Archive for economy
Business investment headed in right direction
Lots of new investment figures out from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) today, with this graph summing up the overall picture:
David Howarth: liberals should increase indirect taxes
Martin Tod recently drew my attention to a short publication from David Howarth published over the summer about levels of public spending: Spending and Growth – a response to David Laws. As the title suggests, it is primarily a response to someone else’s views on appropriate levels of public spending: Laws’ assertion that public spending [...]
Eliminating the structural deficit is aiming for the wrong target
There is an appealing simplicity behind the idea of having a zero structural deficit. It is the policy the government is committed to, with its plans to eliminate the structural deficit. And it’s also wrong. For all the problems in measuring the structural deficit accurately, the concept is a useful one – to measure what [...]
What’s happened to real wages over the last 25 years?
This little presentation from the Office of National Statistics has the answer. It’s packed full of interesting information, presented in a very clear manner:
* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter ...
The puzzle about the Heseltine growth review is…
… that what Michael Heseltine has said today is the same as he’s been consistently saying since the 1980s. Its contents may be good or may be bad*, depending on your point of view, but the one thing they most certainly are not is surprising. They are exactly what you would have expected a Heseltine [...]
The best piece I’ve read on the GDP figures
Excellent work by Jonathan Jones putting together an analysis of how right (or rather, how wrong) the initial quarterly GDP estimates are: Whatever figure the ONS tells us GDP grew by in the third quarter of 2012, there’s one thing you can be pretty sure of: it won’t be the actual amount GDP grew by [...]
“Lib Dem MPs urge Osborne to alter course” – including Annette Brooke
It’s significant that Annette Brooke, very far from one of the ‘usual suspects’, is one of the MPs quoted by the Financial Times: Liberal Democrats have, for the first time, begun to break ranks with the chancellor, calling for him to loosen his deficit reduction targets and fund immediate building and infrastructure projects… Mr Pugh [...]
Did someone send David Cameron the wrong media grid for the week?
I only ask because: Unemployment down (good news) Inflation down (seen as good news even if some may differ) New railway investment plans published Big move to boost infrastructure spending from the autumn onwards All sounds for the making of a week of good economic news. So what does David Cameron do? He gives a [...]
Some cautiously promising economic news, especially for non-UK nationals
Unemployment fell again last month- done by 65,000, falling for the third month in a row and confirming the picture that as economic downturns go, this one has seen unemployment levels rather lower than previous experience would have suggested. Job creation continues with the number of jobs up 357,000 over the quarter and up 544,000 on a [...]
