of skirmishes between the US and China. This is not yet a war and it is profoundly in the self-interest of both the world's largest and second largest economies that the present hostilities should not develop into that. But countries make mistakes, sometimes with grave consequences. Come to how we are affected in a moment; first, what is happening?

Hamish McRae: A lesson in order from the emerging nations

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

How is it that a country that has been struggling to host a competent Commonwealth Games can have become such an economic powerhouse, growing at around 7 per cent a year and set to pass its old colonial master in size in another decade?

Hamish McRae: Don't give up on the Celtic Tiger just yet

Friday, 1 October 2010

It is possible Ireland will seek support from the EU, but it will probably scramble through

Hamish McRae: Bring back the usury laws

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

So should we all, as the man from the Bank of England urges, spend more to pull the economy out of recession? Or is that compounding the mistakes of the past, when Britons went on a spending spree on borrowed money, for which we are now paying the price? And anyway, if the economy has to rebalance towards more investment as we are also being told, surely that must mean less consumption?

More hamish mcrae: