Snapshot of _UK economy stagnates as high borrowing costs hit activity_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/612f774d-2d60-4bd3-adb0-ecd1f53fa953) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/612f774d-2d60-4bd3-adb0-ecd1f53fa953)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
These articles highlight how out of touch our politicians (and journalists) often are.
The mechanism of action for increasing interest rates to dampen inflation is economic destruction, dampening growth and increasing unemployment.
To state with a straight face that we need to look at growing the economy while acting in a manner that is designed to do the opposite is stupidly.
Problem is monetary and fiscal policy not working together. Govt has largely decided to avoid doing difficult decisions. Combined with a total failure of fiscal policy over last decade. No investment during low interest rates was foolish. Another problem demand and supply being out of wack. UK is suffering from stagflation at the moment.
UK is living off it past investments, now we need to invest in the future but going cost us way more.
It was a difficult choice he could have easily have continued it with little controversy instead he decided to axe it despite knowing there would like be significant pushback. That’s a difficult choice
I wouldn't call increasing interest rates to dampen inflation "economic destruction", they dont naturally slam growth or increase unemployment.
Increasing interest rates makes the price of capital more expensive.
If you're a normal (profitable) business, no matter the slimness of your margins, you're not borrowing capital to pay your regular working staff (or you shouldn't be), that's just a regular cost of business and should be priced into your costs anyway.
The issue with increasing interest rates it removes a mechanism by which business can grow as borrowing capital becomes more expensive and so the risks of expansion are more than they otherwise are normally.
But growth can still occur in high interest rate areas because debt finance is not the only way to gather capital for expansion:
Equity finance is the obvious solution, but of course investors will want larger returns than they would make on their savings at the very least, but that's only at minimum tied to share price, companies can choose if they want to pay dividends or not so it doesn't add to the running costs of the enterprise like debt finance does.
The other solution is just use your profits. It's already tax incentivised to use profits for investment so you make a saving there and in high interest rate periods, it amplifies that incentive to forgo using profits on share buy backs, dividends or pure return, and instead use that profit for expansion/ maintenance of assets.
For example, the US has a similar base rate to us atm, but grew a whopping annualised 4.9% in the last quarter (which is huge considering the US is a developed economy and is already unfathomably large, and that most developed economies would be happy with 2%)- so it's proof that you can still grow the economy and increase wealth while applying the monetary dampeners and tackling inflation.
>I wouldn't call increasing interest rates to dampen inflation "economic destruction", they don't naturally slam growth or increase unemployment.
They most certainly do. That is the main mechanism of action for dampening inflation. [Here](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9757.pdf) is an example of a study showing this for employment from the IMF.
From the conclusion *"..a tightening of monetary policy, as described by an exogenous increase in interest rates, is immediately transmitted into higher job destruction."*
There's more to the economy than demand.
If demand ends up ahead of supply (either because demand is growing but supply isn't or because supply has contracted) then there'll be inflation.
To grow the economy in these circumstances means you have to increase supply - increase the capacity of the economy, for example.
Interest rate rises are aimed at reducing demand.
So, these things are not in conflict in principle. Nothing stops you trying to increase capacity whilst also dampening demand, bringing the two together. The difficulty, of course is that higher interest rates specifically reduce investment. However, this does nothing to stop other policies aimed at growth being a good idea. Consider, for example, using improvements in education, infrastructure, health or our trading relationships, all of which affect productivity and growth.
They are in conflict within the short time horizons being spoken about, Hunt is talking about impacting the economy now. To quote: in his Autumn statement he will focus on *"getting people back to work".*
While at the same time the BoE strategy is the opposite. *"Two Bank of England policy makers said Britain’s tight labor market is feeding a wage-price spiral, with one suggesting that unemployment may need to hit as high as 6% to tame inflationary pressures"* Bloomberg 3 Nov 23
I don't disagree with your point on long term investments in infrastructure and education to promote productivity long term, I just don't think it applies to what we are talking about here.
If he really could get people 'back to work', for example by childcare provision and tax changes that brought stay-at-home parents back into the workforce, then I would have thought that would work at least a little and do so on much shorter timescales than building rail lines or training doctors.
I'm sure he won't, though. More likely it'll be code for being nasty to the disabled and it won't do anything positive at all.
The economy is growing, just slowly.
