The Economy

[DVL418]

RE: The Economy
Latest GDP figures published this morning.

The 1% growth posted for third quarter (July/Aug/Sept) was artificially boosted by two short-term factors: the Olympic Games, which fell in July and August, and the bounce-back from June's extra bank holiday for the diamond jubilee.

ALL income from Olympics tickets was counted towards economic output in the third quarter, whenever it was spent (I paid for my tickets to the football back in March), and the ONS believes ticket sales alone may have added 0.2% to GDP.

In the second quarter of the year, when growth declined by 0.4%, the ONS said output had been depressed by the extra bank holiday cutting the number of working days, and could be up to 0.5% higher in the third quarter as a result.

Therefore, ACTUAL growth was probably only about 0.3% - way below what is needed (0.8%) per quarter for a modern industrail economy just to 'stand still' and absorb efficiency savings on production costs.

No wonder Tory MPs are still walking around with long faces as the number of public sector job losses and spending cuts will really start to accelerate from this quarter, taking £billions out of the UK economy that the private sector is unlikely to replace by way of growth in output.

The time that even the backwoods Tories accept that its time for George to spend more time with his Trust Funds is approaching.