GDP figures expected this morning

Generali

michaels wrote: »

I'm actually surprised it is that strong as it appeared that retail and leisure were very dead during the bad weather in Feb, March.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Two sides to every coin though.

The cold weather increased the amount of money we spent on gas and electric to keep warm, which has provided a small boost for the figures.

Energy spending is a small part of total consumption. However........

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I was listening to something not too long back, and the weather, (they stated) doesn't effect sales too much at the moment, as more and more are buying only what they need. They still need those things regardless of the weather. They stated the weather effects impulse purchases more than day to day stuff and impulse purchases are down anyway.

That is a very good point. It would take some data mining to measure the comparative effects. I would guess that less impulse buying outweighs greater spending on heating but that is just a guess.

I'll look at the figures at some point and see what I can see.

Rinoa

Ed Balls hears the ONS results this morning

wotsthat

There is evidence that the economy is picking up - this is just the latest.

It's difficult to know whether this is because of or in spite of government policy. I think a lot of it is due due to the fact that all recessions come to an end and this one has lingered for long enough.

wotsthat

Generali wrote: »

DLW won't!

Sterling is up for the fifth straight day too - he'll be livid.

Generali

wotsthat wrote: »

Sterling is up for the fifth straight day too - he[DLW]'ll be livid.

Indeed. As DLW has made clear, in the world of numpty-nomics a higher pound is good for exports and the economy. Persumably that's because the value of the Pound is some sort of international vote on how well the British economy should be doing.

I'd love to be clearer on that but engagement on things is some thing that the little people do. It's certainly not for a BSD like DLW.

Graham_Devon

Ed Balls is on now.

"business are not investing, investment down, were only back to where we were 6 months back, the defecit is not coming down"

To sum it up....."these are lacklustre figures, whether in a technical recession or not is irrelevant....the chanellor is failing".

Sounds like he is reeling off sentences from a piece of paper.

Edit: Bizarrely enough, Osbourne should have all the answers and plans, however, labour shouldn't have any answers or plans as they can't tell where we will even be in 2 weeks due to the euro crisis. Foot and mouth.

Generali

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Sounds like he is reeling off sentences from a piece of paper.

Is it the same bit of paper DLW uses or do they tear a sheet off for each do you think?

Better to use it for wiping IMHO.

danothy

michaels wrote: »

I wonder what the BBC is going to do with all the articles they have written about how unprecidented a triple dip recession is....

Wait six months?