First Time Mortgage Bad Credit

Scottish Business Briefing – August 4

Interest rates have risen for the first time in two years as bankers take a pre-emptive strike against rising inflation (The Scotsman). The Bank of England raised rates by a quarter percentage point to 4.75%. Analysts were expecting policymakers to wait longer to assess the impact of rising consumer prices on the wider economy. The Monetary Policy Committee decision sent share prices down more than 1.5% in London and led the pound to two-month highs against the dollar and euro. In its statement the MPC claimed the hike was necessary to bring inflation back to target in the medium term. In May it had warned that inflation would be above its 2% target in two years if it did not raise interest rates but had appeared in no hurry to make a move. Manufacturing umbrella group EEF claims the hike is premature at a time of growing economic and political uncertainty.

Big Blue Brainstorm

The collective wisdom of crowds depends on your crowd, and IBM (IBM ) has one of the sharpest crowds around. CEO Samuel J. Palmisano knows this, and he wants to leverage it. He is pulling people together for the online equivalent of a town meeting. His hope: The opinions of some 100,000 minds will lead to catalytic innovations so powerful they will transform industries, alter human behavior, and lead to new businesses for IBM. He calls the project an Innovation Jam. .

ROUNDUP UK insolvencies and repossessions soar, further increases ...

LONDON (AFX) - Individual insolvencies in England and Wales soared to a record high in the second quarter of 2006, eclipsing the previous all-time high in the first three months of the year, official figures showed. The figures, which reveal the mounting debt burden carried by Britons, are likely to climb further in the third quarter after the Bank of England hiked interest rates for the first time in two years yesterday. The rising levels are likely to dent consumer spending and hit bottom lines in the financial sector, with write-offs of bad debt seen climbing to 1.5 bln by year end according to some estimates. During the second quarter, there were some 26,021 individual insolvencies, up 10 pct from the first three months of the year and a massive 66.3 pct higher compared with the same period a year ago.

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