Despite the heat, we've been busy with the usual website shenanigans, so here are some of our latest launches.

KattenElljay are a new recruitment company that specialise in renewal energy industries. They required a site that stood out from the typical recruitment sites available while being able to update jobs in the renewable energy market. It was launched as part of an exhibition in which we provided pop-up displays, corporate stationery and design that drove new potential customers to the site and generated a significant number of leads.


Davina Boutique is a new venture for the highly successful and well respected shoe company Davina Shoes. Specialising in high-end ladies and children's shoes from designers such as Pura Lopez, Davina Boutique needed stunning photography, an accessible site with ease-of-use and smart design at its core. Davina took the opportunity to upgrade two other websites using the same template to maximise the effectiveness of the design while keeping it highly cost-efficient. A logo identity, corporate stationery, packaging and brand design was also involved the development.


Mapleton Homes made the most of the Infozure Property packages available since March. Mapleton use the highly bespoke Complete Package to showcase their property developments through a central management system in which they can fully customise properties and photography to keep customers informed and up to date. To see more property or estate agent websites please visit www.infozureproperty.com.


Ashdale Flat Maintenance are experts in residential flat maintenance, including gardening, window cleaning, deep cleaning, and ongoing cleaning and maintenance. The website uses elements of flash to bring out the quality of service provided. There is also a form available to download that details the elements of the full service available to customers. Infozure provided search engine optimisation as part of the website development. Try typing "flat maintenance" into Google UK and see what comes up top!

Fortuna Search are a young yet highly regarded recruitment company focusing on corporate finance recruitment and recruitment in others areas of the financial industry. Fortuna Search & Selection required a corporate site to express the professionalism and quality of corporate finance recruitment available through the company, as well as being able to update jobs and news on the live site.

Nexus are an exclusive property company that specialise in all aspects of management and negotiation in the property industry. Nexus required a site with an impressive design that could draw audiences to them. Infozure also provided a company logo, corporate stationery, and marketing consulting. Nexus have already received a large number of hits and potential leads.

Manufacturing in the UK

There is an article in today's FT written by Rolls Royce Chief Executive Sir John Rose. In it he explains that 'Britain needs an industrial route map' and that 'a broadly based economy that includes high-value manufacturing is likely to be more resilient than a narrowly based one'. His article includes:

• Warren buffet has drawn attention to he risk that the economy's structure may make it vulnerable to any US led recession.
• Strongly branded, export orientated manufacturing companies with a focus on technology and productivity can succeed in world markets
• That a UK economy that has a 'route map' for high value manufacturing will be better able to weather the ups and downs of the global economy.

Having an element of high value manufacturing in the UK is of course a commendable asset. The UK's manufacturing sector does contribute a significant and impressive amount to the country's economy, summed up brilliantly here by Ian Pearson of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills:

'I don't need to tell anyone in this room that Manufacturing is the lifeblood of our economy, providing around 3 million good quality jobs and comprising over half of all exports.

The UK is the world's 6th largest manufacturer and the manufacturing industries combined (including construction, oil and gas) make up more than a quarter (27%) of our entire GDP.'

However, A 'route map' to increase the level of manufacturing in the UK economy to over a third seems to me to make it more vulnerable to the modern global economy than less. Where do we expect most of our manufacturing orders to come from? The West or the East? What is consumer spending like at the moment for UK goods? What is the exchange rate of the pound in comparison to the Dollar? What is the availability of capital for large firms to procure high value goods?

Wages in the UK are considerably higher than those in the developing world. The minimum wage is currently £5.52 an hour. The average wage for 'High value manufacturing' staff in the UK would surely be higher still. Although I couldn't obtain accurate figures for high value manufacturing wages in general in China, here is a link to substantial data that points to rising but still significantly lower manufacturing wage rates. However, is the quality of manufacturing in the developing world not available? Not if you ask Sir John Himself surely; as Rolls Royce themselves have out-sourced some of their manufacturing to Singapore as he himself tells the BBC . I don't think any part of the manufacture of an exceptional Rolls Royce engine is not 'high value'

'we must develop a framework or 'route map' to set priorities for both public and private sector investment' Does this mean that the Government needs to subsidise Research and Development, sow the seeds of innovation in Technology parks and subsidise Foreign Companies looking to establish manufacturing in the UK?

Exchange rates are not currently beneficial to UK exports. With the Chinese Government controlling their exchange rate and the weakness of the Dollar we are not best placed to be chasing export led growth. Sir John laments the service based industry that provides '1m well paid jobs, large corporation tax revenues and a positive balance of payments of about £20bn' compared to manufacturing's 'loss of 1m jobs over the past 10 years'. There was a good reason for these job losses. We are not well placed to be manufacturing focused in the world economy.

