Liam Halligan



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Area of interest: Economics, see Liam Halligan.com - writing

Journals/Organisation: The Sunday Telegraph

Email: [mailto:liam.halligan@telegraph.co.uk liam.halligan@telegraph.co.uk]

Personal website: http://liamhalligan.com

Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan

Blog:

Representation: Speakers Corner

Networks: https://twitter.com/LiamHalligan | http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/liam-halligan/67/759/4aa



Biography:
About: Lived in Russia in the 1990s and became a founding board member of the Russian Prosperity Fund and the Prosperity Cub Fund. Prosperity Capital Management profile
 * see Liam Halligan.com

Education: The John Lyon School; Warwick University: First Class BSc. (Econ); Oxford University: M.Phil (Econ). Has also held research posts at the IMF and London School of Economics

Career:

Current position/role: Economics Editor


 * also writes/written for: The Wall Street Journal, The Business, The New Statesman, Prospect, House Magazine and The Parliamentary Monitor

Other roles/Main role: Chief Economist at Prosperity Capital Management

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Broadcast media: Presented Wake up to Money on BBC Radio Five Live; researched, wrote and presented a number of Dispatches and 30 Minutes documentaries for Channel Four
 * see Liam Halligan.com - broadcasting

Video: Max Keiser interviews Liam Halligan of the Telegraph about austerity, extinction economics, bitcoin and all those towns up North, of which Max can only name three.

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Speaking/Appearances: Liam Halligan.com - public speaking

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The Sunday Telegraph:
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Remit/Info: Confronts the 'head on the key issues facing the British and global economy'

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Email: [mailto:liam.halligan@telegraph.co.uk liam.halligan@telegraph.co.uk]

Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan

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Articles: 2014

 * Now is not the time for grand vanity projects like HS2 - The HS2 infrastructure project is 'the wrong solution to the wrong problem’ - 27th April
 * Raise rates now or risk far more pain later on - It’s entirely false, in my view, to claim that the cost of living crisis is no longer with us - 20th April
 * Trade gap shows we’re still playing with fire - UK’s current account deficit – our imbalance of imports over exports, plus net gains on overseas investments – was a stonking £22.4bn during the fourth quarter of 2013 - 13th April
 * The real reasons why Draghi flirts with QE - The fear is that money raised from quantitative easing in the eurozone will just be used to prop up banks that need to be allowed to fail - 6th April
 * Will we rue the day Osborne let people spend their pensions on a luxury car? - By playing politics with pension savings, though, Osborne has waded into very dangerous territory - 31st March
 * Good effort George, but what about the debt? - It was Chancellor's best Budget to date but the big fiscal picture remains horrendous - 23rd March
 * Why China is right on the future of Ukraine - The Chinese are urging patience, calling for talks after the referendum - 15th March
 * Threats against Russia are stuck in the past - Sanctions on Russia, already economically illiterate, make little diplomatic sense either - 10th March
 * Ukraine crisis: sanctions won’t worry Vladimir Putin - Russia holds the trump cards to prevent us from challenging its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine - 5th March
 * We should be learning from Germany’s revival - When it comes to running an economy prepared for the future, we have a lot more to learn from Germany than Germany has from us - 2nd March 2014
 * Ukraine's economy more fragile than its uneasy peace - Country faces threat of financial collapse which could ignite a meltdown in Russia - 23rd February 2014
 * Scottish independence is economic nonsense - Crucially, Scotland’s still extremely precarious financial services industry is viewed as UK-backed — and that means the Bank of England. The Scottish commercial banks, with their vast liabilities, and still unresolved off-balance-sheet losses, will always physically reside in Britain - 17th February 2014
 * Judges of Karlsruhe threaten to re-open eurozone crisis - Last week's ruling could take us back to the nerve-racking summer of 2012 when the entire edifice of monetary union looked as if it would crack - 9th February 2014
 * Britain’s shaky growth is papering over cracks - The economy is growing but only a fool would argue this recovery is secure - 2nd February 2014
 * Sam Laidlaw considers his (lengthy) exit from Centrica - Veteran energy chief prepares the way for a graceful departure - 26th January 2014
 * The 'too big to fail' problem just got worse - Far from imposing a leverage ratio of 5pc, 10pc or even 15pc, the Basel committee continues to propose a leverage ratio of just 3pc – only slightly above that displayed by the UK banking industry just before the last collapse - 20th January 2014
 * It pays to keep an eye on events in the East - Russia and China are close to sealing an enormous energy contract that is worth paying attention to - 12th January 2014
 * Call me alarmist, but the inflation risk is real - Liam Halligan remains concerned that UK inflation will prove problematic in 2014 and beyond - 5th January 2014



