Daily Express article with my comments
Published on 17th March 2025
Introduction
The plan to remove Germany’s Debt Brake has been widely hailed as a tremendous breakthrough, wonderful for Europe and for the Eurozone.
However, the means to get it through the Parliament with the required 66% majority (as it is a change in the constitution) demonstrate that Europe’s […]
Screenshot of ECB website
Published on 13th March 2025
T2 (formerly known as TARGET2) is a systemically-important payment system and the Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) for the euro. As such it should be a ‘5-nines’ system, enjoying 99.999% availability during its scheduled operating hours.
On 27th February it went down from 10:15 until 18:00 CET, according to […]
From the Government of Canada official website
11th February 2025
Introduction
The appointment of Mark Carney as Prime Minister of Canada lacks democratic legitimacy. It exemplifies emerging devices to escape accountability and bypass the voter, thereby demonstrating contempt for the voter.
Appointment not election
One device is appointment by other politicans rather than election by voters: Rishi Sunak and two […]
Annoucement of the nomenklatura appointed to direct UK payments for the state
26th February 2025
Payments is now an area in which the public policy agenda dominates
The National Payments Vision Committee and Vision Engagement Group are now in place as the forum within which the future of payments in the UK will be decided, in a process […]
24th February 2025
Introduction
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s ‘Commentary on the Public Sector Finances: January 2025’, issued on 21st February 2025, contained a statistic that has horrified the august bodies that oversee the nation’s finances, although the statistic oracle itself – the Office for National Statistics, issuer of ‘Public Sector Finances, UK: January 2025’ – maintains […]
18th February 2025
Eurostat estimates for Q3 2024 of Eurozone and EU General government gross debt
My recent research on the shadow liabilities of the EU member states threw up an extraordinary question: what is EU GDP actually?
You can download the full research here.
For my 2021 book on th subject of the shadow liabilities I backed EU […]
My 2023 book
13th February 2025
The EU’s shadow borrowing has continued to increase, as is shown by a high-level update on the 2021 figures which were the basis of my book ‘The shadow liabilities of EU Member States, and the threat they pose to global financial stability’, which was published by The Bruges Group in 2023.
You […]
Open Banking’s activity statement
3rd February 2025
Introduction
Vyne has folded its tents in the UK, or rather it has closed its Open Banking portal, apparently one offering a top customer experience and with traction into a large customer base:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vynes-withdrawal-uk-open-banking-supplier-proves-dead-bob-lyddon-6xk3e
This does not augur well for this activity area: a top player cannot make Open Banking work financially. That […]
Publication date – 3rd February 2025
The UK now needs another Brexit referendum, otherwise we are going to go around this thing for 50 years and tear ourselves apart.
In the years since the 2106 referendum it has been left to politicians to determine what Brexit is, notably Prime Ministers who have gotten themselves installed for multi-year […]
2nd February 2025
Introduction
Rachel Reeves is planning to ‘boost growth’ through mechanisms that owe their genesis to Private Finance Initiative and the EU approach, known as InvestEU. These are high-cost schemes funded with expensive debt, and which result in high costs for the general public. The high costs come through as either higher taxes, or high […]