Aggregate Demand and Supply

Punch and Judy - Danny Blanchflower and Andrew Sentance - appear to be getting nearer to sharing the same view: rocky times ahead, with the former predicting a recession and the latter suggesting that a recession might not be around the corner but that it will ensure that the economy remains unbalanced.

The latest growth forecast from the British Chambers of Commerce suggests that the economy is going to slow as firms start to run down Brexit stockpiles.

A good time for a new Prime Minister to take office.

The UK economy appears to be stalling, despite the latest PMI data for the service sector suggesting marginal growth in the sector. 

Yesterday's news of falling retail sales compared to the 12 months previous, is not good news for the economy. Growth, it seems, is slowing, and I, for one, will be fascinated to see the figures for the first quarter of this year.

Growth is struggling to remain in the black, and what's most worrying is that it's not just Brexit that's acting as a drag on growth. Slow growth among our trading partners is also having an effect. 

It is difficult to be optimistic about our immediate future at this point in time.

The number of cars made in the UK fell by nearly 20% compared to a year earlier - although the vast majority of this has resulted from a dramatic decline in export orders. However, overall car production this year has fallen by 8%.

Merry Christmas to all my friends at Tutor2U - this is their festive summary of the UK economy in 2018, and, sad to relate, I'm watching it on the first day of my holidays. It looks at all the macroeconomic developments over the year and looks forward - if that's the right term - to 2019.

Oooops!

The latest PMI data for the service sector doesn't make for encouraging reading, although the indices for manufacturing and construction were slightly more encouraging. I suspect it's very much 'wait-and-see' time for the British economy prior to any Brexit deal. Or not. And as a result, current growth predictions for the year are flat, with somewhere around 1.3% expected.

Hurrah!

That is all. What a decade!

The housing market is always a good indicator of the state of the economy and, in this case, it doesn't appear to suggest economic strength with the market flat, prices falling and estate agents struggling to sell.

That said, the winter months are always associated with less activity than the summer months...

Retail sales down. And growth likely to remain low for the foreseeable future.

The Telegraph does it's bit for Green GB Week by detailing how Britain intends to become a net-zero carbon economy, looking at the diverse ways and different sectors that are going to contribute to this situation.

More high street woes? Or a reflection of the Guardian's editorial position on the state of the economy?

Blanchflower v Sentence. The easy money round, some might say...

More bad news for the High Street, with footfall down and this doesn't bode well for future growth.

Who would want to be Prime Minister at this point? I can think of a few people...

Phillip Inman - John's boy - with a look at the state of UK manufacturing. It's not a pretty sight - and not just in the UK - with manufacturers plagued by uncertainty, and in the UK this is manifest in high levels of Brexit stockpiling. 

The BBC's Dharshini David gives her thoughts on moribund growth in the UK, focusing on disappointing spending figures, and how this is likely to impact growth going forward. 

And still they come.

It's not as if the car industry's trying to tell the government something is it? 

Retail sales appear to have been boosted by strong Black Friday sales, driven largely by e-commerce. And have we reached a watershed moment, where e-commerce has started to assume more importance than traditional bricks-and-mortar retail.

I wouldn't go this far yet - but it isn't far away.

The good news keeps coming, with the latest TUC report estimating that the average worker in nearly £12,000 worse-off in real terms, relative to 2008.

Hardly likely to boost growth, this sort of news is it?

More growth implications of Brexit - this time for potential growth, with recruitment problems having an adverse effect upon the UK's productive capacity, as a result of skills shortages and a decline in the size o the labour force.

The Cassandras are gathering regarding the impact of Brexit on business investment, arguing that the current environment is a foretaste of things to come as a result of Brexit.

And low investment will damage productivity which, in turn, will damage competitiveness. Happy days!

Brexit. UK. Growth. 

Or not as the case might be.

An insight into the nature of inequality in the UK, with the wealth of the super-rich rising more rapidly than that of everyone else, and the number of high net worth individuals growing.

However, do the headline figures rather conceal the fact that despite this, we're all getting better-off. That said, the extent of global inequality is staggering - not least in countries like India and Russia where more than 50% of wealth is owned by less than 1% of the population.  

Is the latest Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders data a leading or a lagged indicator?

Discuss the implications of significantly lower car sales for UK economic growth.

It's almost an essay title.