Articles: 2013

 * The worrying threats that stalk global growth - Economists are predicting that growth will return to normal in 2014. The odds of that happening are longer than we are being led to expect - 29th December 2013
 * Even the famous 'taper’ won’t lower oil prices - Despite the fanfare, ultra-loose Western money isn’t going away any time soon - 22nd December 2013
 * Even the famous 'taper’ won’t lower oil prices - Despite the fanfare, ultra-loose Western money isn’t going away any time soon - 22nd December 2013
 * Welcome back to the eurozone nightmare - Talk of eurozone turmoil may have been temporarily stilled by a fanfare over 'solidarity’, but the monetary union remains as flawed as ever - 15th December 2013
 * Do not let Osborne tell you our troubles have been solved - The economy is improving, yes, but our current stability rests on interest rates that cannot last - 8th December 2013
 * Banking reform is still unfinished business - If the bankers get their way, and they generally do, we’ll have weaker regulation and, in turn, a far higher chance of an early repeat of the ghastly turmoil of late 2008 - 1st December 2013
 * If you want to see good news, travel north-east - This proud region plays a vital role in Britain's commercial life and the local business climate is looking up but it needs investment, Mr Osborne - 24th November 2013
 * Emerging from debt has been no joke for the Irish - Ireland has managed to extricate themselves from the IMF’s bail-out. But risks remain - 17th November 2013
 * Don’t laugh - Bitcoin is making a serious point - Several events happened last week that made me suspect that Bitcoin – and the idea of “stateless” currencies more generally – will soon catch the zeitgeist - 10th November 2013
 * The Fed is locked in a QE prison of its own making - US policymakers are caught in a trap – a seemingly inescapable dilemma that stems directly from the massive scale of QE - 3rd November 2013
 * Better figures should not mask battles ahead - The latest GDP figures certainly looks like sustainable growth, but the recovery can in no way be described as balanced - 27th October 2013
 * GDP figures: This latest growth will change the political debate on the economy - The Telegraph's economics commentator Liam Halligan says the third quarter growth figures will change the terms of political debate for, but investment remains sluggish - 25th October 2013
 * Time to stop this pretence – economics is not science - The Nobel prize for economics remains separate from the main prizes, and so it should, as the namesake was a scientist and economics is categorically not - 20th October 2013
 * Republicans are right to try to rein in spending - The Grand Old Party has adopted a harsh bargaining position as many feel there is no choice but to make a stand - 13th October 2013
 * Unlike the US, our fiscal woes are kept hidden - While still in opposition, David Cameron used to promise that a “Conservative government would share the proceeds of growth” between higher public expenditure and tax cuts. That was the Tory mantra – repeated ad nauseam from 2005 until the summer of 2008 - 6th October 2013
 * US fiscal deadlock is a vital lesson for the UK - On September 18, the Federal Reserve announced that it wasn't about to start slowing its $85bn (£53bn) per month money-printing habit. Why did the US central bank decide not to "taper"? - 28th September 2013
 * Bernanke flunked it – and we will all suffer - "As a practitioner of markets, I love this stuff,” said Stanley Druckenmiller. “This stuff is fantastic for every rich person. It’s the biggest distribution of wealth from the poor and the middle classes to the rich ever.” - 22nd September 2013
 * Our global banks – still too mighty to control - It’s five years since the “sub-prime crisis” began in earnest - 15th September 2013
 * Strike on Syria would be risky in many ways - Why are some Western governments contemplating an extremely risky military strike on Syria? What is the true motivation of those trying to upend the unsavoury regime of Bashar al-Assad? - 8th September 2013
 * Trouble ahead and it all comes down to the Fed - Phhhhew, we got through the summer. So often, certainly in recent years, August has been a wicked month when it comes to financial markets - 1st September 2013
 * Your career is not predestined by degree choice - Soon after applying to study philosophy at university, I read a newspaper article ranking employment prospects for graduates according to degree subject - 25th August 2013
 * Why I fear for Carney’s forward guidance plan - How should we judge Mark Carney’s long-awaited forward guidance? Do the Bank of England’s recent pronouncements on the future path of interest rates amount to authoritative foresight or meaningless waffle? - 18th August 2013
 * This is the most feeble recovery in our history - What are we to make of these latest figures on British national income? - 28th July 2013
 * This oil price rise will drive inflation upwards - Oil prices are on the up. Since early June, Brent crude has surged from just over $100 to reach $108.7 per barrel last week – a three-month high. West Texas Intermediate, the US oil benchmark, meanwhile hit $107, a level not seen since March 2012 - 14th July 2013
 * Eurozone crisis over? Not by a long, long way - 'The euro is no longer under existential threat,” Herman Van Rompuy said three weeks ago. “Financial stability has been restored.” - 7th July 2013
 * Mr Tyrie’s 'radical idea’ is not radical enough - There’s been so much in the news that a UK-based economist could be forgiven for fretting over what to write about this weekend - 23rd June 2013
