B Q Crisis China

The Business Matrix: Friday 3 June 2011

Barbecue weather boost for B&Q

B&Q has revealed a 10 per cent boost to quarterly profits after April’s warm weather and run of bank holidays inspired customers to focus on garden projects. Kingfisher, which owns the DIY giant, said the boost meant sales of garden furniture and outdoor paints were especially good, though this had a knock-on impact on sales of indoor goods.

EU backtracks on Twinings grant

The European Union has backtracked on plans to give Twinings a �10.5m regeneration grant to open a plant in Poland after critics complained that the tea company was looking to relocate work there from the UK rather than make a new investment. Twinings, owned by AB Foods, confirmed it had been told it has not met the criteria for the grant.

Johnson Matthey profits increase

Johnson Matthey’s annual profits rose 14 per cent to �261m as global car production recovered and it benefited from higher prices of platinum, gold and silver. However, the Hertfordshire-based group, which refines precious metals and makes vehicle exhaust filters, is being hit by the rising cost of cerium oxide, a rare earth element used in its filters.

Lenovo expands into Europe

The Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo is set to increase its share of the European market after agreeing to take over the German electronics retailer Medion in a $900m (�550m) deal. The move is seen as a way for Lenovo to build a presence in a mature market, and marks its biggest acquisition since buying IBM’s PC business six years ago.

China to be biggest banking market

China is on course to be the world’s biggest banking market within 15 years in a shake-up accelerated by the financial crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. It would overtake the US 20 years earlier than was predicted before the credit crisis battered banks in developed markets.

Construction sector sees surge

The construction sector grew faster than expected in May and added jobs for the first time in nearly a year. The Markit/Cips PMI construction index rose to 54 from 53.3in April. Economists said the figures suggested the sector grew in the second quarter and fared better than expected at the start of the year.

Dyson to replace 3UK boss Russell

Kevin Russell, the chief executive of mobile operator 3UK, is to leave the group this summer after four and a half years to return with his family to Australia. He will be replaced by the company’s chief financial officer David Dyson, who has worked closely with Mr Russell in his various roles for nine years.

The Progressive Economics Forum » Best Books on the Economic Crisis

With the Summer reading season at hand, here is a short list – in no particular order – of  the best books I have read over the last couple of years on the roots and implications of the Great Recession – essential reading for all progressive economists.

John Cassidy. How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities.  (Penguin, 2009.) 

An American economic journalist, Cassidy moves back and forth between an account of the financial and wider crisis and the history of economic theory, showing how the crisis was rooted in what he calls “utopian economics.” This is a great briefing on the failure of neo liberal economics to understand the dynamics of the real economy we live in, and a primer on the counter-current of progressive economics from Keynes to Minsky.

Graham Turner. The Credit Crunch: Housing Bubbles, Globalisation and the Worldwide Economic Crisis. (Pluto Press, 2008.)

This prescient book explained the roots of the coming crisis even before the financial crash at the end of 2008. It laid out some of the key themes of progressive analysis – namely the origins of the crisis, not just in financial speculation and the housing bubble, but its deeper roots in the global repression of wages and structural imbalances in the global economy.  

David Harvey. The Enigma of Capital and the Crisises of Capitalism. (Oxford University Press, 2010.)

Harvey’s “Brief History of Neo Liberalism” is, to my mind, by far the best single book on that subject. In “The Enigma of Capital, he succinctly outlines why the Great Recession has to be considered a crisis of global neo liberalism, and then lays out the multiple potential sources of crisis within capitalism, such as crises of over-accumulation, financial and credit crises, and crises rooted in the capital-labour relationship. He proceeds to lay out barriers to any sustained recovery and limits to the unlimited growth of capital, while arguing that there will be no definitive crisis of the system if there is no political alternative.

Gerard Dumenil  and Dominique Levy. The Crisis of Neo Liberalism. (Harvard University Press, 2011.)

I am still only part way through, but this looks to be the best comprehensive account of the crisis from a Marxist perspective. See also the 2011 issue of Socialist Register for a range of socialist perspectives on the crisis.

Michael Lewis. The Big Short. (WW Norton and Co, 2010.

Crisis and war

The Rise of China and Structural Changes in Korea and Asia

Tobacco control policy analysis in China, economics and health

People management

New Geographies, After Zero