News - UK economy grows by 0.5 percent

[HEXUS]

No double-dip recession, but growth remains anaemic.

Read more.

[Andeh13]

More Tax on fuel, those motorists haven't been hammered hard enough!!!

That's their answer to everything isn't it!?

[neonplanet40]

Well no actually, their answer was to raise VAT and hammer everyone - between that and inflation. So not just the motor junkies affected

[[GSV]Myocardial]

Don't think we're out of the woods yet. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a very flat year, there's still a fair amount of pain to come for the public sector workers as their cuts really haven't kicked in yet.

[Saracen]

As usual, the devil is in the caveats, and the detail.

One caveat .... no single quarter can be taken to mean much. Last quarter had reasons for being exceptionally poor. Some detail .... it isn't just the overall figures that matter, but the breakdown. Exclude construction from those growth figures and the picture looks much rosier, especially given that we're supposed ti be rebalancing the economy. And it's hardly surprising that construction is poor - you only have the look at the difficulty of getting mortgages these days. A better question would be whether a rationalisation of mortgage finance and the construction sector is actually a bad thing?

Be VERY sceptical when you hear politicians talking about these figures, because if there's one thing you can be sure of it's that they'll pick the way to present the figures that best makes the party-political point they want to make. Lies, damned lies and statistics.

[Tarentaal]

Don't think we're out of the woods yet. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a very flat year, there's still a fair amount of pain to come for the public sector workers as their cuts really haven't kicked in yet.

Completely agree, still interest rate rises hanging over everyone. Then there is China exporting their own inflation, rising standard of living and wages rises, all means more expensive goods and less for your £. A lot of people I know are managing to get by on the low mortgage interest rates. Too many people borrowed far too much in the crazy credit years, I think they'll be paying for it in more ways than one in the next couple of years...

[macabee]

South Africa's economy has grown due to the World Cup that was hosted 2010, interest rates have dropped making more money available for the consumer to buy more goods and services. Which will eventualy lead to the interest rates going up, inflation will be on the rise, this is Government's attempt to curb spending. I thought you guys were better of than us...

[oolon]

Sadly inflation is one of the very effective tools at getting rid of national debt, you just inflate the problem away. If your paying 5% in interest but inflation is 4% you could consider you are only paying 1% in interest as money will only be worth 96% of what it was the year before. The tricky bit is keeping inflation at a level where people will still lend us money, without asking for a huge interest rate, 4-5% range seems to be the golden spot.

About growth figures is they often use an annualised rate, so it may not be .5% but rather .125% unfortunately most people do not include the time period.