Is this the shortest-living economics forecast ever? Those folk at the think-tank CEBR put out a note little more than an hour before England kicked off saying that crashing out to Slovenia would mean more than £1 billion off the UK’s GDP. I was tempted, I admit, to ring economist Owen James for a more detailed analysis at about 3.22pm. Then again at 4.46pm.
The economy could expect to see half a million in lost productivity from yesterday’s game, but this was about balanced out by increases in consumer and advertising spending. But had England failed to qualify, the UK would have lost the difference between an expected £1.5 billion rise in extra spending and a £300 million rise in productivity as people stopped watching the footie. Except it didn’t.
• Pictured above is a brilliant piece of engineering, which is probably why it never got built. A Dutch firm designed a bridge between China, where they drive on the right, and Hong Kong, where they drive on the left. This is the Flipper Bridge, which prevents crashes at either end by flipping cars halfway across into the proper lane.
• Today Bloomberg is holding a seminar on “Understanding the Sovereign Debt Crisis” in Europe. On the roster of speakers — Petros Christodoulou, head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, who can approach the subject from two angles. Not only is he the man recently appointed to sort out the country’s mammoth debt, he used to work for Goldman Sachs, which, after his time there, was involved in an ingenious scheme to hide the extent of such debt.
• Pumped out by the Department of Business, within five minutes of England leaving the field: 38 e-mails on a variety of subjects. An apology follows, insisting it has nothing to do with the football.
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• Frugality is the order of the day at the City Academy Hackney, whose sponsors are the City of London Corporation and KPMG. Pupils, who already are introduced to the world of work and business within the school, are about to embark on a project that will see them turning part of their grounds into a mini fruit orchard. In my day you made do with a wet flannel of mustard and cress.
In the blue corner: Napoleon Bonaparte
An historical note from Tullett Prebon’s head of research Tim Morgan: “On February 26, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte — French military genius or Corsican bandit, according to taste — escaped from exile on the island of Elba. On June 18, he was defeated at Waterloo, bringing to an end his celebrated Hundred Days. Since then, this period has come to be regarded as the duration of the ‘honeymoon’ that leaders of governments can expect after their election to office.”
The Budget, therefore, is merely George Osborne’s attempt to “maximise the opportunities presented by the 100-day honeymoon and to establish, in the minds of the public and of the markets, the firm new direction to be taken by Britain after more than a decade of fiscal profligacy”.