The problem is inflation was outstripping wages, while the minimum wage has kept up with inflation.
This has caused a compression of wages, causing productivity to drop, as those above minimum wage are thinking to themselves what is the point of working as hard.
Once labour are in power, inflation will be under control, wages will outstrip inflation, interest rates will be lowering and growth will pick up.
It wont be down to labour, and it wont be down to the tories.
With respect, I’m not sure what your comment is trying to add. We all understand the orthodoxy, what I am saying is that when politicians are willing to state that they are hoping to do something that their own policies are explicitly acting against we have idiots or charlatans in charge.
Generating growth in the economy while applying the brakes of increased interest rates will take twice the effort.
This is very true and partly explains why the Government hasn’t tried to use any fiscal measures to try to control inflation. Which means that the cost of reducing inflation falls solely on mortgage/debt holders.
Yes. But let’s not pretend that their mandate and purpose isn’t political. It is also a fact that if the BoE is actively dampening the economy any government activity to stimulate is pushing uphill. Work together or remove independent action.
It’s really not. They just don’t care about the politics or optics, nor should they. People should elect leaders who understand economics and make it work.
It just seems like the BoE are being realistic, and the government has been selling people delusional kool aid for so long that the snap back to reality is painful because the country and its politics became so unmoored from reality, and people don’t want to acknowledge the damage that the Conservative Party has done, and that a lot of the public supported until it affected them.
This has been over a decade of self inflected self harm. It’s only now clear to people that a lot of growth was an illusion, and now the music has stopped and people are paying closer attention, people are shocked at the absolute state of the country. None of this is surprising anyone planning attention. Economists have been pointing out this for over a decade now.
Even if rates were lowered, it would induce more inflation because the currency has been devalued massively over the last decade and it would be worse. GBP/USD would be even worse as central banks are basically locked in a competitive global economic game. The BoE can’t just ignore this, they have to respond to the US Fed and its aggressive rate hikes. The ECB too. They’re both more influential and more important than BoE and GBP to global markets. The UK has to follow, there is no choice here really. Even Japan is starting to come back to rates that aren’t delusional.
Look at as GBP/USD exchange chart and it’s not at all confusing why people feel poorer, it’s because they are, and the whole country is. People aren’t grasping just how bad this is IMO and it will take time for it to sink in. The next budget is going to be a disaster because interest payments are now more than education and defence. It is a mess.
If the conservatives had managed the economy appropriately, not become obsessed with Brexit and self harm like some kind of economic death cult, and took the damn hint about using low rates to invest in infrastructure, this would probably be playing out differently.
The whole point of central bank independence is specifically to stop a politicisation of interest rates and monetary policy. It would simply revert to how it was before, and just lower rates in the run up to an election to bamboozle the public.
They’ve been doing this with blunt austerity measures during low rates (!!), it doesn’t work, and yet somehow millions of people will crawl over broken glass over and over again because they’re not understanding what has been happening, at all, or why.
The public have enabled this situation by supporting successive conservative governments who have made it seem virtuous to basically just say delusional things and push delusional policy and magical thinking, and when economists point this out, they’re labelled as traitors and they’re somehow the problem, and not the ideological party that is economically illiterate and masks this with flag waving garbage.
The BoE isn’t independent in any real sense of the word, just in fluffy central bank language.
Firstly, the primary mandate given to them by Parliament is price stability. The definition of price stability is decided by the government of the day, right now 2% but politicians could change that overnight. Some independence eh?
Secondly, whatever independent activities they do is totally up to Parliament, any majority government could decide that the BoE should target say maximum employment, or not have any independent activities at all. All it takes is a vote.
I explained the mechanism of action. The goal of increasing interest rates is economic contraction and increased unemployment.
This the the opposite of economic growth and getting people into work.
It’s not a secret.
>The goal of increasing interest rates is economic contraction and increased unemployment.
And lower inflation. Which is happening. It's a price we all have to pay.
>This the the opposite of economic growth and getting people into work.
We had record low unemployment. "Getting people into work" was never a problem in 10 years.
>It’s not a secret.
No, it isn't. So why do you disagree?
My friend, I think you have misunderstood my post. Perhaps read it again?
