You'll need to log on to the FT site to read the two articles but an interesting little spat has broken out at the paper over whether the government should introduce a windfall tax on bank bonuses. His argument was that the bonuses are a direct result of taxpayer support for the banking industry and so taxpayers are entitled to get some of their money back.

The FT's Lex column disagrees. Today it writes: "In 1360, notes the Bank of England's Andrew Haldane, a Barcelona banker was executed in front of his failed institution to discourage others from excessive risk-taking. In the UK, the mob is today once again baying for blood. Some want to buy it off with a one-off windfall tax on bonuses. "Try it: millions will love it," Martin Wolf, the Financial Times' chief economics commentator, wrote yesterday. Slim chance. If there had been any interest in this populist gimmick, it would have featured in this week's Queen's Speech. Even this desperate Labour government knows better.

"Any windfall tax on bonuses would be a futile gesture: it would almost certainly be revenue-negative for the government and, if implemented unilaterally, damaging to Britain's most competitive industry. Not only would the remarkable number of high earners who are non-doms escape any punitive levy; but to the extent that a new marginal tax rate of, say, 80 per cent on income over £150,000 was seen to be unfair, it would also be avoided. If the risk of it being repeated were high, it would encourage the most productive professionals to leave these shores."

I like the image of Martin Wolf being part of an angry mob. The Treasury has been cool on the idea of any kind of windfall tax though it is angered by the return of big bonuses and not sure what to do about it, apart from giving the Financial Services Authority new powers of intervention in remuneration. If all goes according to plan for the banks, bonuses in 2-3 years' time could be very big indeed.

The spin the OECD put on its new forecasts was that growth would not be strong enough for a while to halt the rise in unemployment. Even so, it has significantly revised up its numbers, raising its 2010 forecast for OECD growth from 0.7% to 1.9%. Growth wil further accelerate to 2.5% in 2011 it expects. A detailed handout is accessible here.

News on the demand side of the economy was relatively good, retail sales rising by 0.4% in October for a 3.4% rise on a year earlier. Sales volume in the latest three months was up by 1.1%. Clothing sales appear to have been particularly strong in October. Household goods stores saw a 3.8% rise over the latest three months, partly reflecting the continued upturn in housing. Bank of England figures showed mortgage approvals up from 56,000 to 61,000 - almost to the level normally consistent with stable prices. More on the retail sales here.

The public finances were marginally disappointing, with net borrowing of £11.4 billion in October, compared with £0.1 billion a year earlier, and a current budget deficit of £7.7 billion, compared with a £2.2 billion surplus in October 2008. Though the figures were a touch disappointing, £86.9 billion of borrowing for the first seven months of the fiscal year does not obviously suggest a need for an upward revision of the Treasury's £175 billion forecast for the full year, particularly with VAT set to rise in the new year. More details here.

That's what Professor Chris Berry of the University of Glasgow, Smith's alma mater, claims to be able to do. His talk can be accessed here.

The minutes of the Bank of England monetary policy committee's November meeting revealed a little bit of division on quantitative easing, seven members voting for a £25 billion increase to £200 billion, one (Spencer Dale) for no change and another (David Miles) for a £40 billion increase to £215 billion. The minutes also suggested that there will be no addition to the agreed amount (£25 billion) until February.

The markets were also interested in the fact that the committee discussed a cut in the rate on commercial bank reserves at the Bank, which it suggested "would bear down on short-term market rates, and could ease monetary conditions further". While concluding that the impact would be small and that QE was a more effective way of operating, this is one to look out for. The minutes are here.

Also today, the Bank released the numerical parameters of its new forecasts. Growth will peak at 4.3% in the second quarter of 2011, its modal projections suggest. The mean is lower, 3.3%, but still pretty healthy. The projections are here.

Consumer price inflation rose to 1.5% in October, from its low of 1.1% in September. Retail price deflation eased from 1.4% to 0.8%, while RPIX inflation was up from 1.3% to 1.9%. The base effects that were so helpful in the past few months are now turning. The biggest will be the rise in VAT back to 17.5% in January. The figures have no implications for policy, however, given that the Bank of England has said it will look through this rise. More details here.

Life is full of mysteries. This week's is how to square the Bank of England's upbeat forecast for the economy a few days ago with governor Mervyn King's relentlessly downbeat tone in presenting it.

Though the Bank is enough of a tease not to give us precise numbers, a reading of its charts suggest its new forecasts are for growth of a little over 2% next year, rising to 4% in 2011.

The Treasury is in the process of putting together a new compilation of independent forecasts but its last set suggested a consensus prediction of 1.2% growth in 2010, rising to 1.9% in 2011.

The Bank is twice as optimistic as the consensus, so why the gloomy governor? One possibility is that he was a bit under the weather, the evidence for which is that a pink-jacketed flunky brought in a warming cup of something to get him through Wednesday's press conference. The pink jacket, by the way, is a 300-year old tradition and nothing to do with Sir Elton John.

The second possibility is that although King presented the forecast, he does not believe it. The inflation report forecast is, however, the judgment of the monetary policy committee (MPC) and he said differences between members were small.

Germany is growing well, with gross domestic product up 0.7% in the third quarter, France slightly less so, 0.3%. Italy has also returned to growth, with a 0.6% third quarter GDP rise. The upshot is that Eurozone growth in the third quarter was 0.4%, following a 0.2% decline in the second quarter. EU growth as a whole was 0.2%, despite being dragged down by Britain's apparent 0.4% GDP fall. More details here.