Consumers are in denial
21 Jul 2008 [0 Comments | 124 views]
Of the various bodies out there who make economic forecasts, the ITEM Club from Ernst and Young is one of the best. Its proud boast is that it is the only independent consultancy which uses the same forecasting model as HM Treasury, so its quarterly reports deserve to be taken seriously. This morning its latest report was published.
“The UK economy is in danger of being crushed between the jaws of world credit and commodity markets, with little prospect of early relief†began the report. It went on to talk about the flirting with recession. Actually, though a mere flirtation will be real achievement seen in the context of what is going on.
The ITEM club predicts growth of 1.5 per cent this year, followed by 1 per cent next. If its is right, and frankly the ITEM club has good track record and it may well be right, then actually the UK will have done extraordinarily well.
The tough one, though, is this:
The ITEM Club says consumers are in denial.
IMF: Global economy “better-than-expected”
18 Jul 2008 [0 Comments | 103 views]
It’s a bit like one of those cakes a child may make in your kitchen. It looks awful, crumbing in the middle, mess everywhere. But when you actually take a bite, well, it tastes pretty good.
Yesterday, the IMF talked the talk of gloom. But when you drill down into the report, well, it really was good news, at least good news by the standards of 2008.
"The IMF expects global growth to slow significantly in the second half of the year, before recovering gradually in 2009," begins their latest report. We all know the developed world is under the cosh. But then the IMF added: “Expansions in emerging and developing economies are also expected to lose further steam.â€
But the real gloom was on the twin perils of inflation and deflation. "The global economy is in a tough spot, caught between sharply slowing demand in many advanced economies and rising inflation everywhere, notably in emerging and developing economies."
The IMF went on to predict growth slowing to virtually standstill in the US by the final quarter of this year.
So, why was the report good? Well, first of all, actually, all those comments made above are not new. But what is new is altogether more promising.
One-in-three chances of UK recession
28 Apr 2008 [1 Comment | 101 views]
Unless you have been living on Mars, you will know the last few months have been a bit tricky. But how bad was it really? Now the first version of the official statistics are out. And this is what they say. The UK grew by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year. [...]
