His comments have to some extent succeeded in achieving the desired result without having

His comments have to some extent succeeded in achieving the desired result without having to spend a dollar of Federal Reserve money, which was presumably his intention. By simply opening his mouth, Mr Greenspan has made long term credit that little bit easier. Yet the market cannot be manipulated indefinitely, and the present combination of exceptionally low interest rates and a declining currency will eventually prove inflationary.Many investors think equities still too risky for them The risk in bond markets seems to me much higher. For the time being, cash remains far and away the most reliable bet.Littlewoods/GUSLast time two big mail order companies tried to merge, they were packed of to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission where they were subsequently blocked. Littlewoods and GUS concede that the 70 per cent share of agency mail order they will have when combined might be enough to do the same again if the competition authorities were to adopt the same narrow definition of the market they did back in the mid-1990s.

So confident is Littlewoods that they will not that it is buying GUS’s mail order business unconditionally.The market has changed fundamentally since then, they argue, and it is hard to disagree. Home shopping has been transformed by the internet, and credit is now both easy and cheap, even for those elements of society traditionally targeted by traditional catalogue selling. The Barclays ought to be able to make the business pay its way once they’ve stripped out the duplicated cost. Alone, the two companies would have struggled to survive.jeremy.warner independent.co.uk.

The secretive Barclay brothers staked a huge gamble on Britain’s mail order market yesterday when they agreed to pay £590m for the GUS home shopping business in order to merge it with the Littlewoods retail empire they acquired last year. It will also have about 30 per cent of the wider catalogue shopping market which includes newer rivals such as Next Directory. The group’s huge portfolio of catalogues would include names such as Kays and Marshall Ward.However, the Littlewoods chairman, David Simons, expressed confidence that the deal would gain regulatory approval, saying the combined company would have less than 3 per cent of the non-food retail market in the UK. He also said the market for the old-fashioned agency style of mail order was declining at such a rate that some businesses could disappear completely if consolidation was not allowed to take place.He said: “Agency has been in terminal decline and what we are keen to do is undertake a repositioning and revitalisation of the industry. We know that GUS was looking at closure and run-down [of their mail order business].We represent an acceptable alternative.” Analysts’ views were mixed. Richard Hyman, head of the retail consultancy Verdict Research, said: “I’d be surprised if there are not competition considerations on this.

In the UK market they will have an overwhelmingly dominant position. In the past the regulators have had a very clear view on this.”David Aitman, a competition lawyer at the top City law firm Freshfields, said: “I suspect it will be challenging. The crunch for them will be to show a strong price constraint from conventional retailing or from the internet that forces their prices down to a competitive level.”One City analyst disagreed, saying: “A few years ago this deal wouldn’t have stood a prayer. But in the last few years the internet has arrived and there is far greater access to credit. I think they’ll be all right.”At first reading the precedents are not good.