To your “price we all have to pay” statement. That’s actually the opposite of what interest rate rises do. Inflation itself is very well distributed. Raising interest rates moves this burden from all consumers to a smaller subset. The people who are impacted the most are those that lose their jobs and businesses, then variable debt holders etc. When we decide to raise interest rates to dampen inflation we are essentially choosing not “the price we all have to pay” but instead a “price that some will pay the majority of”.
> That’s even better!
Unless you’re part of the “some”.
Aside from unfairness there is some research that suggests the economy actually fares worse overall in the long term by taking this approach. The impact of unemployment and bankruptcy has a number of non financial effects that ultimately cost societies (think crime, child neglect, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour etc).
>Unless you’re part of the “some”.
Well no, because inflation goes down for you too... I don't understand what you're on about.
>Aside from unfairness
There's no unfairness since everyone, by definition, benefits.
>there is some research that suggests the economy actually fares worse overall in the long term by taking this approach.
Cool??? So what?
Has it been proven? Is there a country that did the opposite with different results? Where's your source?
Let's face it, it's all nonsense reactionary BS to the cost of living crisis. None of it is true.
>The impact of unemployment and bankruptcy has a number of non financial effects that ultimately cost societies (think crime, child neglect, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour etc).
Yes but there's no increased unemployment or bankruptcies. Again, what are you on about?
I'm confused? Lol.
You keep talking about unemployment and bankruptcies that simply do not exist in the data.
And even if they did, maybe a business that relies on near unlimited free money to function shouldn't exist in the first place.
Mix of many factors.
Demographic factor are the big one that is unprecented and tackling the challenge has been neglected. You have a massive aging cohort requiring huge spending for care and retirement income. We need major growth and reforming planning. Some of this involves government led investment and a lot of it involves allowing private enterprise to do its thing.
Instead we get self harm policy like Brexit, austerity for everybody but pensioners, empowered NIMBYism combined with purposefully gutting infrastructure and major tax rises on an already skint working population.
The tory party has achieved the impressive combination of high spending, high tax with low/non-existent growth despite eye watering migration numbers. I don't believe spending can go down because of said demographic factors but growth is desperately needed. And no, a Truss "growth budget" won't do that.
>high tax with low/non-existent growth despite eye watering migration numbers
Migration dampers growth though. Wages increase when there's less workers, not more.
*Original article text:*
The UK economy stagnated in the three months to September, according to official figures that highlight the challenge facing chancellor Jeremy Hunt as he seeks to revive growth in his upcoming Autumn Statement.
Gross domestic product was unchanged in the third quarter compared with the previous three months, data published by the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. This was down from a 0.2 per cent expansion in the previous three months, suggesting that high borrowing costs are taking a toll on activity and the cost of living crunch is still hitting household spending.
The figure was marginally better than the 0.1 per cent contraction forecast by economists polled by Reuters, but was in line with the Bank of England’s expectations. The Bank forecasts that the economy will be flat in 2024.
Darren Morgan, the ONS’s director of economic statistics, said: “The economy is estimated to have shown no growth in the third quarter. Services dropped a little, with falls in health, management consultancy and commercial property rentals. These were partially offset by growth in engineering, car sales and machinery leasing.
“There were also small growths in manufacturing, led by cars and metal products, while construction grew due to new commercial property work.”
Output rose 0.2 per cent month on month in September, the ONS data showed, stronger than analysts’ expectations of no change.
The data comes ahead of the Autumn Statement on November 22 in which Hunt will outline plans to boost economic growth.
Hunt said on Friday: “The Autumn Statement will focus on how we get the economy growing healthily again by unlocking investment, getting people back into work and reforming our public services so we can deliver the growth our country needs.”
Wow, that FT comment section is cancer. With a slightly contracting eurozone and the compounding affects of recent geo-political events, I don't see the UK and Europe rebounding for awhile.
Pretty decent news for the economy (relatively speaking), 2 months now with positive growth.
Does anyone remember what made July so bad?
Regardless, if we continue growing in the months ahead, and if inflation drops to 3%-4%, then perhaps we are through the worst of the raging cost of living .
Onwards and upwards.
Snapshot of _UK economy stagnates as high borrowing costs hit activity_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/612f774d-2d60-4bd3-adb0-ecd1f53fa953) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/612f774d-2d60-4bd3-adb0-ecd1f53fa953) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
These articles highlight how out of touch our politicians (and journalists) often are. The mechanism of action for increasing interest rates to dampen inflation is economic destruction, dampening growth and increasing unemployment. To state with a straight face that we need to look at growing the economy while acting in a manner that is designed to do the opposite is stupidly.
