Posts
I do not believe what I am told on the news that we have seen the end of the recession/depression and that we have made a positive start to growth with an increase of 0.1% in January.
I am not going to include my views or the effects of quantitative easing in this post because it will be long enough as it is.
Let us look at the news for evidence: -
UK sales fall prompts fears of 'double-dip' recession says the headline in the Telegraph. This fall, which was expected to be a rise of a similar order, was the biggest recorded fall in January retail figures since comparable records began fifteen years ago.
Trade deficit hits sterling's value. Not hard to work out this one. the trade deficit is the surplus of imports over exports. An increase in the trade deficit is another negative sign for an economy.
Outrage at Cadbury's job losses after Kraft confirms factory closure. apart from the deceit of this as Kraft promised before the take over that jobs would not be exported look at the effect on the trade deficit above. In future Cadbury’s products will not be made in this factory so our production will be down, and out benefits bill up, but our imports will increase because we will have to import the confectionary that we previously made here.
Could Greece’s troubles turn into a run on sterling? This might seem like a nightmare situation to many, it certainly does to me, and if it troubles serious economic journalists then it should probably be on your radar too.
UK jobs market 'worse than it seems'. Just to finish off. In case you are still heartened by the 0.1% increase I offer you this piece, again from the Telegraph, about the jobs market. It would seem that unemployment may not have risen as much as expected because millions of formerly full time employees have taken jobs with an average of 30% lower pay or part time work. These people will not be on the unemployment statistics because they have work, just not enough to make a living, and are in receipt of benefits to sustain themselves. the largest block of unemployed by the way is young people.
This is not an economic recovery!
