Oh, but I thought it was, with definitiveness? My, have they lied in an attempted confidence game with U.K. consumers? No, they wouldn't do that, would they? That'd be low. And our esteemed public officials (and non-public, Fed Reserve masters of the universe) would never follow course. Go spend, spend, spend! Salad days are here again! Nothing but Blue Skies, from now on.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8303930.stm Recession in UK 'still not over' A leading business group has cast doubt on whether the UK economy emerged from recession in the third quarter of 2009. The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said business confidence was improving but the economy was still "frail". Official GDP figures are due next week. If they show no growth, it will be the first time the UK has endured six successive quarters without growth. Separately, UK retail sales rose 2.8% from September 2008, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said. But the BRC warned that "we mustn't get carried away" - as the figures are compared with a "weak performance" last September when turmoil in the financial markets hit consumer confidence. 'On the brink' The BCC surveyed more than 5,500 companies and found that confidence strengthened across the board. Confidence among manufacturers was at its highest level since the beginning of 2008. But despite "good progress" being made in both the manufacturing and service sectors, domestic orders and sales were still down on the previous quarter, the BCC said. "The Q3 results support our assessment that the UK economy is on the brink of leaving recession," David Kern, chief economist at the BCC said. "However, the improvement is not sufficiently strong to allow us to conclude without doubt that GDP has already returned to positive growth." Last week, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research also estimated that the economy did not grow in the June to September quarter.
p.s. - This reminded me that I spoke with a friend (Friday) who is in London right now, is in manufacturing, and he said the economy in London is an absolute mess. I trust his eyes on the ground observation 1,000x more than any CNBC dribble.
Government Talking Heads are either great FOOLS or GREAT LIARS... Employment is a world-wide issue. When Globalization brought 500 million workers in Asia and Latin America... off of the farm where they scratched out a living... into the cities to work in manufacturing and services... all of those folks now compete for middle-class wage jobs in all of the Developed World. In China... when a factory shuts down, a worker might have to return to his home town and rejoin the family scratching out a living from the land. But in the US and I suppose the rest of the Developed world, that's not possible... the farms are large and owned by a few big interests. The bottom line.... we've got more people on the planet than there are jobs* for them... what's to be done with/about them?. * Recently saw a TV interview with a PhD population biologist who claimed, "... the Earth can support in a healthy fashion, only about 3 Billion people..." We've got 7 Billion now. Seems to me to be a major part of the overall problems...
Well, objectively, the UK economy has benefited immensely from the ccy depreciation. You should really come to Oxford St on the weekend to get an idea of just how cheap things appear to people outside the UK. I'll give you this piece of purely anecdotal evidence. It's been the second weekend when I have observed queues of Asian-looking people at the Louis Vuitton boutique at Selfridge's. Never saw that during 2007... Just my Z$2c.
population is a big problem and it wasn't that long ago it could have been controlled. even twenty years ago the population was about 4.5 billion. i remember in 1990 hearing it reached 5 billion. it was a problem they should have dealt with but it is unpopular with voters so democracy ruins responsible decisions. people do not want to be told they cannot have more children plus you cannot sterilise people on mass and keep power. people in western world controlled their populations and it even declined, which was required. the problem being this then caused a age disparity and there were not sufficient young people to look after old people and the government wanting power needed to meet the older populations needs to get their votes so they allowed people from other countries to migrate on mass to for fill that need. the problem being the countries that controlled population are no better off because they let in people from other countries that did not control their population to for fill there life style needs. in short the attempts made have been thwarted and we are back where we started. so i think there will be a war and people will die on mass in a terrible situation.
After the Great Plague in Europe, history shows the quality of life for the survivors and the next few/several generations improved significantly...
Morganist, your post is unbelievable crap. Watch the video and try to think it over. <object width="334" height="326"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param> <param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/HansRosling_2006-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/HansRosling-2006.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=320&vh=240&ap=0&ti=92&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen;year=2006;theme=unconventional_explanations;theme=presentation_innovation;theme=top_10_tedtalks;theme=speaking_at_ted2009;theme=numbers_at_play;theme=a_taste_of_tedindia;theme=technology_history_and_destiny;theme=rethinking_poverty;event=TED2006;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /><embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="334" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/HansRosling_2006-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/HansRosling-2006.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=320&vh=240&ap=0&ti=92&introDuration=16500&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=2000&adKeys=talk=hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen;year=2006;theme=unconventional_explanations;theme=presentation_innovation;theme=top_10_tedtalks;theme=speaking_at_ted2009;theme=numbers_at_play;theme=a_taste_of_tedindia;theme=technology_history_and_destiny;theme=rethinking_poverty;event=TED2006;"></embed></object>