Word: britain
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...London but also for British prosperity. In 2007 financial services accounted for 10.1% of the U.K.'s gross domestic product, up from 5.5% in 2001. Add in professional services linked to finance, such as accounting, law and management consulting, and the total rises to 14%. And that's for Britain as a whole. For London, finance has been even more important: it accounts for almost one-fifth of the city's total output, perhaps as much as one-third if professional services are included. That's far more than for even New York City, where financial services account for about...
...crisis is taking place at the same time as a real estate downturn, a conjunction that is unusual; in the past, one has often followed the other, but it's rare for them to happen simultaneously. And the problems are being exacerbated by an explosion of household debt in Britain. Buoyed by rising property prices, households ratcheted up their borrowing to a massive 173% of disposable income, vs. 106% in 1995. That's way above even that paragon of profligacy, the U.S., where household debt amounts to 139% of income...
...downhill ever since. First came the run on Northern Rock, the stricken bank that the government ended up nationalizing, whose near failure raised serious questions about the effectiveness of U.K. banking regulation. Then came a damaging political storm over the taxing of "non-doms"--wealthy foreigners who move to Britain and are taxed on their U.K. income only. Following last month's rescues of HBOS and Bradford & Bingley, the big question is, What sort of new regulatory measures will be put in place as a result of the current market meltdown...
...management may migrate to Singapore or Dubai, rapidly emerging regional centers, and some of the back-office jobs that are cut may never return. "As in any business, there will be more pressure to take more support roles out of London, to Asia or just to cheaper places in Britain," says Owen Jelf, who heads the U.K. capital-markets practice at the consulting firm Accenture. But there is no place other than New York that boasts the combination of specially tailored office space and clustered expertise to challenge London's status. And even in the worst-case scenario, the London...
Black Watch, a galvanizing, free-form stage piece from the National Theatre of Scotland (it debuted in 2006 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has toured Britain, Australia and three U.S. cities), is the highlight of a remarkable recent surge of plays about the Iraq war. Hollywood, traditionally the go-to vehicle for telling war stories, had its own flurry of interest but after a few star-studded box-office underperformers (In the Valley of Elah, Redacted and, most recently, Body of Lies) has largely retreated to its foxhole. Theater has stepped into the breach, using an impressive arsenal...