In conclusion Sir john says that 'My conclusion is a positive one. Provided that we do not engage in the usual protracted political debate, we have a real opportunity to develop a national consensus on the way ahead for the UK economy that is capable of having a generational impact.' What on earth? He wants to change the focus of the whole UK economy without protracted political debate? John, mate, stick to making planes and stop writing in the exceptional and award winning FT. Tom Friedman wrote a book called the World is Flat. In it he describes a pilot project by McDonalds in the USA where the guy who talks to the customers at a drive through is actaully in a call centre sending the orders to the kitchen via the internet. The call centre could be anywhere, but the point is that is a flat global economy Land, Labour and Capital rates are not only all important but extremely portable. Companies will use the best and cheapest wherever it may be to improve its profit and loss everywhere possible. Yes we do need technical people graduating in the sciences, Technology parks and R&D incentives etc, just there is no reason why UK companies can't be listed here, pay tax here, employ management and skilled staff here and get the manufacturing done elsewhere. What hope have we for manufacturing to be raised to 30% of GDP or even higher here? Should we focus on something that Sir John himself admits is in rapid decline or try to further improve what we do very well already and focus on our service industry and an intellectually based comparative advantage.

The author is of average intellect and has little to no experience in manual labour let alone manufacturing.

You can't only believe in the markets when they are going up!

At present a large number of people are concerned and negative regarding the current global economic outlook. These include Bankers, surveyors, estate agents and economists. The consensus of opinions points to a feared economic slowdown and a housing market slump. Gordon Brown has thus come out defending his economic record and has promised to do something about the situation. (Lets all forget that he was Chancellor in the previous periods and is now Prime Minister…who is Alastair Darling? The current Chancellor's meeting with banks has become a footnote)

Gordon Brown had less of a hand in the good times than he believes or would have you believe and now has little ability to stop the downturn. The ‘narrative fallacy’ as extolled by Nassim Taleb is portrayed in Gordon Brown believing he is responsible for economic growth over the past decade. Looking back it may be possible for him to ‘fit’ his economic policies using a confirmation bias into the recent economic record of the UK. However, when considering the economic conditions of the past decade and the fundamentals he inherited it would have been very strange had the UK not experienced economic growth similar to that seen throughout Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. Gordon Brown can surely not claim his decisions to be of equal impact as cheap goods from China etc? Would he have taken the credit for creating an environment that allowed for complicated derivatives to generate profit and liquidity before the credit crunch?

The ‘virtual senate’ of investors and lenders that Chomsky discusses here effects economic policy, and that same ‘virtual senate’ has now more impact on monetary policy than Governments and maybe Central Banks. Monetary policy as eschewed by Milton Friedman et al may work ceteris paribus but when this ‘virtual senate’ do not allow for efficiency in the money markets by adjusting Libor or passing on rate cuts this results in monetary policy not applying in full. Therefore it will not be as effective in stimulating economic growth in a slowdown. In this situation, cuts to the base rate by the Bank of England are ineffective at everything but creating inflation vulnerability; which, is counter to their main objective. The Bank of England Act 1998 states that ‘maintaining price stability’ is the monetary policy committee’s first objective and supporting the Governments policies for growth and employment are subject to controlling inflation. (This differs from the objectives of the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank.)

Lets not forget that momentum is extremely powerful in markets. Confidence in the housing markets has turned and now a great deal of negative momentum is being generated. Once this momentum starts I think stabalising resistance will be at around 10%, 15% or even 20% year on year falls in the housing market. Upwards momentum in inflation could be just as if not more serious than slow economic growth. With global commodity prices what they are stagflation is a real danger.

If monetary policy is ineffective and there is no room in the budget for fiscal policy, (Taking Northern Rock into account the Government has already broken its own golden rules on borrowing let alone putting PFI on to the balance sheet!) Gordon Brown’s only remaining option is to politely ask the 'virtual senate' to help him out! That might be exactly what this is! However, game theory would suggest that the self-interested institutions will be cautious of moving first and therefore as a group will not provide Brown with the magic bullet his ratings so desperately need.

My conclusion is that the business cycle has not yet been completely conquered by modern politics or the economics of Central Bankers and that Black Swan events can create the same swings in momentum that have characterised economic history for generations. This is not a bad thing for those who believe in the markets. A more accurate pricing of risk and the dissolving of poor business practices can be a maturing benefit to the global economy. This is encapsulated in the statement 'You can't only believe in the markets when they are going up'.