Buddah Lineage

  THE Bank of England warned today that the eurozone debt crisis is the “single biggest risk” to the UK recovery as it forecast a dramatically increased threat of a double-dip recession next year. Its quarterly inflation report revealed a greater chance of the economy contracting in the first three quarters of 2012, compared with its August forecasts, as eurozone and banking concerns and squeezed household budgets continue to weigh on growth. The Bank slashed its central - or most likely - growth estimate to no more than 1 per cent in both 2011 and 2012 from previous forecasts of around 1.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively. The worsened prospects for the UK economy mean inflation is likely to fall far quicker than previously estimated, hitting the Government’s 2 per cent target in the second half of next year before falling to as low as around 1.3 per cent in 2013. Bank governor Sir Mervyn King warned the “journey to a more balanced world economy w...

  Life is not easy for the financial market traders who are making things so hard for euro zone policymakers. There are no pumped-up traders cheering from their screens as Italy's bond yields rise or as France gets sucked into a debt crisis which has already forced Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to seek international bailouts. The mood is weary and fraught. Bond traders see their own business throttled off by the same market forces that squeeze Italy's public finances and stir speculation about France's triple-A credit rating. "Things have felt almost as bad as it was back during the Lehman days in terms of liquidity - it is increasingly hard to get any business done and, to be honest, we think it is going to get worse," a London-based bond trader said. "Two-way markets have gone, the size of business you can get done at these bid/offer rates is minimal, bonuses and jobs are being cut. It's depressing and what is worse, there is no guarantee that anyth...

  Bank governor Sir Mervyn King sent a stark message to political leaders as he flagged an unresolved eurozone debt crisis as the "single biggest risk" to the economy. But despite cutting forecasts, some experts accused the bank of being too optimistic and have predicted another multibillion-pound injection into the economy as early as next month. In its quarterly inflation report, the bank slashed its central, or most likely, growth estimate to around 1% in both 2011 and 2012 - but compared to previous forecasts the Bank's projections reveal a greater chance of the economy shrinking in the first three quarters in 2012. The forecasts assume the problems in the eurozone do not deepen, quantitative easing is maintained at current levels and interest rates stay at record lows. The worsened prospects for the UK economy mean inflation is likely to fall far quicker than previously estimated, hitting the Government's 2% target in the second half of next year before falling t...

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant Freddie Starr has been taken to hospital after suffering a severe allergic reaction in the jungle. According to the Daily Mail, Starr started feeling sick after completing the Greasy Spoon Bushtucker trial with The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright and doctors were called to assess the 68-year old's condition. An ITV spokesman has since confirmed the comedian's illness, stating: "Freddie Starr was taken unwell in the jungle. He was immediately attended to by on-site medics and taken to hospital where he was assessed by doctors." They added: "He will remain in hospital overnight as a precaution, and further tests continue. However, Freddie is in great spirits and keeping nursing staff entertained." A show-insider Down Under also explained to the newspaper that Starr's bout of ill-health has nothing to do with his well-documented heart problems, explaining: "Doctors have told us that it’s high...

Phone hacking: the names of nearly 30 News International staff appear in Glenn Mulcaire's notebooks, the Leveson inquiry has heard. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images The names of 28 News International employees appear in notebooks belonging to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the News of the World , the  Leveson inquiry  into press standards heard on its first day at London's high court.   Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry also heard that Mulcaire wrote the words " Daily Mirror " in his notepad, which suggests he may have carried out work for the paper.   Robert Jay QC, counsel for the inquiry, told the high court that "at least 27 other News International employees" are named in Mulcaire's paperwork, as well as former News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman, who was jailed for phone hacking along with the private investigator in January 2007.   Jay also told the inquiry, which began formal hearings at the high court ...

  former police officer who admitted his part in a £365 million VAT fraud has been jailed for 10 years and three months. The conspiracy that Nigel Cranswick directed has taken the equivalent of 25 years of work to investigate, Judge Brian Forster said. The 47-year-old ex-South Yorkshire Police officer was a director of Ideas 2 Go, and, despite its modest base in a Sheffield business park, he claimed it bought and sold £2 billion worth of goods in just eight months. He has since admitted that the firm's trading, largely in mobile phones and computer software, was fictitious, and the aim was to generate paperwork from fake sales in order to claim back a fortune in VAT from HM Revenue and Customs. Judge Forster, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, said: "This case concerned planned dishonesty resulting in the loss to the Revenue in the region of £365 million. "There were purported sales of billions of pounds. "The prosecution rightly described...

  ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was shaky, I went to take out the trash. He wrote a book based in part on lessons learned by losing his Las Vegas home in the housing crisis. There was this enormous window that looked right in on the kitchen table, and through it I could see my wife, Cori, and our four children eating dinner. It was dark outside, so they couldn’t see me, and I just stood there looking at them. After a while, I pulled up a bucket and I sat on it, just watching my children eat. I found myself wishing that I could get back there, connected to the simple ordinary stuff of my family’s life. And as I sat and watched, filled with longing and guilt, two questions kept arising: How did I get here? And how am I going to get out of this? There are many stories these days of people who lost their financial bearings during the housing boom and the crisis that fol...