The Turkish lira slipped by more than 5% against the US dollar in October alone, and is now close to revisiting January’s all-time lows. Iraq’s Kurdish region is seeking independence, which some fear could foment unrest among Turkish Kurds. A spat with the US over visas illustrates the government’s authoritarian and irascible tendencies. In these circumstances, global investors require a decent real yield on government bonds to stick around, but with inflation at 11%, high compared with other emerging markets, and the average yield on debt at 11.4%, they’re not getting one.
Viewpoint
“[It’s] not money the [housing] market needs – it’s land… Jacob Rees-Mogg [has] made a forceful case for building on the (heavily romanticised) green belt. [He] said that borrowing billions to stimulate building would be ‘putting the cart before the horse’, adding that additional capital will be wasted if it’s injected into a ‘sclerotic’ and ‘completely gummed up’ planning system. He is entirely correct, and no amount of ministerial intervention (in the form of help-to-buy Isas or streamlined sales processes) will come close to the transformative effects of liberalising planning regulations. The current green-belt policy pushes up the cost of land and living.”
The City View, City AM