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Peter Johnston

Listed below are comments made by Peter Johnston between Tuesday, 9th June 2009 and Sunday, 6th December 2009.

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Flattening, not falling? 10:27am on 06 Dec 2009 Why the relentless focus on comparisons with last year.

If something drops to 10% of its former value then rises to 11% you can easily say it has risen by 10% (recession over etc.) but it is still at a fraction of its former value.

Car figures are a perfect recent example - a rise of 57% - but against a period when no-one could get credit, businesses held their breath until they knew what was going on etc.

Figures against last year are worthless - they need to be compared over a longer, more normal time period.

They are being used by Labour as a cheap way of telling everyone things are improving, the recession is over etc. Don't fall into their trap - or are you part of the conspiracy?
Vorsprung durch scrappage 3:49pm on 29 Sep 2009 The demographics don't match up. 10 year old cars are currently worth under £1,000. New ones are around £12-20k on average. So people, in a period when credit is hard to obtain, are suddenly stumping up £10k or more on the change.
This isn't a real and sustainable programme. People using it are merely trying to find another place for their savings, away from under 1% savings accounts. Or motor dealers have seen a loophole to get money from the government.
Of course extending it until after the election was never in doubt.
Vorsprung durch scrappage 3:44pm on 29 Sep 2009 Wasn't the aim of the scheme to reduce carbon emissions? Yet 80% of the emissions in a car's lifetime come from its manufacture. Junk an old one before the end of its life and force the world to undergo all the pollution of making a new one - great idea!
What future for media and journalism? 10:31am on 02 Sep 2009 Your piece has socialism at its core as the "correct" way of doing things. The problem with socialism, which you also describe as paternalism, is that if you are to tell people what to do you'd better have all the answers. Time was when you chose a bank by its security for your money. Once regulators got involved in the financial sector the best brains in the industry moved to how to circumvent regulations, not how to make things better. We do not have a god or government given right to banks which never fail and trying to create this distorts the market.

Moving to paid for media will be a bloodbath for the weak. Eventually one or two outlets will prevail and it will become a service like broadband which everyone feels they have to have. Alternatively someone will find an alternative way of funding it - like selling broadband with a free laptop, adding it as a bolt-on to sell something else. Of course this could be Google - what price Google News free as part of their service, paid for by that lovely advertising which those slower to see the web possibilities are now paying for with their corporate lives.

Murdoch is right - the BBC does distort this market, just as it has for years distorted the magazine market with publications such as Top Gear which benefit from lots of free publicity and name recognition. This is in spite of lots of regulation. Regulation is not the answer - some Darwinian survival of the fittest is!
Rebuilding the foundations of finance 11:44am on 17 Jun 2009 If the government won't change the system - we need to change the government.
This is proof the FSA failed first time round through meddling by the chancellor - a power he wants to maintain.
Britain's media obsession 11:16am on 16 Jun 2009 Not content with taking lots of money off us to pay for the BBC, Lord Carter is now happy to give it to commercial broadcasters whose commercial acumen is failing or business model flawed and to help them "develop as a truly global player". Surely not what we should be paying for with our licence fee?
Britain's media obsession 11:13am on 16 Jun 2009 There is another difference Robert. The utilities are self-funding - yet Gordon wants to use taxpayer's money to subsidise a commercial service. A service which will be totally out of date in a few years as wireless broadband takes over - as out of date as landlines are now in an age of mobiles.
This smacks of self-interest - I know one of Gordon's brothers works for EDF - are they planning to take over BT or does he have another brother/friend/party funder in mind?
Should we trust the regulators? 2:49pm on 15 Jun 2009 What's needed is the chance for us to vote with our feet. Open up our banking industry to overseas competition so we don't have to use the cosy RBS/Lloyds/HSBC/Barclay/Santander UK cartel. Our banks will soon shrink to a size where they can and will fail.
A call for debate 11:46am on 10 Jun 2009 Hasn't everyone missed the point? The LibDems want PR and insist on it as part of creating any electoral deals. This is an attempt at a compromise and points the way to a Lib/Lab pact to stay in power.
Executive rewards, for what? 11:32am on 09 Jun 2009 Your fascination with remuneration is simply the politics of envy. A company pays what it needs to to attract the best people and keep them against enticements elsewhere. In a market where there is strong competition for talent, these incentives can be large, in a recession less so. Thus the market is self correcting - when there is lots of money around, employees get more, when there is less everyone gets less. Surely this is a sensible system and better than one where pay is the same, no matter how the company does?

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Peter Johnston