[unable to retrieve full-text content]European governments are desperately seeking a lender of last resort as sovereign debt exposure fears growThe stunning move by six central banks to announce emergency measures to push more dollars into the financial system shows just how desperate the authorities are to "ease strains in financial markets" that are making it difficult for some banks to operate as easily as normal.Jon Peace, head of European bank research at Nomura, said: "It is an evolution Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Loans, even dauntingly large loans to tide banks over, do not sort out the root troubles in the eurozoneJust in case the parallels between the eurozone debacle of 2011 and the banking meltdown of 2008 were not striking enough, Mervyn King and central banking chiefs from around the world decided to underline them on Wednesday – in red. What the Bank of England, together with the Federal Reserve in Washington and the central banks of the eurozone, Switzerland, Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]US cheered by better-than-expected jobs figures as Timothy Geithner welcomes co-ordinated action taken by central banksGlobal stock markets soared on Wednesday after the world's major central banks announced concerted emergency measures to underpin fragile eurozone banks and prevent the global financial system from freezing up.The Dow Jones Industrial average surged over 490 points as all the major US stock markets were cheered by the news and by better-than-expected Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Then it was the three-day week and the winter of discontent, but at least they had Fawlty Towers and the ClashIn the annals of British postwar history, the 1970s have always had a special place as the awful decade, a time of economic stagnation, industrial unrest and a squeeze on real incomes. It was the decade the postwar boom ended, and the arrival of a hit squad from the International Monetary Fund symbolised that the party was well and truly over.The analysis Read more

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Families with children will be worse off in 2016 than 14 years earlier, analysis of George Osborne's autumn statement findsHigh inflation, cuts and the longest period of wage stagnation on record will see the spending power of the average British family plummet over the next five years, a leading thinktank warned on Wednesday.An Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis predicted that average incomes, adjusted for inflation, will fall by 3% this year and further Read more