Podcasts related to Economics - UK

Adam talks to Asesh Sarkar, CEO of Salary Finance a fin-tech company that helps employees access tools to improve their financial health. They discuss research that shows that money doesn’t mean happiness as more people earning over £100k were more stressed than those earning less. They explore ways to improve financial and mental well-being that don’t necessarily mean simply earning more.

The technology sector has had a serious wobble in the last fortnight. Ed Bowsher asks what’s next for this part of the market and whether now is a good time to invest. He speaks to Howie Li of Legal & General Investment Management and Hector McNeill of HAN ETF.

How can we solve the housing crisis? Why is there such a massive supply-side problem? What is the greenbelt, and how come it's not all as green as you might think? FREER Director Rebecca Lowe and FREER Co-Chairs Lee Rowley MP and Luke Graham MP are joined by Simon Clarke MP to discuss Simon's recent FREER paper, 'Housing Addressed', which includes innovative proposals that could free up land for 1.5 million new homes across England, while also ensuring better protections for the environment.

With this year’s Budget moved to Monday, 29 October, we bring you a pre-Budget special. This is Money editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost debate the key areas that might feature in Chancellor Philip 'Spreadsheet' Hammond’s tax and spending review. This includes housing, inheritance tax, pensions and a whole host more, as he tries to find £20 billion down the back of the Treasury sofa for the promised NHS boost. But this Budget has some extra spice, with both Brexit and a Labour party whose main policy idea seems to be to force another General Election, which it thinks it can win. We discuss what the Government needs to focus on to stamp out the Labour challenge and just how the economy is looking ahead of Brexit. One time Labour donor Lord Sugar is threatening to leave the country if Jeremy Corbyn comes into power, thanks – in large part – to its threat of a barrage of tax rises. How big is the threat from Corbyn and co - and what can you do to protect your family from a potential overhaul of pensions, Isas, capital gains and even transferring wealth to a spouse?

This week, This is Money launched another campaign - and we have the private car parking sharks and the DVLA in our sights. We talk about the horrific cases of drivers being fined and penalised we have received from readers and listeners so far, ask how the DVLA is able to sell our details on without permission and what can be done about the menace – along with what we want changed. Elsewhere, editor Simon Lambert, assistant editor Lee Boyce and host Georgie Frost talk about Dave and Marcus. The latter is the Goldman Sachs backed offshoot offering savers 1.5 per cent interest – and has seen 50,000 people sign-up. The former is Dave Fishwick, who has gone on a crowdfunding drive this week to try and raise up to £7million to help get his Burnley Savings and Loans venture a banking licence. We also discuss Isas. We reveal why they are so good, why they should be part of most people's financial planning and how to become an Isa millionaire.

On our podcast this week, Digital Manager Darren Grimes discussed the relationship between capitalism and Christianity with our Senior Academic Fellow Philip Booth and Father Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bartholomew’s Church in London. Following recent, seemingly anti-capitalist, interventions by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, they assessed the extent to which the Church of England can still be considered the “Conservative Party at Prayer”. They also examined the treatment of markets, free exchange and private property in scripture. Finally, they hypothesised that the decline of religion in our society has coincided with the growth of the State, and a growing sense that the government, not private institutions or families, should take responsibility for societal ills.

The reports of buy-to-let’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That is the view of one of the few professional residential property fund managers in the UK. Alan Collett, who runs the Hearthstone fund, believes for the astute investor there is still money to be made from Britain’s homes. You could answer, ‘well, he would say that’, but for those interested in the property market, his reasons are worth listening to. In this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Sarah Davidson and Georgie Frost dig into the current state of buy-to-let and whether those without an entire property fund at their disposal can still turn a healthy profit if they think long-term. Also on this week’s show, they discuss where the most homes have been built over the past decade, why Goldman Sachs’ new bank Marcus has got everyone talking thanks to an eye-catching savings rate and whether insurers really do spy on you – including if you’re burgled while Instagramming your holiday. And finally, the new 68 registration plate was launched this month and that should have meant a surge in car sales, except as was suggested by one dealer we may already have reached peak new car and that has combined with diesel worries to sink sales. The good news is that means bargains for car buyers, with as much as £10,000 off some models. We reveal which ones.

The idea of the “Entrepreneurial State” or the “state as investor” has taken off in recent years – following the release of an influential book by economist Mariana Mazzucato. This view that state investment weighs very heavily in economic growth, now forms the basis of contemporary public policy. Our government’s Industrial Strategy effectively proposes that the state should play a key role in “rebalancing the economy”. Joining us today, the IEA’s Head of Research Dr Jamie Whyte and James Price, Campaign Manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance put this totemic idea under the spotlight. They weigh up how much growth can actually be attributed to state-led investment as is often claimed. Interviewed by Editorial Manager Madeline Grant, they question a number of common assumptions about state-led investment and provision of services – and ask whether contemporary attempts to ‘rebalance the economy’ differ from the old-school industrial strategy of the 1970s – or are merely re-packaging the same bad ideas?

As banks went kaput a decade ago, the safety of our savings was thrust into the limelight. Most had never considered that cash in the bank was at risk and knew little about the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. When Icesave blew up a year after the Northern Rock collapse things changed dramatically. We should all be up to speed now, but how safe are your savings? On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Tanya Jefferies and Georgie Frost we look at savings protection but also how you could end up losing money by sticking with cash. Ironically, worries about banks a decade ago triggered a flight to safety and more people stashing money in savings accounts rather than investing. But had people invested as Lehman Brothers collapsed they would have more than doubled their money by now. Taking the risk as the world appeared to be falling apart would have been the right move. Yet, at that point the stock market was already down 20% and fell by that again before it hit the bottom, so how many would have been brave enough? Also on this week’s show, we discuss how easy it might be to hit the £1million pension lifetime allowance sand whether your car might fail its next MOT.

The New Labour government introduced a national minimum wage (NMW) in 1999. At first this was opposed by the Conservative party, but they have since joined a growing political consensus. The Low Pay Commission (LPC) are tasked with recommending NMW rates that 'help as many low-paid workers as possible without any significant adverse impact on employment or the economy’. The LPC’s apparent success in achieving this, may be one reason for growing political census, so it is perhaps worrying that a National Living Wage (NLW) is being set without these considerations. Len Shackleton, Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham and Editorial and Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, sets out these issues and more in a recent IEA paper on Restructuring Minimum Wages. Prof. Shackleton argues that the system has become overly complex and recommendations made by the Taylor Review will only add to this complexity. In this interview we consider his proposals and what the future may hold for UK minimum wages.