In recent years technology has evolved at a much rapid pace, so fast that it has almost gained a life of it's own. Technology has been making continuous advancements in each & every field including our very own Profession of Accounting.

"As the SaaS industry continues to become more sophisticated, operators and investors are looking more closely at performance-driving metrics," said David Spitz, managing director of KBCM's Technology Group and primary author of the survey.

Keep on reading: 2019 KBCM Technology Group Private SaaS Company Survey

Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Irish economist David McWilliams on the hope for a global new deal

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David McWilliams: I think it is fair to say that capitalism – in the course of this unprecedented crisis – has been suspended. We are not going back to where we were, to business as usual. The state has come back, and this episode will not be forgotten by the electorate. I don’t know where we are going, but one thing seems clear: we are not going back.

Yanis Varoufakis: I like this phrase: capitalism has been suspended. The last time capitalism was suspended in the west was during the second world war, with the advent of the war economy: a command economy that fixed prices. The war economy marked the transcendence of the standard capitalist model.

The fact that Germany is now in the same pile of shit as the rest of us offers a glimmer of hope

My sense is that the period when you could travel, engage, move, we might have reached the end of that open period.

This is an edited version of a conversation that will appear in A Vision for Europe 2020: Nothing But an Alternative, published this month by Eris.

Rishi Sunak promises gradual end to coronavirus wage subsidies as concerns grow

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The chancellor Rishi Sunak has held talks with nine of Britain’s union leaders to try to reassure them plans to phase out the government’s furlough scheme will be gradual and minimise the impact on unemployment.

In the run-up to an announcement next week about the future of the wage subsidy scheme, Sunak sought to dampen union concerns that the coronavirus support package would be brought to an abrupt halt at the end of June.

Recessions tend to centre on one part of the economy; coronavirus has hit them all. The road to recovery will be long

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In a way, Britain should have been the country best prepared for the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the economy, because throughout 2019 barely a day went past without someone popping up to warn of the dangers of a cliff-edge Brexit.

But there are cliff edges and then there’s falling off the cliff, and not even the most pessimistic remainer would have been willing to predict what has happened since the UK went into lockdown at the end of March. While most of the attention has been focused – quite rightly – on the medical emergency, the economy has collapsed.

Threadneedle Street says the economy hasn’t been as bad as this for 300 years – so it can only can get better

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It’s hard to be all that cheerful when you are bracing yourself for the biggest annual contraction in the economy since before the South Sea Bubble crisis of 1720, but somehow or other the Bank of England has managed to find some nuggets of hope amid all the gloom.

To be sure, the short-term news from Threadneedle Street was as grim as everybody had expected. Having fallen by 3% in the first three months of 2020, activity is projected to drop by a further 25% in the second quarter and by 14% over the calendar year.

Related: Don't expect a snapback for the UK economy after lockdown is lifted | Larry Elliott

One of the two main definitions of recession in the UK is at least two quarters of negative economic growth. Judged by this yardstick, the UK was last in recession in 2008-09, when there were six consecutive quarters of negative growth. 

We urgently need a fairer tax system so that rich people like me help solve the fallout from coronavirus, not just profit from it

• Gary Stevenson is an economist and former interest rate trader

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I made my first million the year Greece went under. I was 24 years old at the time.

I’d attended a presentation given by one of Citibank’s senior economists, in which he explained that government debts of the world’s major economies had grown to dangerous levels, and were continuing to grow. He warned that markets could stop lending to some of these governments, forcing a devastating round of austerity on to already battered economies.

If we repeat 2008, buying a house with one’s own wages will be a thing of the past

Related: Don't expect a snapback for the UK economy after lockdown is lifted | Larry Elliott

Pace of layoffs tests states’ unemployment benefits fund as 33m jobless Americans make claims in past seven weeks

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Another three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to exact its terrible toll on the US jobs market.

More than 33 million jobless Americans have now made claims in the past seven weeks.

Bank outlines scale of Covid-19 shock in 2020 with forecast for deepest recession in 300 years

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The Bank of England has warned the British economy could shrink by 14% this year and unemployment more than double by spring as the coronavirus causes the deepest recession in modern history.

Leaving interest rates on hold at a record low of 0.1% as the economic crisis unfolds, the central bank said economic activity across the country had fallen sharply since the onset of the global health emergency and the lockdown measures to contain its spread.

Related: Don't expect a snapback for the UK economy after lockdown is lifted | Larry Elliott

Related: Bank of England warns UK economy could shrink 14% in 2020 amid Covid-19 downturn - business live

Related: Bank of England warns UK economy could shrink 14% in 2020 amid Covid-19 downturn - business live

With biggest plunge in output in 300 years being predicted, we explore why the last great recession happened

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Queen Anne was on the throne. Work had just started on Blenheim Palace in honour of John Churchill’s victories over Louis XIV’s French armies in the war of Spanish succession. The union between England and Scotland was imminent.

1706 is how far economic historians have to look back to find a slump bigger than the one that now threatens the country as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Related: UK unemployment to double and economy to shrink by 14%, warns Bank of England

Former Bank of England governor attacks government’s response to pandemic

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Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor during the financial crisis, has warned that Britain’s economy will take longer than expected to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Launching an attack on the government over its emergency loan guarantee scheme for businesses struggling during the crisis, Lord King said ministers needed to urgently “get a grip” on the situation to prevent lasting damage to the economy.

Related: War and the weather: what caused the huge economic slump of 1706?