The media are full of the signs of growth in the UK economy. This is from the Guardian:
Britain's recovery is on track to outstrip the rest of Europe following a strong performance by the services sector in August.
The purchasing managers index, published by Markit, jumped to a new post-financial-crash high of 60.5 in August, up from 60.2 in July and its highest level since December 2006.
Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But let's be clear that just a little earlier this year the Office for National Statistics reported that:
UK employees' average hourly earnings have fallen by 8.5% since 2009 in real terms (after adjusting for inflation). Real wages have fallen most in the South West of England and in Northern Ireland (9.9%). The South East of England has seen the smallest decline, of 6%. The fall in London was also below the UK average, at 8%.
There is no sign as yet of growth having any impact on household earnings - not least because much of the growth we're seeing is because of a rising population (a fact usually ignored by commentators, but a key variable in this equation) and people working for longer into what was once retirement age if they can (another factor, often ignored). When that growth is then allocate to households it disappears - because average earnings are not growing as a result of it; the 'growth' just represents a more widely spread falling national average income. And that's something very different that the media is all too keen to ignore.
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Following this continuum you could have incredible rates of growth with yoked slave population! The Greeks/Romans managed that -metropolis here we come!
From where I’m standing, I can simply ask, growth for whom? Certainly not me, with a frozen income, rising cost of rail courtesy of our wonderful taxpayer subsidised privatised railway system, and rising costs of essentials like food and energy.
Presumably we’re talking about an increase in estate agents and surveyor’s business as they cash in on the house price bubble being caused by all that cheap money supplied to the banks by, wait for it, the state!
Meanwhile, as Richard points out, most of us are getting poorer.
Indeed – we have reverse socialism -that is, the state financing the finance sector and the economy serving the banks.
This is like speeding up the engine on a small boat and achieving 7 knots instead of 5 knots but the tide and current are moving at 10 knots in the opposite direction. Measured against a fixed point on land the motion is is in reverse.
And Mrs Mainstream Media from Uponeshole in Smugshire writes: ‘Dear BBC Points of View. So! Most of us are poorer, our incomes going down, our costs going up and personal debt going up whilst our economy is ‘growing’! Oh, why, oh, why, oh, why can’t you bring back Lovejoy?’
🙂
Yes – with a dumbed-down BBC that incestuously awards itself huge pay offs you are better watching Al Jazeera/RT’s keiser report and a host of websites that offer more reality based views.
Redistribution of wealth upwards and offshore. As Warren Buffett said ‘Its Class war’ and his class are winning.
So true
Mr. M.,
Given the pressures on the average worker i.e. me, do you think that maybe if business didn’t have access to cheap immigrant labour, wages might rise a bit?
Why do you think HMGs of all colours seem to be so desperate to import cheap labour?
The evidence from the likes of Jonathan Portes on the benefits of immigration is unambiguous