Official GDP forecasts to be slashed in UK Budget

Cannon_Fodder

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

What was the rate of growth following the 1990 and 1980 recessions? I think it rebounded pretty fast once we wet back into growth - anyone got the numbers?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7789844.stm


Spot the 'false dawn' in two quarters 1991/2...

And add a -1.5% line on the right for where the Chancellor thinks it'll head Q1 2009.

And of course the Chancellor admitted that this recession is worse then 70s, 80s, 90s, so there are unknowns that we don't know we don't know about...

Rochdale_Pioneers

ad9898 wrote: »

This recession is much, much worse than either of those, these kind have a much weaker growth forecast. Darling is in cloud cuckoo land with those forecasts, just like he was in November.

Certainly sounds that way, and the IMF's forecast published in the last hour also suggests this. Then again the IMF haven't been remotely accurate in any of their forecasts recently either.

Generali

SingleSue wrote: »

Think we need a lesson in how all of this GDP etc works and what it all means....it confuzzles the life out of me!

GDP is a measure of the total value of economic activity and is (most often) calculated as being:

Consumption by people + investment (ie consumption by companies) + Government spending (consumption by Government) + total value of exports - total value of imports

There are other ways to calculate GDP but that is the normal way.

It's an imperfect measure of economic activity as it has many flaws (the biggest being that if you stay at home and look after your kids then you don't add anything to GDP, if you get a job and employ a nanny to do the same job, the nanny's wage is a part of GDP).

Government debt is most often measured as a percentage of GDP. I don't think that's always helpful but what do I know - I'm just some unemployed bloke with a keyboard. All these high falutin economists apparently know better than me what's going on.

Generali

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Certainly sounds that way, and the IMF's forecast published in the last hour also suggests this. Then again the IMF haven't been remotely accurate in any of their forecasts recently either.

Nobody can forecast what is going to happen right now apart from by coincidence as nobody has an economic model that has good data about the impact of the world's financial system falling apart.

Wookster

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Certainly sounds that way, and the IMF's forecast published in the last hour also suggests this. Then again the IMF haven't been remotely accurate in any of their forecasts recently either.

You've got your head in the sand again. Have you managed to spot a trend in the way IMF forecasts have moved?
If not, look again, its not hard, they've only gone one way: more pessimistic.

Degenerate

Generali wrote: »

Nobody can forecast what is going to happen right now apart from by coincidence as nobody has an economic model that has good data about the impact of the world's financial system falling apart.

Indeed, but you forgot the golden rule of the doomsters: any prediction by anyone can be treated as fact for the purposes of criticizing the government.

Degenerate

Cannon_Fodder wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7789844.stm


Spot the 'false dawn' in two quarters 1991/2...

That had a lot to do with recovery being stifled by high interest rates set in an attempt to maintain the pound in it's ERM band.

Black Wednesday ended all that nonsense, thank God. George Soros may be a mercenary b'stard, but he actually did us a huge favour.