 * An export culture shock needs to begin at the G8 - For all the fanfare of hosting this week's G8 summit, the UK remains locked in a dire economic predicament. For all our gloating at the eurozone, Britain's national income is still well below its 2008 peak - 16th June 2013
 * Trade tiff is sign not to start war with Beijing - Beijing’s instant and ultra-assertive response to a solar panel spat is a sign that the West would be crazy to ignore - 9th June 2013
 * Lack of genuine reform is sowing seeds of next crisis - America is on the mend. Or is it? The world’s largest economy is certainly generating some upbeat headlines - 2nd June 2013
 * Cuts, BBC? What cuts? - What neither Chancellor George Osborne nor Evan Davis want to admit is that public spending, far from being reduced, is still racing upwards - 2nd June 2013
 * Fears over US stimulus highlight Japan’s fragility - The centrepiece of “Abenomics” – the policy creed of new prime minister Shinzo Abe – has been, and continues to be, the implementation of “quantitative easing” on a scale approaching that of the Bank of England and America’s Federal Reserve - 26th May 2013
 * Markets are on a crazy, sugar-fuelled journey - 'When the music stops,” Chuck Prince famously observed back in mid-2007, “things will get complicated” - 19th May 2013
 * A Brazilian WTO chief could prove painful for the West - Late last Tuesday, after months of intense lobbying, and campaigning visits to 47 countries, Roberto Azevedo was confirmed as the next director general of the World Trade Organisation - 12th May
 * Threat to the eurozone is as strong as ever - The eurozone economy has contracted every single quarter since the end of 2011. During the first three months of 2013, the region's GDP shrank by a punishing 0.6pc, having fallen at a similar pace the quarter before - 5th May 2013
 * Doing the IMF’s bidding would put Britain at risk - So the UK has dodged the dreaded “triple-dip” - 28th April 2013
 * Japan joins ugly contest with tsunami of money - Political tensions on the Korean peninsula have lately escalated. In February, North Korea carried out a nuclear weapons test, defying tighter United Nations sanctions - 21st April 2013
 * EU’s poorest will only take so much austerity - 'It was Europe that toppled her.” That’s the conventional wisdom, repeated endlessly in recent days, on the subject of how Baroness Thatcher lost her grip on power - 14th April 2013
 * A banking reboot would sow the seeds of growth - The British economy showed a glimmer of improvement last week. The UK's composite PMI index, a measure of business confidence as reported in surveys from large and small firms, rose from 51.1 in February to 51.4 in March - 7th April 2013
 * 'Bail-in’ that throws the euro’s future into doubt - 'This sucker could go down.” So said George W Bush back in 2008, at the height of the global financial storm - 30th March 2013
 * Will Cyprus be the pin to burst euro balloon? - It’s tempting to dismiss events in Cyprus as insignificant. Mainstream politicians and investors, desperate to keep the flame of Western recovery flickering and the asset price rally on track, insist that the country is “a special case” - 24th March 2013
 * George Osborne must do more than talk tough on debt - George Osborne faces a bleak set of circumstances ahead of this Wednesday’s Budget. The economy is extremely fragile and Britain has just endured the ignominy of a sovereign downgrade - 17th March 2013
 * China still in fine form as 'Grandpa Wen’ bows out - Over in China, the two-week annual plenary session of the National People’s Congress is in full swing - 10th March 2013
 * Negative interest rates - a ruse to ease QE fears? - The suggestion that the Bank of England should charge banks to hold their cash would have serious drawbacks, not least for savers - 3rd March 2013
 * Britain's credit downgrade is a call to live within our means - So Moody’s has downgraded the UK. This country’s sovereign debt has dropped one notch from AAA, the lowest possible credit risk, to AA1. For the first time since 1978, Britain has lost its triple-A rating - 24th February 2013
 * Crisis eases, but Europe’s not out of the woods yet - Recession grips the eurozone. The economy of the 17-nation bloc contracted by 0.6pc over the fourth quarter of 2012, we learnt last week, a much worse result than expected and the third consecutive quarter of real gross domestic product (GDP) decline - 17th February 2013
 * Good start Mr Carney, but we’re still in a mess - Mark Carney seemed to give a convincing account of himself at the Treasury Select Committee last week - 10th February 2013
 * Falling yen set to spark renewed currency wars - History shows currency disputes can escalate from rhetorical spats into disastrously counter-productive economic conflict - 3rd February 2013
 * Government must act boldly to revive growth - Last week ended with some pretty bleak news for the UK economy. “Output shrinks yet again,” the broadcast news bulletins boomed. “Britain now faces the dreaded triple-dip recession.” - 27th January 2013
 * We must fix the broken Western state model - What will be the hottest topic at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos? - 20th January 2013
 * Rising food prices will reap a bitter harvest -British shoppers should brace themselves for “massive” food price rises in 2013, says the aptly named Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose. Is he correct, or is this just another retailer trying to soften up public opinion before imposing price hikes? - 6th January 2013



