Time passes

Business Standard

How to have a good argument about economics

Modern models please

Small-number fixation clouds Euro zone picture

Trees, forest

Reuters

Bangladeshi accord shows limits of market forces

Not in vain

Get over it

Finance may be effect, not cause, of economic woe

Economy first, finance second

US workers stuck with euro-style sluggishness

Adjusted into mediocrity

ECB can count itself lucky among central banks

Nixed blessings

Welcome to another year of the Great Stagnation

Modern greats

New pope could help with global deleveraging

Franciscan austerity

Discrimination against women takes many forms

Still a gap

New high for Dow sends cryptic market messageThe stock market rarely speaks clearly. Milestones such as Tuesday's record closing high for the Dow Jones industrial average are easy to spot. But like the pronouncements of ancient oracles, this one is open to contradictory interpretations.To start with, as a narrow benchmark of 30 stocks weighted by share price rather than market value, the Dow is not very representative of the wider American market or the economy. And as a nominal metric, it is boosted by inflation. US equities will reach a more meaningful all-time high when the broader S&P 500 Index regains its 2000 peak, adjusted for inflation. To get there, it has to rise by approaching a third.And stock performance of late has hardly been unequivocally for the record books. The S&P 500 is still down in inflation-adjusted terms from the previous real high more than a dozen years ago - even though the constituent companies' combined profit has increased by almost 40 per cent in

Sibylline utterance

Nothing could be further from the mind of David Cameron than leading the UK into the euro zone.

Historical mistake

Central banks are globalisation's new enemy

Compare and contrast

Non habemus papamÂ 

Fiat pecunia

The gloom-and-doom brigade has had a second-class crisis. For four years, prognosticators of calamity have eagerly awaited the end. They expected the financial mess and draining recession to become a disaster which would shake the modern global economy to its foundations. It hasn&rsquo;t turned out that way.

Waiting room

David Cameron is loyal to a European Union. Sadly, it is not the EU that happens to exist, or is likely to exist any time soon. The British prime minister tried to outline his position in a speech on Wednesday, which culminated with the promise of a UK referendum on membership some years from now. Yet, his dreaming is confused and counterproductive.

Nonplussed

For business historians, the disappearance of HMV would mark the end of an era. The British CD and DVD retailer has called in administrators after years of vainly battling the internet. A buyer may yet be found for some of the stores, but new technology has basically doomed this business, which can be traced back to the 1890s.

A good feeling

Remember when politicians rushed to denounce the socially useless activities of the financial business? The pointless trading, the unnecessarily complexity of many instruments, the deceptive transfer of risks, the no-value-added research &mdash; the finance industry had grown much too large. As the crisis broke four years ago, a major cull looked all but inevitable. It hasn&rsquo;t happened.

Certainly not drowning

The fiscal cliff has been averted. Asian and European stock markets rose one-three per cent after the US Congress managed to avoid the previously mandated spending cuts and tax increases. The rally is unlikely to last long.

Edward Hadas