To gauge how high interest rates will go, and how fast, we need to understand how fiscal and monetary policy interact, writes Gavin Kelly

With prominent members of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) – not least the governor – lining up in recent weeks to talk up the prospect of rate rises at some point in the coming months, this week’s meeting has already sparked another burst of speculation about when the first hike in eight years will happen.

Whatever your take on the exact timings of monetary lift-off – whether you’d opt for August or April – the far more important issue is the medium-term path of increases that follow.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

George Osborne has everything in place to sell off RBS – it’s just that the taxpayer does not need to

Sir Philip Hampton said the results released by Royal Bank of Scotland last week were like “groundhog day”. The bank’s outgoing chairman was referring to the fact that decent growth in operating profits was wiped out by a string of charges for past misdeeds. It also feels like groundhog day for watchers of Britain’s bailed-out financial institutions: this time two years ago, the City was fixated on the possible timing of the first disposal of government shares in Lloyds Banking Group.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

More profits need to be redirected away from shareholders and reinvested in plant, process and people if technology is not to exacerbate inequality

Look around and it seems pretty obvious that technology has made daily life easier.

We can watch almost any film or listen to any song at the press of a button. People pay their bills on their mobile phones. Stressed parents get to dodge trolley tantrums by swapping the supermarket run for online shopping. And let’s not mention all that free online news.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Some on the monetary policy committee at the Bank of England are likely to press for increases, but the recovery remains weak

George Osborne has repeatedly promised to fix the roof while the sun is shining, and after official figures last week showed GDP growth picking up sharply in the second quarter, it seemed that the clouds have finally lifted.

With the Bank of England’s policymakers due to meet on Thursday, the news that the slowdown in the first quarter was just a blip sent traders scrambling to price in an interest rate rise in the coming months.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Personal Guardian device fixes to clothing and alerts police to exact location of attack via monitoring station

When a woman was raped in the apartment complex where Rebecca Pick lived, the Strathclyde University student felt scared – and angry. The victim had screamed for help but failed to attract the attention of passers-by.

“It was terrible,” says Rebecca, 22, who has recently graduated in marketing and enterprise. “I thought then that we should have some way of being certain that we can get a response.”

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

The agriculture minister has not given up on Australia signing the TPP and says the trade minister, Andrew Robb, is still ‘at the table’

The agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, has not given up on Australia signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, potentially the world’s biggest regional trade agreement.

Week-long negotiations over the TPP ended in Hawaii on Saturday without an agreement. Sticking points for Australia are sugar and dairy, but Joyce says the process is ongoing.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

The suffering of communities in Zambia’s copper mining region highlights the need to create a global regulatory regime

The appalling suffering of villagers living close to the mining town of Chingola, in Zambia’s copperbelt region, whose water supplies have been dangerously polluted by leaks of sulphuric acid and other toxic chemicals, is both avoidable and unacceptable. As we report today, the Chingola pollution and associated environmental damage has led to serious health problems for those affected, such as potential organ failure, cancers and permanent disabilities, as well as failed crops, loss of earnings and livelihoods.

This continuing toll on life and well-being is wholly avoidable, in part because the problems associated with Vedanta Resources’ giant mine at Chingola have been common knowledge for some years.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Microsoft may look left behind as technology favours smartphones, but it is still PCs that run the world

One of my favourite cartoons shows a team of scientists in a Nasa control room clustered around a big screen. Their spacecraft has just landed on a very distant planet and has begun transmitting data back to base. A guy in overalls is saying to his assembled colleagues: “Now all we have to do is figure out how to install Windows 95.”

Ah yes, Windows 95… I remember it well. It signified the moment when Microsoft finally managed to implement the user interface invented by Xerox in the early 70s. It was launched with the biggest hype-storm that the computer industry – or indeed any other industry – had ever seen. Microsoft paid the Rolling Stones an unconscionable amount of money (we never found out how much) to use Start Me Up as the musical backdrop for the launch. The first internet boom, triggered by the web and the Netscape browser, was just beginning to roll and Windows 95 was the first Microsoft operating system to have a TCP/IP stack (needed to connect to the internet) baked in.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

• Contract covering 39,000 workers across nine states expires at end of Saturday
• Most Verizon workers have reportedly agreed to a possible strike

Verizon workers in nine states could walk off the job as soon as early as Sunday, if union negotiators do not reach an agreement over benefits with the wireless carrier.

A contract covering 39,000 Verizon workers represented by two unions was due to expire at the end of Saturday. Last week the Communication Workers of America announced that 86% of Verizon workers covered by the contract voted to strike in a recent poll, if a new agreement was not reached.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS