Rise in Lancashire's retail spending (From Lancaster And Morecambe Citizen)

May I respectfully suggest that retailers lower their mark-ups in order to increase their sales.
The downturn in the economy hits consumers as well as producers !!!

"...customers in the county are said to need more incentive to spend"

Good news, a new pound shop opens in Burnley in a couple of weeks!

Is this increase by volume or value? And if the latter has the figure been adjusted to take account of the overall level of price inflation?

Confidence is shot to pieces. The GfK Confidence Index for June was
-29, which looks not too bad because it's marginally better than the -33 recorded in December. In fact the Index has been within the range -29 to -33 for the best part of a year. This is unprecedented in the 40 years history of the Index, apparently.

Having said all this, confidence is essentially a measure of mood and can quickly improve if the factors on which the Index is constructed change for the better.

I want a job compiling useless information or information that is blatantly obvious and wrapping it up as a report, I would then hopefully convince councils and other bodies to part with a large amount of cash for the contents, which can of course be slewed to say anything that is needed at that moment in time.
I noticed students at the universities have been doing this for years and then it become a vital document of national importance. Why I could even be a consultant.

Maverick,

Yep, it looks like you and I may have missed a trick.

Economic news continues to be presented pretty dreadfully by the mainstream media. Nowadays changes in economic activity are either a ‘shock’ or a ‘surprise’. The msm then seek reasons, often spurious and sometimes quite ridiculous, to explain the variation of the outcome from the predictions made by economists and experts. In doing so they are failing us. Journalist in the media should be holding expert economists to account by asking them: can you tell us why you’re predictions were so wide of the mark? And given this sorry state of affairs shouldn’t you withdraw from the business of predicting altogether and start doing something useful like planting crocus bulbs?

I am coming to the view that the 24-hour rolling news is, except in circumstances of catastrophic events, a positive hindrance. I rarely watch it or listen to it but today would be the same old, tired story with the msm falling over each other to get comments from experts about the latest decision from the Bank of England MPC. This is called ‘instant reaction’. Frankly, this is the very last thing we need. What is needed is considered and thoughtful assessment, which by definition takes time.

There’s a very good book on this by Daniel Kahneman called ‘Thinking fast and slow’. It’s a heavy read but riveting.

Best wishes

Kevin