We’ve been posting a lot of good news lately about the UK economy and how it finally seems to be recovering from when the “bubble” burst back in 2008, but how much do you actually understand about the principle of economic bubbles? Today’s infographic is all about bubbles that have occurred throughout history. Markets tend…
Last week there was some great news that supports the opinion that the UK economy is finally rebounding. Data released by ONS (the Office of National Statistics) shows that there are now more businesses in the UK than at any time since they changed the way it was calculated back in 2007. Image: City A.M.…
Perhaps giving some merit to the saying “95% of statistics are made up”, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have today revised their economic figures for the first quarter of 2012. You may remember that this was thought to be the second consecutive period of contraction and so it was officially considered another recession. This…
Perhaps you will be surprised by this news item – tax evasion in the UK is now at the lowest level in five years. Despite tax evasion being a constant ‘go to’ topic for the news channels, the worst is apparently already behind us in terms of companies trying to pull one over on the…
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has revealed that cash is still the king when it comes to UK retail sales. In an analysis of 10 billion retail payments in 2012 (accounting for 60% of total sales), cash was the preferred method of payment for 54%. But worryingly, the amount of transactions and money spent was…
Worrying news from China on Wednesday suggesting a slowdown in manufacturing has already made a worldwide impact on stocks and shares worldwide. London, Frankfurt and Paris all closed down 2% and in Asia, Japan closed down 7% having slipped to a low of 10% at one point. The Chinese slowdown is compounded by fears on…
Low fuel prices in April have caused a lower than expected inflation rate and as a result the value of the Pound has fallen. Inflation unexpectedly fell to 2.4% from 2.8% in March and inflation as measured by the retail price index (RPI) fell to 2.9% in April from 3.3% the previous month. Despite the…
In Sir Mervyn King’s final quarterly inflation report as the governor of the Bank of England, he has predicted modest economic growth for the remainder of 2013 and also a fall in inflation. The rise in growth for the second quarter of 2013 is likely to be 0.5%, which will add to the 0.3% growth…
Unemployment figures increased by 15,000 in the three months to the end of March, which means that the period of falling unemployment has now come to an end. Pay growth has also slowed considerably at the lowest rate since 2009 and – if bonuses are ignored – these are actually the worst figures since the…
Last night was the second episode of Mary Queen of the High Street but as Clare Rayner has revealed in her TV review for BusinessZone, not everything in this Margate-based episode happened as it was portrayed on Channel 4. The program (which has prompted a complaint to OFCOM from local business owners) was set in…
