Like the death of Dallas character Bobby Ewing, economics can deliver alternative realities that leave you feeling cheated for having believed the old plotlines.
Millions might have thought they’d witnessed the UK economy heading for a triple-dip recession in 2013 – just as soap fans reckoned they’d watched the demise of their hero in the 1980s – but George Osborne in the Treasury (and Bobby’s wife Pamela in her en-suite) were relieved to discover that both events had just been nasty dreams.
Which is a rather laboured way of flagging up this week’s release of the “blue book” by the Office for National Statistics, which is sure to reveal that what you thought had happened to the UK economy actually didn’t.
Last year the blue book lived up to its name by including “prostitution activity” within gross domestic product for the first time, and while this year’s adjustments will be suitable for an airing before the watershed, they will change the profile of Britain’s economic recovery.
So, the UK economy is now reckoned to have recovered its pre-downturn levels one quarter earlier than thought, in Q2 2013 – which, in the sphere of economics, counts as a Dallas-style revelation.
Teams it’s difficult to support
The 1986 and 1990 World Cup finals were tricky matches to watch for England football fans, seeing as they were contested by West Germany and Argentina. Obviously one team had to win each final, but what they really wanted was for both sides to lose. A similar feeling might come over you while perusing the employment tribunal lists this week: one of the face-offs is between a failed bank that swallowed billions of taxpayer funds and one of its former foreign exchange (FX) dealers.
Ian Drysdale, a former FX trader at Royal Bank of Scotland, is suing the state-backed lender over his dismissal last year. He is one of a number of foreign exchange and Libor traders to file claims against former employers after banks fired dozens of staff in the wake of an investigation by US and British authorities into alleged market manipulation. For some reason, this group of worthies has yet to attain national treasure status.
Then there are the banks, seven of which were fined a combined $10bn for their roles in the scandals. Drysdale’s case kicks off tomorrow.
More agony for Ivan
There were 95 risers in the FTSE 100 on Friday – but embattled Glencore was not among them. That was yet more poor news for Ivan Glasenberg, the boss of (and largest shareholder in) the commodity group that was once lauded as the world’s top trader.
Nowadays, if Glasenberg topped anything, it would be a less-rich list, after he transformed his $6bn paper fortune into a $1bn one as Glencore shares shed more than 80%. To make matters worse, he was forced to chase his losses during Glencore’s recent fundraising effort, at a personal cost of $210m.
Still, this week will bring some relief, when a dividend cheque for $66m drops on to Glasenberg’s doormat – bringing the total dividends he has trousered since the float to more than $780m. The figure goes some way to explaining how the billionaire was so swiftly able to stump up $210m earlier this month, and again illustrates how quaintly parsimonious billionaires can be. Weird wealth fact of the week: on average, billionaires hold $600m of their wealth in cash, according to super-rich watcher Wealth-X.
