A teenage school blog
Posts tagged england
10 financial events that shaped 2009
Dec 12th
What a year it’s been. There have been plenty of financial lows and erm, lows. Here’s a look back at some of the events that shaped 2009.
1. The UK officially goes into recession
Happy New Year. In January, the Office for National Statistics reported that the economy had shrunk through the last two quarters of 2008. As if to echo the bad news, there were several high profile retailers going bankrupt, including Woolworths and Waterford Wedgwood. The UK’s financial sector teetered on the brink of collapse, with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) posting a £28bn loss, and the government was forced to widen its bailout of the banking sector. We’re not alone though – the USA’s GDP falls by an eye-watering 3.8% as new president Barack Obama is inaugurated.
2. Unemployment looks less 2009 and more 1981
February saw job cuts at Corus, GKN and AstraZeneca following a slump in industrial demand. Even Britain’s demand for electricity fell as factories were shut down and families counted the pennies. We may be a nation of shoppers but you know things are bad when job losses in the retail sector and job vacancies hit a record low. Around 2,500 jobs were lost as Barratt Shoes went bust, and the high street was shaken by the collapse of Baugur, which owned House of Fraser and Hamleys. Those still in employment also felt the chill as employers asked them to work longer for less, forgo bonuses and pay rises. By May, unemployment hit 2.2 million after the biggest three-month rise in joblessness since 1981.
Because he’s worth it
Dec 11th
What does Fabio Capello have in common with the managers of Brazil, Argentina, France, Chile, Ivory Coast, South Korea, Denmark, Ghana, Serbia, USA, Slovenia, Paraguay, Algeria, Honduras, Slovakia, Uruguay, North Korea and Nigeria?
Capello earns the same amount as all the others. Put together.
Yes, according to Spanish paper Marca, for the same price as the England manager you could afford a brains trust of the bosses from 18 of our World Cup rivals.
The £6.1 million Capello gets paid every year is more than three times the amount earned by the next best-rewarded boss – his countryman, World Cup-winning Italy coach Marcello Lippi.
On the face of things, it looks like a shocking waste of money and another example of outrageous largesse from the suits at Wembley. But then you look at the managers of the major teams named in the above list.
There’s Raymond Domenech and Diego Maradona, two of world football’s bigger laughing stocks, and two men who have ensured their countries have significantly less chance of winning the tournament than they ought to. And there’s Dunga, who appears to have done a good job with Brazil so far but is as yet unproven at squeaky-bum time.