Economic growth slows to 0.3%

michaels

Generali wrote: »

Developed economies are consumer spending though. People make stuff and that stuff is consumed allowing the makers to consume stuff.

A rise in consumer spending is more stuff sold and bought which is more GDP and more jobs.

If people ain't buying what you sell then you ain't selling anything and can't buy. Either we trade and consume or we make our own clothes from the flax we can grow in the back garden.

Don't be silly, hair cuts, lattes and indeed 'legal services' are not proper output. Proper output is stuff you can touch...and to be honest only big heavy things made of metal or concrete, none of that plastic and silicon carp....

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

Don't be silly, hair cuts, lattes and indeed 'legal services' are not proper output. Proper output is stuff you can touch...and to be honest only big heavy things made of metal or concrete, none of that plastic and silicon carp....

Yea, unless it comes off a production line it don't count you know.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

michaels wrote: »

Don't be silly, hair cuts, lattes and indeed 'legal services' are not proper output. Proper output is stuff you can touch...and to be honest only big heavy things made of metal or concrete, none of that plastic and silicon carp....

antrobus wrote: »

Yea, unless it comes off a production line it don't count you know.

And not just any production line, preferably a big, noisy, dirty production line in the Midlands or Oop North, manned by real manly men wearing flat caps and overalls.

That's 'proper' output.

Thrugelmir

mayonnaise wrote: »

PPI refunds have had little or no effect on GDP.

What's the effect of £25 billion of free money then?

Explains new car sales for one along with holidays taken abroad.

PPI has given the current Government a useful smoke screen to hide behind. So that austerity hasn't directly impacted many people yet. The next 5 years were always going to be difficult. Irrespective of who is in power. With the US some 2/3 years ahead of the curve. A rise in interest rates over the pond will bring with it a most unwelcome wind blowing this way.

purch

I wish I had been dumb enough to have PPI missold to me:mad:

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

Don't be silly, hair cuts, lattes and indeed 'legal services' are not proper output. Proper output is stuff you can touch...and to be honest only big heavy things made of metal or concrete, none of that plastic and silicon carp....

Perhaps this is where our GDP per capita figures disappoint.

Making cars; fridges; televisions can be highly automated and efficient nowadays. Cutting hair or making a latte? Not so much change there.

Are we a labour intensive society now?

kabayiri

purch wrote: »

I wish I had been dumb enough to have PPI missold to me:mad:

Don't worry.

If you set up your own PPI firm you get commission amounting to about a 1/3 of the award.

Nice bit of jam there.

Plus...if you're smart...you get to sell client data to other companies. There's the cream

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

Perhaps this is where our GDP per capita figures disappoint.

Making cars; fridges; televisions can be highly automated and efficient nowadays. Cutting hair or making a latte? Not so much change there.

Are we a labour intensive society now?

GDP per worker is in the region of £50k so if you can sell £50k worth of hair cuts or coffees then you will pull productivity up

In some ways productivity could greatly be improved in the small business sector if the state handed out quotas.

Hair cutters is probably one sector that could do with some state intervention. We probably need no more than 15,000 hair cutters but I suspect we have over 30,000

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

Are we a labour intensive society now?

We have always been

If a machine replaces human activities. Lets say the self drive vehicles kill of 200,000 driving jobs. The economy reallocates its workforce to meet the next need/want


With regards to productivity falling the BOE investigated it and came to the conclusion that 5 of the 20odd sectors of the economy have dragged the whole figures down. One was oil and gas extraction. Another was the emergence of lots and lots of very poorly paid teaching assistants. Another was increased regulation resulting in more people hired in finance but they were paid crap wages in comparison to the average. Etc

CLAPTON

it seems that the USA economy only grew by 0.2% in the first quarter of the year

presumably this is all the fault of the the UK low growth of 0.3%