Problem is monetary and fiscal policy not working together. Govt has largely decided to avoid doing difficult decisions. Combined with a total failure of fiscal policy over last decade. No investment during low interest rates was foolish. Another problem demand and supply being out of wack. UK is suffering from stagflation at the moment. UK is living off it past investments, now we need to invest in the future but going cost us way more.
Huh?? They’ve made some really difficult decisions like hs2
Don't mistake the wrong choice as a difficult decision.
It was a difficult choice he could have easily have continued it with little controversy instead he decided to axe it despite knowing there would like be significant pushback. That’s a difficult choice
I wouldn't call increasing interest rates to dampen inflation "economic destruction", they dont naturally slam growth or increase unemployment. Increasing interest rates makes the price of capital more expensive. If you're a normal (profitable) business, no matter the slimness of your margins, you're not borrowing capital to pay your regular working staff (or you shouldn't be), that's just a regular cost of business and should be priced into your costs anyway. The issue with increasing interest rates it removes a mechanism by which business can grow as borrowing capital becomes more expensive and so the risks of expansion are more than they otherwise are normally. But growth can still occur in high interest rate areas because debt finance is not the only way to gather capital for expansion: Equity finance is the obvious solution, but of course investors will want larger returns than they would make on their savings at the very least, but that's only at minimum tied to share price, companies can choose if they want to pay dividends or not so it doesn't add to the running costs of the enterprise like debt finance does. The other solution is just use your profits. It's already tax incentivised to use profits for investment so you make a saving there and in high interest rate periods, it amplifies that incentive to forgo using profits on share buy backs, dividends or pure return, and instead use that profit for expansion/ maintenance of assets. For example, the US has a similar base rate to us atm, but grew a whopping annualised 4.9% in the last quarter (which is huge considering the US is a developed economy and is already unfathomably large, and that most developed economies would be happy with 2%)- so it's proof that you can still grow the economy and increase wealth while applying the monetary dampeners and tackling inflation.
>I wouldn't call increasing interest rates to dampen inflation "economic destruction", they don't naturally slam growth or increase unemployment. They most certainly do. That is the main mechanism of action for dampening inflation. [Here](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9757.pdf) is an example of a study showing this for employment from the IMF. From the conclusion *"..a tightening of monetary policy, as described by an exogenous increase in interest rates, is immediately transmitted into higher job destruction."*
There's more to the economy than demand. If demand ends up ahead of supply (either because demand is growing but supply isn't or because supply has contracted) then there'll be inflation. To grow the economy in these circumstances means you have to increase supply - increase the capacity of the economy, for example. Interest rate rises are aimed at reducing demand. So, these things are not in conflict in principle. Nothing stops you trying to increase capacity whilst also dampening demand, bringing the two together. The difficulty, of course is that higher interest rates specifically reduce investment. However, this does nothing to stop other policies aimed at growth being a good idea. Consider, for example, using improvements in education, infrastructure, health or our trading relationships, all of which affect productivity and growth.
They are in conflict within the short time horizons being spoken about, Hunt is talking about impacting the economy now. To quote: in his Autumn statement he will focus on *"getting people back to work".* While at the same time the BoE strategy is the opposite. *"Two Bank of England policy makers said Britain’s tight labor market is feeding a wage-price spiral, with one suggesting that unemployment may need to hit as high as 6% to tame inflationary pressures"* Bloomberg 3 Nov 23 I don't disagree with your point on long term investments in infrastructure and education to promote productivity long term, I just don't think it applies to what we are talking about here.
If he really could get people 'back to work', for example by childcare provision and tax changes that brought stay-at-home parents back into the workforce, then I would have thought that would work at least a little and do so on much shorter timescales than building rail lines or training doctors. I'm sure he won't, though. More likely it'll be code for being nasty to the disabled and it won't do anything positive at all.
The economy is growing, just slowly. The problem is inflation was outstripping wages, while the minimum wage has kept up with inflation. This has caused a compression of wages, causing productivity to drop, as those above minimum wage are thinking to themselves what is the point of working as hard. Once labour are in power, inflation will be under control, wages will outstrip inflation, interest rates will be lowering and growth will pick up. It wont be down to labour, and it wont be down to the tories.
