Rings and Jewelry

UK Output, Income and Expenditure

National Accounts data produced seven weeks after the end of a quarter.

Contains estimates and analyses of expenditure in chained volume terms and at current prices, income at current prices, and output in chained volume terms. Also known as PN2 within Time Series Data.

Office for National Statistics (ONS), Quarterly, Online edition, First/News/Press Release, Contact: +44 (0)20 7014 2083

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UK Output, Income and Expenditure Statistical Bulletin - Q1 2009 (Pdf)

UK Output, Income and Expenditure Briefing Note - Q1 2009 (Pdf)

UK Output, Income and Expenditure Press Release Archive (Web link)

Time Series Data - UK Output, Income and Expenditure (Web link)

National Accounts Datasets (Web link)

GDP Revisions Triangles (Web link)

Latest on: Economy - GDP Growth (Web link)

Article: Publishing Quality Information for National Accounts Outputs June 2005 (Web link)

Article: Summary Quality Report for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data releases June 2005 (Web link)

2009 Credit Card Trends

BBA Credit Card Stats March 2009

Credit outstanding fell by £570 million in March, to stand at £64.7 billion, at the same level as a year earlier.    

The proportion of balances bearing interest rose 0.4% to 73.8%.

The number of transactions totalled 164 million in March (18.7% higher than in February and 0.9% higher than in March 2008), with a value of £12.1 billion (18.1% higher than in February but 2.0% lower than in March 2008).

There were 67.2 million cards in issue at end-March, relating to 55.9 million accounts, 63.3% of which were active, ie had a balance outstanding.

Google credit card search stats

Credit Card searches have remained relatively stable.

GDP Growth Economy contracts by 1.9% in Q1 2009

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 1.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, unrevised from last month’s estimate. GDP is 4.1 per cent lower than the first quarter of 2008.

Output of the production industries fell by 5.3 per cent compared with a fall of 4.5 per cent in the previous quarter. This was driven by manufacturing output which fell by 5.5 per cent.

Construction output fell by 2.4 per cent over the quarter, unrevised from the previous estimate.

Output in the service industries fell by 1.2 per cent in the first quarter, down from a fall of 0.8 per cent in the previous quarter. The largest contribution to this decline came from distribution and business services.

Household expenditure fell by 1.2 per cent and is now
2.8 per cent lower than the first quarter of 2008.

Government final consumption expenditure rose by 0.3 per cent and is now 3.5 per cent higher than the first quarter of 2008.

Gross fixed capital formation fell by 3.8 per cent and is now
8.3 per cent lower than the first quarter of 2008.

The trade deficit in real terms decreased from £7.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 to £7.3 billion in the first quarter of 2009. Exports of goods and services fell by 6.1 per cent while imports were down 5.9 per cent.

The GDP expenditure deflator rose by 1.8 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2008, down from 2.0 per cent in the previous quarter.

Compensation of employees at current prices fell by 1.1 per cent and is now 0.3 per cent below the level seen a year ago.

Total gross operating surplus of corporations rose by 0.2 per cent and is now 3.2 per cent higher than a year ago.

Notes:
Unless otherwise specified:

Growth refers to a comparison of output in the latest quarter compared with the previous quarter. This is referred to as quarterly growth.

Annual growth refers to a comparison of output in the latest calendar year in comparison with the previous year.

Figures are in chained volume or real terms in that they have been adjusted to remove the effects of price change.

Figures are seasonally adjusted.

Author:

Karl Simpson writes for www.CreditCardsForPeopleWithBadCredit.co.uk

Meltdown 101: How a Mortgage Aid Plan Might Work

Meltdown 101: How a Mortgage Aid Plan Might Work

The government, facing a housing crisis that’s escalated far beyond all but the most dire predictions, is looking at ways to spend at least $50 billion to make sure borrowers can stay in their homes.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce a sweeping initiative on Feb 18 in a speech in Arizona, one of the nation’s most severe hot spots for foreclosures. Details of the government’s plan are not yet ready, but there is already plenty of chatter in the nation’s capital about how it might work.

Here are some questions and answers about the plan that’s coming together.

Q: How might the government’s plan work?

A: The plan is likely to feature hefty incentive payments designed to encourage the lending industry to lower mortgage rates or reduce the total principal amount owed by borrowers, a Democratic Senate aide briefed on the plan said Friday. The idea is believed to be attractive because it is expected to be far less expensive than having the government buy up troubled loans, which are often combined and divided into mortgage-linked securities that are owned by investors.

It was unclear, however, whether those government subsidies would be paid up front to companies that collect mortgage payments, or whether they would stretch out over several years. Those companies, known as loan servicers, have been roundly criticized for not being equipped for a massive surge in defaults and foreclosures.

Q: How big is the problem?

A: Over the past two years, foreclosures have skyrocketed. More than 2.3 million homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings last year, up more than 80 percent increase from 2007, and analysts say that number could soar as high as 10 million in the coming years, depending on the severity of the recession.

Q: Why haven’t earlier efforts to fix the problem worked?

EU to coordinate how they handle toxic debts

European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to coordinate the way they could tackle toxic assets on banks' balance sheets that have frozen lending and aggravated the recession.

They are aiming to stem a possible rash of go-it-alone government moves among the EU's 27 nations — such as Britain's plan to insure the bad assets that have punched huge holes in banks' balance sheets.

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Save it all

"The True Origins of This Financial Crisis". (Peter J. Wallison, American Spectator, Feb. 2009.)

Two narratives seem to be forming to describe the underlying causes of the financial crisis. One, as outlined in a New York Times front-page story on Sunday, December 21, is that President Bush excessively promoted growth in home ownership without sufficiently regulating the banks and other mortgage lenders that made the bad loans. The result was a banking system suffused with junk mortgages, the continuing losses on which are dragging down the banks and the economy. The other narrative is that government policy over many years--particularly the use of the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to distort the housing credit system-- underlies the current crisis. The stakes in the competing narratives are high. The diagnosis determines the prescription. If the Times diagnosis prevails, the prescription is more regulation of the financial system; if instead government policy is to blame, the prescription is to terminate those government policies that distort mortgage lending.

There really isn’t any question of approach is factually correct: right on the front page of the Times edition of December 21 is a chart that shows the growth of home ownership in the United States since 1990. In 1993 it was 63 percent; by the end of the Clinton administration it was 68 percent. The growth in the Bush administration was about 1 percent. The Times itself reported in 1999 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under pressure from the Clinton administration to increase lending to minorities and low-income home buyers--a policy that necessarily entailed higher risks. Can there really be a question, other than in the fevered imagination of the Times, where the push to reduce lending standards and boost home ownership came from?

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Zeitgeist - Punnet Squares - Conspiracy theory or call to action?

With the concession that today's climate of fast paced and high volume information transfer may render a discussion of Zeitgeist, the Movie completely obsolete, I would like to share my reactions to the film.