About

Welcome to my economics blog. Let me introduce myself. I am Robin Evans and I’ve recently retired from a 30 year career in the equity market in London, 23 years in fund management and then seven years at a boutique investment bank (Fox-Pitt, Kelton) , where I was responsible for producing economics and strategy research. Over the past few years, I have been featured a number of times in the Financial Times for various pieces of research that I published. Prior to equity research, I had a successful and varied career in fund management at the Phoenix Assurance, Barclays, Flemings and FPK. In 1998, I won the Investment Week Fund Manager of the Year award for diversified funds.

Having retired in the middle of 2010, I found myself with some time on my hands, a lot to say about the state of the world economy and stock markets but no way to express them. I started inundating my former colleagues with gloomy emails about the parlous state of the world. To save their inboxes from overflowing, I’ve started this blog, so they can know my thoughts and read them at their leisure, should they wish to do so.

Most of my comments will be on economics, particularly macroeconomics. There will be some topical comment on recent economic indicators, where they are of interest. There will be a bit of history mixed in with economics, as you cannot understand what is going on in the world without the historical context. Occasionally there may even be a bit of a political rant or something on music, for a bit of light relief.

So what about the strange title: “lemmings can teach nothing”? My teenage years were infused with progressive rock. One of the most challenging and eccentric bands was Van Der Graaf Generator. Their singer and main song writer is Peter Hammill, who is famous for his complex music and lyrics. Perhaps the band’s finest album was the seminal “Pawn Hearts” , which was so intense that it led to the band’s first break up. “Lemmings” is a composition from the album, containing the lines:

“Cowards are they who run today, the fight is beginning…
no war with knives, fight with our lives, lemmings can teach nothing;
death offers no hope, we must grope for the unknown answer,
unite our blood, abate the flood, avert the disaster.”

Given that the world economy has been flirting with diaster over the past three years and that politicians appear to be doing their best to push it over the edge, it seemed an appropriate moniker. I sincerely hope that politicians and policy makers are not lemmings, but sometimes it seems that lemmings are more rational. Unless they get their act together, I fear that there really will be a disaster. The Great Depression brought about the rise of extremism, Hitler and the Second World War. While history doesn’t repeat, it often rhymes. Let’s hope it doesn’t get as bad as that!