Quote of the Week

"The biggest danger that the world faces is a retreat into protectionism. It's all the more reason why first of all we should sign the Doha agreement ... and secondly we should make sure that every country is analysed for what it is doing by the World Trade Organization to prevent protectionism."

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain speaking to lawmakers at a weekly question session in the House of Commons dominated by the economic gloom.

"British jobs for British workers: protectionism is the simple fix but is it the right one?"

I have read with interest this week articles debating the degree to which there is validity in learning lessons from the past. Can we look back to get a vision of the future? Or are truly in a state where the past is no indication of future performance?
click here for more...

Facts of the week

A couple of interesting and thought-provoking snippets from the past week:

A: The State of Japan

The numbers out of Japan have been getting steadily more awful over the
past year. As Lex (FT) noted last week economic destruction in Japan is
"assuming Godzilla-like proportions".Industrial production fell almost 10 per cent in December compared with November. That's a big number but it gets worse. The government re-did its forecasts for January to a 9 per cent drop, and February down another 5 per cent. In all, that knocks almost a third off output since September, putting it back, as Macquarie notes, at 1983 levels.

In other words, it took a quarter of a century to reach levels that were unwound in the space of five months. For carmakers, it is even worse: production may halve from last year.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/284c15a6-eeb1-11dd-bbb5-0000779fd2ac.html

As Frank Veneroso, head of an investment research firm, notes in a separate paper on Japan, "There has never been data this bad for any major economy, even in the Great Depression."

B. Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum....

Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the leading private equity company, the Blackstone Group, says that 40% of the world's wealth was destroyed in the last five quarters. "It is an almost incomprehensible number," he says. "Business will be very different."

One and All Membership

The One and All Foundation was launched in October 2008 to focus exclusively on promoting diverse talent in the hospitality industry. A membership scheme was launched this week. For more details click here:

http://www.oneandall.org.uk/membership.php