UK GDP shows 0.7% contraction in 2012 Q2
 

Looking forward to Osborne and Cameron putting a positive spin on this :Whatever_

Weather and additional bank holidays for the Jubilee.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one; i don't think the wettest summer on record is a fair backdrop to criticise Coalition policy per se. The world is on its arse, not just the tax-evading UK, so although worse than expected no doubt, not a total shock. The Olympics will need to bring a significant bounce back to the economy though, no doubt. At least the weather looks more promising.

Any excuse to explain the piss poor economy.
Ex the sky the wrong colour, too many flies etc, leaves on the line

No sciboy, sometimes there are factors which really do make a difference. The weather and Bank holidays are two of them.

Of course if you have an anti-Coalition agenda then this will give you all the ammo you need, but it's not actually as huge a surprise as tomorrow's tabloids will have you believe. But it is weak, yes without doubt.

How is your spending going to go up on account of the 'limpics?

I know what you are saying Tel, but even the IMF are starting to question the strategy being employed by the UK government.

It's true I am not their biggest fan (not right keen on any of the UK political parties as it happens), but leaving that aside I still feel, as I said two years ago, that focusing too much on cuts leads to a lack of confidence and hence a lack of growth.

I do think they need to change tack somewhat becuase this isn't working even when we factor in the world economy and the weather etc.

Beer sales, bbq ribs sales, London transport ticket sales, to name three? Is that what you meant?

0.7 contraction!

You could hardly feel it

Maybe Balls is right?

You OK Tony? ;)

I think what the Bank of England introduced last month, the Funding for Lending scheme http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/marke...S/default.aspx needs a chance to work. It's the most direct incentive yet for banks to start getting money out the door.

But on a wider level, i'll just cast out the notion that contraction isn't always unavoidable, that economies need to re-shape, re-group. I think the UK economy is in such a situation. Positive growth month after month, year after year might be theoretically desirable, but in practice things just can't always work out like that.

Contraction doesn't necessarily need to be seen as failure is my point. We all know that as individuals if we spend more than we earn we go overdrawn. The UK is in the same situation. Sure we'd all like to live on the never-never, buy nice cars, big houses etc etc but eventually if circumstances change, so must spending patterns.

No politician will ever win a popularity contest for reining in the spending, but i'm pretty sure the Coalition are not being deliberately punitive. The world is a different place than in 2008. Perhaps if the majority of non PAYE workers didn't think it was absolutely ok to put in a fictitious profit number in their tax returns, we might have a bit more cash to spread around in these difficult times.

I have given up caring now.

Bored.com

Bored of politicians that supposidly care
Bored of Ed f&cking Miliband - Somebody please smack that **** round the head with a cricket bat please!
Bored of the media constantly spinning ****e about everything
Bored of financial institutions being exposed for the crooks they are
Bored of Germany not admitting defeat on the Euro
Bored of the youth of today saying how hard it is to get a job yet we are now going to employ people to get them out of bed
Bored of starting to watch and get into a new tv series only for it to be canned after 1 season because they only had 5 millions viewers



Did I mention that I am 30 in October? :wonder:
Hmm, could be a reason for my lack of desire for pretty much everything at the moment.

Fair comment (espeically the last part ;) ) and yes it will be interetsing to see if the new ledning incentive for the banks bears some fruit, but i also feel it's partly an issue of confidence both for the consumer and businesses.

If the government could give back something people perceive to have been taken away then I think confidence would start to return as at least half of that contraction must be to do with businesses not investing because of a lack of confidence in the future. It's a downward spiral that is hard to get out of.

Just watched Osborne talking about the figures and to be fair he refused to blame the bank holidays etc. He described the figures as disappointing, but said the measures put in place will work in time.... how long would have been my next question :lol1:

But they have been pumping money into the economy left right and centre for the last 4 years.
Result? Another recession.
The world is in recession, not just the UK.

What do you suggest the government give back? If they return vat to 17.5%, do you really think this would make a difference? This can be wiped out over night by increasing oil prices. Will they put a price adjuster on what we pay at the pumps like they suggested? Will they f&ck.

Everyone is scraping the barrel at the moment, consumers and businesses, let alone governments. But yet we continue to put faith into democracy, which has well and truly failed the people.

Off topic I know, but which series got canned after 1 season?

Terra Nova
Alcatraz
Stargate Universe (2 seasons I think)

But yet pieces of crap such as Touch, get confirmed for another season.
And I am a big Kiefer fan!

I know Terra Nova was not liked by some on here, but towards the end of first season, it was getting much better I was really looking forward to season 2, as they could have done a lot with it.

As for Alcatraz, I have only watched the first 3 episodes and quite liked it. I have the rest recorded on Sky Plus, but when I heard about it being cancelled, I won't bother watching them.

Stargate Universe again, could have been great, but it lost its way in season 2. The ending was well and truely ****e.

I think we were spoiled with 24 and Lost.

So where's the stock "It's Labour's fault" response? :wonder:

My personal view of the money made available to the banks to loan to small business in the funding for lending scheme, is that the BoE should have made the loans directly to the companies, bypassing the banks.

Technically that's not possible though, not with current legislation.

Change the legislation!

The banks will just use the cash to sure up its books.
There is no lower limit on how much they have to lend.
And if people do not appear to be a good risk, why would they lend anyway?

Also, can someone answer me this:
If the banks were proven to be guilty of manipulating the libor rate in their own favour, surely they now have to re-asses the standard variable mortgage rates?

Halifax has recently told us that they will be increasing their rate from 3% to 3.5%.
Surely the info used to justify this increase is flawed? :wonder:

No this scheme is not like quantitative easing, it can't be used to shore up banks' balance sheets in the same way, that's why they've done it differently. HSBC have already said they won't be participating so there's no guarantee of success, but it is at least something, you can't accuse the Bank of not trying.

Regarding Libor, roughly speaking you got a lower fix on your mortgage because rates were reflected too low. So you probably owe hundreds if not thousands if you had a sizeable mortgage. Or is that a bit inconvenient? :)

WHOA!! Hang ON!! - They've cancelled Alcatraz?????:confused:

Well that is why I asked as I didn't quite understand it. :thumb:

Barclays jumped for the chance to start lending to small businesses the day after the Libor news broke. It did amuse me when I logged in to my businesses bank account to see they were desperate to lend me money, most likely so I didn't dump them after the scandal. Maybe I'm cynical.

Barclays had huge outflow of custom resulting from that, so it probably wasn't pure coincidence. Customers of HSBC, Lloyds, Santander and RBS can all make their decision whether to switch banks when those names are also dragged through the mud in the enquiry.

FFS - that blonde bit in Alcatraz made it worth watching alone, let alone the story;)

Tell me about it. It's the amount of time one invests in watching these shows that make me angry.

Like most, I don't get a lot of spare time so what I chose to watch is important to me.
I start watching a new series as I like to follow a story for a good amount of time to see both the characters and plot develop.

Has anyone watched the new 'Sinbad' series on Sky 1? What a pile of bollocks. But I bet that will continue for 5 seasons! :rolleyes:

That's exactly what I thought when they canned Flash Forward. Bastids!! :mad:

Surely beer and BBQ rib sales go up on bank holidays too

If it's not 15 degrees and pissing down dusk till dawn, yes.