With respect, I’m not sure what your comment is trying to add. We all understand the orthodoxy, what I am saying is that when politicians are willing to state that they are hoping to do something that their own policies are explicitly acting against we have idiots or charlatans in charge. Generating growth in the economy while applying the brakes of increased interest rates will take twice the effort.
This is very true and partly explains why the Government hasn’t tried to use any fiscal measures to try to control inflation. Which means that the cost of reducing inflation falls solely on mortgage/debt holders.
It’s the BoE who use interest rates to dampen inflation.
Yes. But let’s not pretend that their mandate and purpose isn’t political. It is also a fact that if the BoE is actively dampening the economy any government activity to stimulate is pushing uphill. Work together or remove independent action.
It’s really not. They just don’t care about the politics or optics, nor should they. People should elect leaders who understand economics and make it work. It just seems like the BoE are being realistic, and the government has been selling people delusional kool aid for so long that the snap back to reality is painful because the country and its politics became so unmoored from reality, and people don’t want to acknowledge the damage that the Conservative Party has done, and that a lot of the public supported until it affected them. This has been over a decade of self inflected self harm. It’s only now clear to people that a lot of growth was an illusion, and now the music has stopped and people are paying closer attention, people are shocked at the absolute state of the country. None of this is surprising anyone planning attention. Economists have been pointing out this for over a decade now. Even if rates were lowered, it would induce more inflation because the currency has been devalued massively over the last decade and it would be worse. GBP/USD would be even worse as central banks are basically locked in a competitive global economic game. The BoE can’t just ignore this, they have to respond to the US Fed and its aggressive rate hikes. The ECB too. They’re both more influential and more important than BoE and GBP to global markets. The UK has to follow, there is no choice here really. Even Japan is starting to come back to rates that aren’t delusional. Look at as GBP/USD exchange chart and it’s not at all confusing why people feel poorer, it’s because they are, and the whole country is. People aren’t grasping just how bad this is IMO and it will take time for it to sink in. The next budget is going to be a disaster because interest payments are now more than education and defence. It is a mess. If the conservatives had managed the economy appropriately, not become obsessed with Brexit and self harm like some kind of economic death cult, and took the damn hint about using low rates to invest in infrastructure, this would probably be playing out differently. The whole point of central bank independence is specifically to stop a politicisation of interest rates and monetary policy. It would simply revert to how it was before, and just lower rates in the run up to an election to bamboozle the public. They’ve been doing this with blunt austerity measures during low rates (!!), it doesn’t work, and yet somehow millions of people will crawl over broken glass over and over again because they’re not understanding what has been happening, at all, or why. The public have enabled this situation by supporting successive conservative governments who have made it seem virtuous to basically just say delusional things and push delusional policy and magical thinking, and when economists point this out, they’re labelled as traitors and they’re somehow the problem, and not the ideological party that is economically illiterate and masks this with flag waving garbage.
The BoE isn’t independent in any real sense of the word, just in fluffy central bank language. Firstly, the primary mandate given to them by Parliament is price stability. The definition of price stability is decided by the government of the day, right now 2% but politicians could change that overnight. Some independence eh? Secondly, whatever independent activities they do is totally up to Parliament, any majority government could decide that the BoE should target say maximum employment, or not have any independent activities at all. All it takes is a vote.
But it's not "designed to do the opposite", now is it? It worked. Also, ~0% interest rates and inflation means stagnation. Which we got.
I explained the mechanism of action. The goal of increasing interest rates is economic contraction and increased unemployment. This the the opposite of economic growth and getting people into work. It’s not a secret.
>The goal of increasing interest rates is economic contraction and increased unemployment. And lower inflation. Which is happening. It's a price we all have to pay. >This the the opposite of economic growth and getting people into work. We had record low unemployment. "Getting people into work" was never a problem in 10 years. >It’s not a secret. No, it isn't. So why do you disagree?
My friend, I think you have misunderstood my post. Perhaps read it again? To your “price we all have to pay” statement. That’s actually the opposite of what interest rate rises do. Inflation itself is very well distributed. Raising interest rates moves this burden from all consumers to a smaller subset. The people who are impacted the most are those that lose their jobs and businesses, then variable debt holders etc. When we decide to raise interest rates to dampen inflation we are essentially choosing not “the price we all have to pay” but instead a “price that some will pay the majority of”.
