The overriding concern is the solvency of banks and nations. Investors fear that financial institutions in Western economies are at risk of going bust because they will be forced to write down the value of their sizeable loans to troubled southern Eu...

She sings about independent women, survivors and single ladies, deflating men's egos and railing against their boyish immaturity along the way. Beyoncé is many things but she is not a feminist. Asked in an interview with Harper's Bazaar if she consid...

In August 2007 a French bank, BNP Paribas, rocked the financial world when it announced it was suspending payments to investors in three of its hedge funds. That event marked the beginning of a chain of events that saw the global financial system rea...

It was just a relief when the market closed here on Thursday evening, but when we left to go home the Dow Jones was down 260, then 300, then 400, then 515 – and everyone was sitting at home watching it and trying to figure out what was happening. Of ...

The macroeconomic justification for reducing marginal tax rates on high incomes is a familiar one. It is argued that such tax cuts pay for themselves because they end up bringing in more revenue than higher rates. But the evidence base supporting the...

All he will say is that he would have to kill us if he tells us and to be quite honest, after an exhaustive examination of his career, that short-cut seems preferable. Indeed, I will happily end it all myself if I read another geek-blog debating whet...

The industrial lobby all but ignores the possible downside for natural habitats; the environmental lobby is liable to imply that every project could precipitate a crisis. The truth, inevitably, is somewhere in between. The first and most important th...

This is a bogus notion. In a civilised society, important issues are decided after diligent research, considered debate and the careful weighing up of arguments and counter arguments. That is what we elect our MPs to do. Of course those signing e-pet...

If you've answered yes to these three questions, then you're probably one of the 3 million or so British adults who, according to an Ofcom survey, class themselves as smartphone addicts. Reluctant to switch them off in cinemas or theatres, compelled ...

News, however, of losing its billion-pound Mox nuclear fuel reprocessing plant as a result of a Japanese earthquake and tsunami is seen as less shocking than being the scene of the world's first accidental nuclear fire in 1957. But the work of the va...

Israel and the United States insist that Palestinian statehood should come through a bilateral peace deal. Yet that road is blocked. While a UN recognition would be symbolic (coming, as it would, from the General Assembly and not the Security Council...

The "boost" to the economy as a whole would be rather greater, as that money gets into the shops and starts to circulate. Even then, and assuming it was all spent rather than saved, the effect is relatively modest; probably less than £5bn in an econo...

This terrifies me, because people in my family already live far too long and do everything far too slowly. My late grandfather was born in the 19th century; my cousins have some really groovy anecdotes about the dissolution of the monasteries; I'm en...