Making predictions about the economy is notoriously difficult and a challenge that is best met by looking at all the sources – somewhere in the middle the truth might yet be glimpsed. This post is a curation of what has been said online over the last couple of months with regards to the Economic outlook [...]

For the first time the prospect of Great Britain leaving the European Union is on the table. Prime Minister David Cameron has promised a referendum after the next election. A bit of the old ‘in-out’ The promised referendum will only have one question – should Britain be in the EU or not? There is no [...]

In some more bad news for the banking industry on the Emerald Isle, Ulster Bank have announced they are to close around 20 (correction - the number is now 22) branches/sub-offices island wide.   As the 3rd largest bank in Ireland, Ulster Bank currently operate 146 branches south of the border and 90 in Northern [...]

  It seems like money makes the world go round. There have however been plenty of experiments involving doing away with the official currency. Before there was proper money goods and services were exchanged directly for each other. Eventually Sumerian types decided that it was easier to trade using granary receipts rather than the grain [...]

I have just got back from a holiday; one week in Barcelona doing some essential reading on the beach, see the picture. It was a very last minute holiday, but a lot of fun and very cheap. It is the cheapness I want to talk about today. Most of the time wisdom tells us that [...]

It seems that prevention rather than cure is no longer a savvy saying for business minded moguls. Although it is obvious that protecting a company’s technological infrastructure from hackers will ultimately pay-off in profits (or, at least, in the prevention of loss), there is now more money to be made by making sure you are [...]

  Motorists around the country groaned as the price of petrol rose once again as they went to fill up. But motorists could potentially have something to shout about. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced it will investigate whether motorists are getting a fair deal from the fuel industry. When there is a [...]

  It was really only a matter of time; we’ve been relying too much on German coffers to keep Europe’s struggling nations (in particular Greece and Spain) afloat. However, now its much coveted AAA rating has been classed as “outlook negative”, meaning they’re on the edge of being downgraded. It’s all tied to the ever [...]

  Debt is never far from the news these days. Here are some of the similarities and important differences between government and personal debt. The comparison to the kinds of debts held by governments and the problems of that and personal financial responsibility is an understandable one to make. The numbers involved, after all, are [...]

  University fees are on the increase in the UK, with some English universities now charging as much as £9000 for tuition. Students and educators across the country have expressed their concern over these increases, worrying that the higher cost will exclude many prospective students from pursuing a degree - and new figures suggest that [...]