UK Economy

[Iron]

Some analysis you won't get from the BBC:

'Calculated in 2012 money, Labour was spending £615 billion seven years ago. Next year, Mr Osborne will spend £104 billion more than that, a real increase of about 16 per cent since 2005.

...

Politically the Chancellor is in a terrible place: successfully portrayed by critics as a thrift-crazed axeman, chopping his way to national calamity, when, in truth, government spending is set to rise as a percentage of GDP next year, its cash outlay will be about £45 billion higher than this year’s, and national debt is on course to hit £1.53 trillion by 2017-18, 50 per cent more than in 2011-12.'

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... nough.html

Jeff

[superfrank]

'Blame The Weather' As UK Heads For Unprecedented Triple-Dip-Recession
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-2 ... -recession

As snow blankets much of the nation, it would appear the next round of central bank easing will be to print 'sunshine'.

the pound has fallen sharply again in recent days ahead of the inevitable next round of "easing".

[Iron]

UK GDP: Economy shrank at end of 2012 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21193525

Slightly misleading headline from the BBC, given that GDP doesn't represent the size of the economy...

Jeff

[staker72]

It's more misleading than that, shrank slightly would be a better phrase, the more imporant fact is that teh economy has in effect stayed level with pretty much zero growth for the year, admittedly standing still puts us ahead of many European counterparts who shrank.

[Iron]

If you took government non-investment expenditure out of the equation, I would hazard that the picture would be one of a country that's haemorrhaging wealth. When you have an economy that's a net importer, that has little investment going on, and that's spending much of its wealth on interest repayments, then it's hard to reach any other conclusion.

I'd say we're a bit like a company that is up to its eyeballs in debt, isn't making a profit, and is only staying afloat due to its cash reserves...

Jeff

[Iron]

Bank of England's QE 'hits tax revenues’ - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... enues.html

' The taxman has missed out on tens of billions of pounds thanks to an “unintended consequence” of Quantitative Easing, a group of MPs will be told on Monday.'

[Iron]

David Cameron tells porkies about Britain’s national debt - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... onal-debt/

Includes a quite shocking chart: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... bt/psnd-3/

I'm not a mathematician, but that looks a bit like an exponential curve...

Jeff

[superfrank]

David Cameron tells porkies about Britain’s national debt - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... onal-debt/

Includes a quite shocking chart: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... bt/psnd-3/

I'm not a mathematician, but that looks a bit like an exponential curve...

Jeff

yep, complete bullshit. before long the BoE will have monetised the debt, the currency will have crashed, and they'll be claiming to have cleared our debts!

Gideon Gono would be proud! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Gono

[superfrank]

Business confidence 'hits new low', says survey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21387493

Confidence among UK businesses hit its lowest level in at least 21 years last month, a survey suggests.

and this despite the govt spending £4 for every £3 it receives in revenue, record low base rates, massive money printing by the BoE, a trashed currency and all manner of schemes designed to "get lending going" and prop up asset prices.

the problem is that the economic model was, and is, flawed. debt based growth only works for so long, like all pyramid schemes.

[Iron]

Sterling strikes seven-month lows amid calls for further weakness - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/curr ... kness.html

I wonder how long it will be before bond holders run out of patience and interest rates are made to rise...

Jeff

[superfrank]

it's interesting how much sterling has fallen since Carney was named as Merv's replacement. he's expected do the same as King (print and let inflation rip) but on steroids to save the banks, house prices and property developers while the real economy burns.

we're always told that a weak currency is good for exports, but sterling has been devalued between 20 and 40% against most currencies since the start of the financial crisis... and how much have exports risen? Answer: they haven't risen at all.

meanwhile the price of all imported goods and energy has risen substantially (and real inflation is much higher than the official fiddled figures). King has failed on an epic scale (both pre and post-credit crunch) and they are replacing him with a bloke who is gonna pursue the same failed policies but with more vigour.

the UK is fooked and plenty of people are now speculating that we will be the first to go pop; hence sterling's renewed descent.

[steven1976]

edit to, what are the main uk exports?

[superfrank]

am not sure, i think it's a fair mix of things rather than a few key areas.

tbf we do export quite a bit of stuff, it's just that other countries have grown their exports much quicker and our imports continue to dwarf the exports.

with the decline of North Sea oil we are also now a net importer of energy. Norway had the same oil but chose to invest the proceeds for the long term rather than p1ss it up the wall as we did!

[staker72]

Britain is normally counted as the 5th largest exporter of manufactured goods, I believe we are the second largest aerospace manufacturer (USA 1st of course)
I am not sure the pound has declined quite as much as pople think. Many years ago I used to import a bit from USA and we used a rule of thumb of 1.64 dollar/pound.
I've just checked and it's currently 1.55 What I think people tend to look at is a couple of years ago the dollar fell to 2 to the pound and everybody uses this to claim big changes.
The Euros a different matter but I seem to remember when the European banking crisis spread to UK the pound was down to 1.1 and again it is now 1.15

All major currencies have had their highs and lows over the last 2-3 years for various reasons but the Pound is still within it's normal range. However journo's like headlines and 'everything normal' doesn't look as good as excited hyperbole about an odd % movement.

[Iron]

I think Jim Rogers nicely sums up the state we're in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 8wLlWJTh7o