I'm only happy when it rains I'm only happy when it's complicated And though I know you can't appreciate it I'm only happy when it rains You know I love it when the news is bad And when it feels so good to feel so sad I'm only happy when it rains Garbage, Only Happy When It Rains Fathom's annual summer party is approaching. This is a function aimed at clients, friends and family. Our hope and expectation is that
Hurrying out of Old Street tube station yesterday morning I found myself face-to-face with Jeremy Corbyn - dressed as a Jedi Knight! Although it's perfectly plausible that the disruptive left-wing candidate might partake in a bit of mid-week fancy dress, greeting Londoners on their daily commute, it is in fact a vast mural. Unmissable in size, it is a timely reminder of the anti-establishment's growing popularity. So too is the hashtag #Grime4Corbyn. A reflection of the Labour candidate's diverse fan
Undoubtedly, being responsible for the monetary policy of a common currency bloc of more than a dozen different countries can be a thankless task at times. Mario Draghi could certainly tell us a thing or two about it - shoehorning every member state into a one-size-fits-all monetary policy is uncomfortable all round and leads to criticism of the shoemaker, in this analogy Mr Draghi. Arguably, Mr Draghi's biggest critics inside the union come from Germany. Adding to Wolfgang Schäuble's regular
Once the week's work is complete, Fathom staff, on occasion, are permitted to help themselves to a light ale from the company fridge. But what if they were to indulge in something stronger? Smoke a little cannabis perhaps? Such an idea is unlikely to pass muster with management, not least because the substance is banned in the UK! But in other parts of the world such behaviour would not be as far out as it sounds: several US states have
Every four years US presidential candidates debate the relative merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - a trilateral trade bloc between Canada, Mexico and the US. With an eye on key swing states, they usually conclude that domestic job losses can be pinned on multinationals exporting production south of the border, and that the US has been on the losing end of the deal. The main point of contention is whether NAFTA is simply bad or the
Let's face it, 2016 was not a good year for political pollsters. The breakthrough year for nationalism was met with shock results for both Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States and the UK's decision to leave the EU, with polls underestimating the respective likelihoods of such events. However, the results of the first round of elections in France suggest Europe's second largest economy will stay on the internationalist side of the line. Centrist Emmanuel Macron won the
According to a poll conducted by Elabe, through Wednesday and Thursday of this week, 24.0% of the French electorate will vote for M. Macron in round one of the French Presidential elections, to be held this Sunday. It also suggested that 21.5% would vote for Mme Le Pen, 20.0% for M. Fillon and 19.5% for M. Mélenchon. To our mind, and particularly in light of recent electoral experience, that makes the result 'too close to call'. Put more formally, on
It may only be Thursday, but with a four-day weekend starting tomorrow, it is appropriate that we send our weekly TFiF publication today: Thank Fathom it's a Four-day weekend (TFiFdw). The US military strike on a Syrian airbase may have dominated the headlines this week, but economists are still wondering just how Donald Trump will narrow the US trade deficit. Donald Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping passed smoothly. China is not a currency manipulator. There has also been a softer
"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time..." Winston Churchill, 1947 Fathom has its annual office awayday today - lots of brainstorms, idea showers, blue-sky thinking and so on, and that's just over cocktails in the evening. But there is one over-arching issue: what about the food? Our options were constrained: we all had to eat the same meal, except if we wanted vegetarian food. Then, excluding
It will have escaped the attention of very few people active in the financial markets that long-term real rates of interest are low. Very low, in fact. Anyone buying a ten-year index-linked gilt today, and holding it to maturity, is guaranteed a real-terms loss of some 2.0%. That doesn't seem right, does it? What should determine a country's long-run real rate of interest? Economists have a bit of a long-winded answer, and it runs something like this. Ultimately, a country's