Word: britain
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...Britain and Russia seem deadlocked. And so the strange case of Litvinenko is added to the list of unfinished business involving Russia - matters such as the future of Kosovo, the deployment of forces in Europe, the role of foreign investment in the Russian energy sector. It is not a return to the cold war; but nobody, this summer, could say that relations between Russia and the West were warm...
Here's the thing, though. Britain is now just about as open and classless a society as the U.S. (The Beckhams' habits are far more typical of modern Britain than the boarding-school japes of that other ubiquitous Brit, Harry Potter.) So why bother to settle in the U.S.? For the same reason that investment bankers from New Jersey like London--because the two nations have so much in common. Britain and the U.S. are the most messy, undeferential, schlocky societies on earth, places that like making a fast buck, that enjoy celebrity precisely because it is fleeting. Such characteristics...
Before he took over as British Prime Minister last month, Gordon Brown's speeches often included a familiar refrain. Britain's economy, the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer would thunder, boasted sustainable growth - averaging almost 2.9% over the past decade, modest interest rates and low inflation. "Of all the major economies - America, France, Germany, Japan," Brown boasted late last year, "Britain has enjoyed the longest postwar period of continuous growth...
...couldn't claim all the credit, of course; the strong global economy that spurred Britain's economy during his 10 years as Chancellor had little to do with Brown, for one thing. But Britain's longest-serving finance minister since the 1820s is owed at least some of the plaudits. For example, his bold decision to grant independence to the Bank of England in 1997 separated politics from the setting of interest rates, helping raise confidence in the U.K. economy and providing a backdrop for stable growth...
...almost hear Britain's consumers groan. With household debt in the U.K. more than doubling over the last decade to $2.6 trillion, and Britons' rate of saving at its lowest level since the 1960s, rising interest rates will hit pocketbooks hard. The CBI, a business lobby group, expects consumer spending to grow 2.8% this year. Next year, it says, that figure could slip to 2.1%. Economic growth won't escape unharmed, either. The threat of rising rates triggering a downturn is "greater today than it has been in the 10 years Labour have been in power," says Adrian Cooper, managing...