Articles: 2012

 * Keynes’ great idea could lead us all over the edge - So here we are, at the turn of the year, with the global economy tottering on the edge of America’s fiscal cliff - 30th December 2012
 * Do not be seduced by a 'fracking’ gas bonanza - For several years now, storm clouds have loomed large over much of the Western world. The sub-prime debacle dealt the “advanced” economies a shocking blow - 16th December 2012
 * Real recovery task is to scale back the state - The economics of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement fell woefully short of what is needed to rescue the UK from its parlous state - 8th December 2012
 * Banks must be honest about their toxic losses - This weekend, I'm feeling somewhat vindicated. More significantly, perhaps, for the first time in quite a while, I'm also rather hopeful - 2nd December 2012
 * There is only one real answer - split the banks - Back in late 2008, in the immediate aftermath of the sub-prime crisis, those of us calling for a new “Glass-Steagall” split between commercial and investment banking were dubbed “Neanderthals” and “hot-heads” - 25th November 2012
 * Compromise can save Obama from fiscal cliff - "We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe,” proclaimed President Barack Obama last Wednesday. “We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions.” - 11th November 2012
 * A man with the vision to lead the Bank of England forward - There is the quiet, but unmistakable, sound of a leaf being turned". So said Andrew Haldane last week, the Bank of England's youthful executive director for financial stability - 5th November 2012
 * A Romney victory could spook the US markets - With just over a week to go before the US election, it’s too close to call. President Barack Obama is rediscovering his touch as a ladies’ man, polling well ahead among female voters just as he did when he won the White House in 2008 - 27th October 2012
 * Fixing our moribund, zombie banks is the key to UK recovery - Forget the absurd “growth versus austerity” debate, the only way to heal the economy is to fix the banks - 21st October 2012
 * What David Cameron failed to say in his speech - The party conference season is over for another year. While it was uninspiring midterm fare for the most part, I offer some observations - 14th October 2012
 * Brace yourselves for another round of money printing - In late 2009, the UK crawled out of recession – defined as at least two successive quarters in which the economy is contracting - 7th October 2012
 * What if Spain refuses to play Mario Draghi’s game? - So “Super Mario” did it. The European Central Bank president on Thursday announced “unlimited bond buying” to tame profligate eurozone members’ borrowing costs - 9th September 2012
 * Will Mario Draghi deliver on his promise to buy bonds? - With Ben Bernanke's deeply inconclusive Jackson Hole missive now behind us, all eyes are firmly fixed on European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi - 2nd September 2012
 * Russia joins the 'global club’ as economy slows - One of the very few pieces of good news in terms of the global economy last week was that Russia became the 156th member of the World Trade Organisation - 26th August 2012
 * A message from the 1970s on state spending - "We used to think you could spend your way out of recession and increase employment by boosting government spending,” boomed the Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, at the 1976 Labour Party conference - 19th August 2012
 * Super Mario hopes for gold from Angela Merkel - Most investors have been at the beach in recent weeks – or fixated by the splendid London Olympics - 12th August 2012
