Financial matters

[Fester]

I always suspected that chocolate bars etc, were getting smaller...

Here is the proof...(on the link)  Toblerones are getting shorter, soap is getting smaller... and many more 'tricks' to make us believe that inflation is not as bad as we think.  But is it,  its WORSE!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13725050

[Ian]

A trend that's been taking place for years.  When we buy a box of Finish dishwasher tablets, the box itself is only ever half full.

[Trojan]

A trend that's been taking place for years.  When we buy a box of Finish dishwasher tablets, the box itself is only ever half full.

I wish I had a Finish dishwasher.  Is she blonde Ian and what kind of tablets does she take?

[DaveR]

I believe this is her:

[Merddin Emrys]

     nice!

[Trojan]

    nice!

I agree. Rubber gloves always make me feel frisky.

Back on topic......I was wondering if it's more cost effective to wash dishes by hand, using dish-washing liquid or to buy dishwasher tablets and have a dish-washing machine using electricity?

[Fester]

I DON'T KNOW !!!

But I do know that consumer items are getting smaller... which is a scandal.... and it is hiding the REAL rate of inflation which I have said before is closer to TWENTY percent, than anything the government care to admit.

[Fester]

See the article below... working families actually going HUNGRY... because earnings have not kept pace with basic commodity price rises,
SCARY STUFF.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13765820

This is the most worrying article I have seen in a long time.

[SDQ]

The only saving grace for most people is that interest rates are being kept artificially low by the Bank Of England so money saved on mortgage payments is covering a lot of the financial problems in other areas. Its like a time bomb and once they start to raise them the REAL problems will surface at an alarming speed.

[Ian]

(Low interest rates) are like a time bomb and once they start to raise them the REAL problems will surface at an alarming speed.

Indeed;  that'll be when we'll see really serious problems.

[Fester]

That will be accompanied by mass re-possessions,  but also another ramping up of inflation, and widespread industrial action as people are desperate to maintain their earnings to keep pace with all this.

Its been grim since 2008, and the so called credit crunch.  But there is much worse to come.

[Ian]

I think so, too.  The last time we saw this sort of thing was the early '70s, and social unrest saw riots in various places.

[DaveR]

Uk unemployment has fallen sharply this year and unemployment in Wales stood at 115,000, down 9,000 on the previous quarter, a rate of 7.9%, compared with a UK average of 7.7%.

UK unemployment fell 88,000 in the three months to April this year to 2.43 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2000, latest data shows.

The unemployment rate was 7.7%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), down from 7.9% in the previous quarter.

However, the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance in May rose by 19,600 to 1.49 million.

The rise was the biggest since July 2009, and larger than expected.

"The economy created more than half a million jobs over the last year," said BBC chief economics correspondent Hugh Pym.

"So even after the public sector shed just over 140,000 posts, total employment was still well ahead over twelve months."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13773692
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13776701

[Fester]

But these are not REAL jobs... these are temporary, even worthless part-time jobs, where people have no chance of creating any real wealth or savings let alone a career.  Minimum wage (or less if the employer can get away with it)  ...

...and please don't forget the countless hordes of people who are not employed, would like to be employed, but have been declared 'DORMANT', and taken out of the unemployed statistics.

They still get full benefit, but are not required to attend to sign on any more... its an absolute scandal.   A disgrace.

[DaveR]

The Economist says:

Jobs figures worse than they look
Jun 15th 2011, 15:31 by J.O. | LONDON

ONE of the few bright spots in the general gloom around the British economy has been the jobs figures. Today’s data seem like more of the same, at least at first glance. Unemployment fell by 88,000 in the three months to April, the biggest quarterly drop for more than a decade. The jobless rate slipped to 7.7%, which seems almost tolerable given the rates in other debt-ridden, housing-bust economies such as Spain (20.7%), Ireland (14.7%) and America (9.1%). And enough private-sector jobs (105,000) were created in the first quarter to more than make up for government layoffs (24,000). That pay growth is so hopelessly feeble, at just 1.8%, is almost a plus. Any sign of a wage response to high consumer-price inflation (currently 4.5%) might spook the Bank of England into raising interest rates.

But a closer look at the jobs data reveals signs of further slowdown in an already sluggish economy. The fall in unemployment was heavily concentrated in the 18-24 age range, which would be great news if it were matched by job gains. But only 12,000 of the 79,000 youngsters who "left" unemployment in the three months to April found work; the rest simply dropped out of the workforce—into full-time education or idleness.

The claimant-count measure of unemployment also suggests the jobs market has hit a soft spot. It rose by almost 20,000 in May alone, the biggest increase for almost two years, after a 17,000 rise in April. There is less focus these days on this gauge because it captures only those who are eligible for jobless benefits, a small subset of those who are without work. Yet it is more often a better guide to the trend in the jobs market than the more volatile headline measure of unemployment, based on a household survey. Tighter restrictions on welfare support for single parents since the end of 2008 have pushed more people onto the dole, swelling the number of claimants. But that change affects more women than men—and it was men who accounted for most of the rise in unemployment in May. The economy, it seems, is rather wobblier than the headline jobs figures suggest.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/06/british-economy?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/jobsfiguresworsethantheylook