Immigration drops

Back in late summer, the ever-perspicacious Vince Cable, predicted that “if we get into a serious recession, immigration will become negative, as it has before.” According to the Office for National Statistics, this has now come to pass, with data showing that immigration into Britain fell by 8.9 percent to 577,000 last year. Separate Home Office figures show the number from the eight eastern European nations including Poland that joined the EU in 2004 dropped for a fourth consecutive quarter.

At the same time, Eurostat - the EU’s statistical bureau - released immigration figures for 2006. These...

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An admission of failure?

Just following up my post of yesterday evening, it's worth pointing out the story in today's FT that Alistair Darling is going to throw small businesses a "credit lifeline" in next week's PBR.  This was actually one of the aims of the multi-£billion bank bailout.  But - as that doesn't seem to be having the desired effect - the Government's natural reflex is to throw more money at the problem and thereby increase the liabilities shouldered by the taxpayer. 

Here is yet another area where the war of words - the political sloganeering - is crucial.  Will this spending-on-top-of-spending be seen as the Government doing "whatever it takes"?  Or will it be seen as an admission of failure, as "waste"?  The opposition parties need to stress that it's the latter, if their own economic approaches are to gain greater traction.

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If you're an auto company seeking a bailout

Then, it is probably not a good idea for your CEO to fly to Washington, DC to plead with Congress in the company’s private jet. But that’s what the head of Ford did, Marc Ambinder has the story. 

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Daily Brief

Nothing succeeds like failure, at least if you're a late-night TV talk show host. The recession, bankruptcies, and business flops are providing them with a rich source of material. Some samples from last night:

Jay Leno on the Tonight Show:

"Forecasters at the Federal Reserve in Philadelphia say the US has been in a recession for the last 14 months. ... Thank you, Nostradamus. That's how you know things are slowing down, when forecasters are now predicting the past."

David Letterman on the Late Show:

"Thanksgiving just around the corner. ... You know, it's a time when people can do

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Citi: from bad to worse

Shares in Goldman Sachs are down 3% this afternoon to a new low of just $60 a share -- a level not seen since 1999. To give you an idea of the straits that the financial sector is in, Goldman is outperforming significantly today: JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley are all down between 8% and 12%, while poor Citigroup is down 13% to a highly-distressed level at which it's worth less than US Bancorp. When Vikram Pandit became Citi's CEO, he can hardly have expected to keep it if the share price fell...

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