 * Is the US losing patience with the eurozone debacle? - Having shown the eurozone a lot of latitude, the rest of the world - particularly America - is on the brink of losing patience - 22nd July 2012
 * Debt crisis: China wheels out ways to boost slow economy - Two pieces of economic news emerged last week that I can't avoid mentioning here. The first is that China's economy grew by 7.6pc in the second quarter, its weakest rate since 2009 - 15th July 2012
 * 'Liborgate’ could trigger crucial banking reform - A Glass-Steagall split needs to happen and someone needs to get it done. There really is no alternative - 8th July 2012
 * Italy has won this euro battle, but not the war - Long-suffering investors, desperate for some good news, have seized on the headlines from the latest in a long series of “last-ditch” European summits - 2nd July 2012
 * Eurozone nations are stuck in a 'doom loop’ - The euro was a very bad idea yet fiscal union is far worse and will fail, but not before it spreads bitterness across Europe - 24th June 2012
 * Bank ‘throws kitchen sink’ at credit problem - The eurozone crisis seems on the cusp of some kind of denouement. The trouble is that no one can possibly know what that long-awaited outcome will be - 17th June 2012
 * UK and Europe languish in a 'zombie bank’ malaise - Britain and Europe are failing to tackle the problem of technically insolvent banks and are trying to buy time with QE, summits, and other can-kicking measures - 10th June 2012
 * For the eurozone, the worst is yet to come - This euro crisis is now getting extremely serious. Events are happening quickly, closing-in on policy-makers and threatening to engulf us - 28th May 2012
 * Broken banking system is keeping growth at bay - Last weekend's election results in France and Greece, we're told, show that eurozone voters want "growth, not austerity". In the UK, too, the deficit-cutting coalition Government is being widely castigated for "lacking a growth policy" - 14th May 2012
 * Bankers' vitriol has masked Sir Mervyn King's uncomfortable message - I don't know Sir Mervyn King particularly well. I've talked with the Bank of England Governor á deux just a few times over the years, always at official function - 7th May 2012
 * Pump panic highlights the West's slavery to crude oil - Advance countries can't do without crude - witness petrol panic in Britain and US gasoline prices nearing the politically deadly “four bucks a gallon” - and claims of US energy independence just don't ring true - 2nd April 2012
 * Budget 2012: sadly, George Osborne hasn't changed the big picture - George Osborne's latest Budget was, as expected, "fiscally neutral". The Chancellor kept to his "austerity plan", the aim of which is to cut the UK's annual budget deficit to zero by 2016-17 - 26th March 2012
 * Forget 'economic spring' - Greek outlook is stormy - While last week's debt swap was obviously important, there is still a very real danger of Greece needing yet another bail-out quite soon and eventually leaving the euro - 12th March 2012



Articles: 2011

 * Germany must decide if it wants the eurozone to survive or perish - European debt and equity markets ended a tumultuous week with a rally on Friday. So shares in the US and across the rest of the world rose too. But the threat of a "euroquake" – a systemic collapse which would make Lehman Brothers look tame – is by no means over. Far from it - 12th November 2011
 * the latest eurozone bail-out is destined to fail within weeks'' - I want last week's European bail-out to work. My sincere hope is that collective and decisive action by the eurozone's large member states will stabilize global markets, at least for a while, so allowing the global economy to catch its breath - 30th October 2011



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 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Halligan