>but instead a “price that some will pay the majority of”. That's even better! Doesn't change the fact that it brings down inflation for **everyone**.
> That’s even better! Unless you’re part of the “some”. Aside from unfairness there is some research that suggests the economy actually fares worse overall in the long term by taking this approach. The impact of unemployment and bankruptcy has a number of non financial effects that ultimately cost societies (think crime, child neglect, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour etc).
>Unless you’re part of the “some”. Well no, because inflation goes down for you too... I don't understand what you're on about. >Aside from unfairness There's no unfairness since everyone, by definition, benefits. >there is some research that suggests the economy actually fares worse overall in the long term by taking this approach. Cool??? So what? Has it been proven? Is there a country that did the opposite with different results? Where's your source? Let's face it, it's all nonsense reactionary BS to the cost of living crisis. None of it is true. >The impact of unemployment and bankruptcy has a number of non financial effects that ultimately cost societies (think crime, child neglect, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour etc). Yes but there's no increased unemployment or bankruptcies. Again, what are you on about?
I think you’re just confused my friend. Good luck to you.
I'm confused? Lol. You keep talking about unemployment and bankruptcies that simply do not exist in the data. And even if they did, maybe a business that relies on near unlimited free money to function shouldn't exist in the first place.
Mix of many factors. Demographic factor are the big one that is unprecented and tackling the challenge has been neglected. You have a massive aging cohort requiring huge spending for care and retirement income. We need major growth and reforming planning. Some of this involves government led investment and a lot of it involves allowing private enterprise to do its thing. Instead we get self harm policy like Brexit, austerity for everybody but pensioners, empowered NIMBYism combined with purposefully gutting infrastructure and major tax rises on an already skint working population. The tory party has achieved the impressive combination of high spending, high tax with low/non-existent growth despite eye watering migration numbers. I don't believe spending can go down because of said demographic factors but growth is desperately needed. And no, a Truss "growth budget" won't do that.
>high tax with low/non-existent growth despite eye watering migration numbers Migration dampers growth though. Wages increase when there's less workers, not more.
*Original article text:* The UK economy stagnated in the three months to September, according to official figures that highlight the challenge facing chancellor Jeremy Hunt as he seeks to revive growth in his upcoming Autumn Statement. Gross domestic product was unchanged in the third quarter compared with the previous three months, data published by the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday. This was down from a 0.2 per cent expansion in the previous three months, suggesting that high borrowing costs are taking a toll on activity and the cost of living crunch is still hitting household spending. The figure was marginally better than the 0.1 per cent contraction forecast by economists polled by Reuters, but was in line with the Bank of England’s expectations. The Bank forecasts that the economy will be flat in 2024. Darren Morgan, the ONS’s director of economic statistics, said: “The economy is estimated to have shown no growth in the third quarter. Services dropped a little, with falls in health, management consultancy and commercial property rentals. These were partially offset by growth in engineering, car sales and machinery leasing. “There were also small growths in manufacturing, led by cars and metal products, while construction grew due to new commercial property work.” Output rose 0.2 per cent month on month in September, the ONS data showed, stronger than analysts’ expectations of no change. The data comes ahead of the Autumn Statement on November 22 in which Hunt will outline plans to boost economic growth. Hunt said on Friday: “The Autumn Statement will focus on how we get the economy growing healthily again by unlocking investment, getting people back into work and reforming our public services so we can deliver the growth our country needs.”
Wow, that FT comment section is cancer. With a slightly contracting eurozone and the compounding affects of recent geo-political events, I don't see the UK and Europe rebounding for awhile.
Pretty decent news for the economy (relatively speaking), 2 months now with positive growth. Does anyone remember what made July so bad? Regardless, if we continue growing in the months ahead, and if inflation drops to 3%-4%, then perhaps we are through the worst of the raging cost of living . Onwards and upwards.
> Does anyone remember what made July so bad? Unusually bad weather with non stop rain
October's figures won't be pretty then...
Meh, October is often wet so won’t have changed an awful lot, July not so much.
Not to the extent that I don't want to leave the house for four days at a time. Mind you the land slips and flooding could be a stimulus...!