Rather than going over all the recent developments at this time, I will concentrate on a few that I think are important. The first, as always, is the world economy.
It would be possible for someone reading the newspapers to get the impression that the world economy is in a parlous state – rising oil prices, large US current account deficit, China on a knife edge, Japan still stagnating, the US dollar about to plunge, etc. You will be pleased to hear that we are not of that view.