Wednesday 6 February 2013 ‘The economy – what really went wrong and what lies ahead’ has attracted endless debate in recent years, and a leading economist delivered his own analysis of the situation in Leeds this week. With 25 years of city experience, James Bevan, Chief Investment Officer at CCLA Investment Management Ltd, brought great insight to the topic when he addressed an audience at The Grammar School at Leeds. To graphically reinforce the global nature of the problem, in which the UK is a significant but small player, James displayed maps showing each country geographically and then resized proportionate to their economic wealth. He discussed the signals that heralded the economic crisis and the lack of response that led to its escalation, before moving on to his analysis of where we go from here. James said: “The global financial crisis can be traced to fundamental imbalances that remain in place, with developed economies continuing to over consume and under produce despite programmes of austerity and central bank support. “The good news is that actually the way forward is relatively well understood if we would but grasp it. We need central bankers and government to pursue policies that support real growth and we need cheaper currencies. The catch that no one wants to talk about is that we’ll have to write off a lot of debt.” The audience for James’ talk was members of The Grammar School at Leeds Business Networking Group. The network brings together parents, alumni and others associated with the school to meet in a professional environment to exchange ideas and hear from inspiring speakers from different sectors on a range of business topics. James Bevan began his City career in 1988 following a period of postgraduate research in applied economics and asset allocation at Cambridge University. As Chief Investment Officer at CCLA Investment Management Ltd, a post he has held since 2006, James is responsible for all of the investment activities of the company, which is a specialist fund manager for charities and the public sector. He is a frequent commentator on finance, economics and investing for the BBC, Sky, and other media, writes for a number of journals and blogs for Room 151. General News
