MoneyWeek 1102

“Investors are about to start feeling rather more pain – from the rising price of money” Life has been getting more expensive. Anyone in doubt (not very many people at this point, I think) need only look to the latest releases on the matter from the Office for National Statistics. In the latter half of 2021, households in all income brackets saw their costs rise substantially – higher-income households by slightly more, thanks in part to rising transport prices (the better off drive more than the worse off), but everyone by well over 5%. The British Retail Consortium had numbers out this week, too: according to its latest Shop Price Index, prices in the UK’s major outlets are rising at their fastest pace since 2011 – up 2.7% overall in the 12…

A number of Londoners have received fines from the authorities of more than £10,000 for breaking Covid-19 restrictions at the height of the pandemic, at which point groups of more than two people were banned from socialising indoors. This is still happening despite the fact that prime minister Boris Johnson held his own birthday celebration with 30 guests in June 2020. The story has resulted in fresh attention being paid to the treatment of those who held similar parties in the capital and were handed large fines, reports the Evening Standard. These include Enfield resident Torino Reid, who was charged £14,000 for having a gathering to mark his niece’s birthday in his garden shed, in breach of “Health Protection regulations”; or university student Ruben Alfredo, given a £10,000 fine for a…

Universal Music chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge made £230m in 2021, “one of the largest ever pay packets for a British executive”, says The Times. Most of the money arose from bonuses relating to Universal’s flotation in Amsterdam last year. Inflation is a big worry for central bankers right now. But it seems it’s not such a problem for retired central bankers. The 5,500 retired members of the Bank of England pension fund are set to receive a pension increase of “about 11%” this summer, reports The Times. The Bank’s scheme is still linked to the retail price index (RPI) measure of inflation. That’s generous even by the standards of defined benefit public sector pensions, whose schemes are now mostly linked to the lower consumer price index (CPI) measure.…

Former Wimbledon tennis star Boris Becker (pictured) has been jailed for two-and-a-half years for hiding £2.5m-worth of assets to avoiding paying his debts, says BBC News. The six-time Grand Slam champion was declared bankrupt in 2017, with debts of nearly £50m, over an unpaid loan of more than £3m on his estate in Spain. British Virgin Islands premier Andrew Fahie has been arrested for alleged drug smuggling and money laundering, reports the BBC. In a US sting operation, Fahie agreed to allow drug traffickers to use ports in the British overseas territory in exchange for a $700,000 payment. He was arrested by Drug Enforcement Agency officers working under cover in Florida, and charged alongside a port official and his son for conspiracy to import over 5kg of cocaine into the US.…

“It’s still too soon to forget about the pandemic,” says John Authers on Bloomberg. With “lockdowns spreading from city to city”, it’s time to get ready for “a Chinese shock to global growth”. Much of Shanghai, the world’s busiest port, has been in lockdown since late March. Now officials in Beijing have banned restaurant dining and required proof of a negative test to access public spaces as they scramble to avoid a similar outcome. Many of the city’s 22 million residents have already undergone three rounds of mandatory testing. Fears that the capital could be locked down gave Chinese shares their worst day in more than two years on April 25. The benchmark CSI 300 index has fallen 18% since the start of the year, while April was the worst month for…

The post-pandemic era has arrived in Singapore, says Daniel Moss on Bloomberg. Last week the city-state scrapped limits on group size and office working. “Many venues will no longer require folks to check in with the government contract-tracing app.” After two years of “ubercaution”, authorities have shifted with uncharacteristic haste. Fear that “onerous rules” were denting Singapore’s position as “a premier aviation hub” helped drive the decision to re-open. Trade-dependent Singapore “cares deeply about its reputation abroad”. “The Singapore market stands out as a shelter in the current stagflation environment,” says Paul Chew of Phillip Capital. “Almost every sector… enjoys a tailwind. Transport, telecoms, retail and hospitality, which make up 20% of the Straits Times Index (STI), will benefit from the reopening of borders. Banks, which account for 45%, will get…