http://news.sky.com/story/1243530/official-average-earnings-outpace-inflation Official: Average Earnings Outpace Inflation Wages higher than inflation "Jobless numbers continue to fall as total pay exceeds inflation" There are probably some people who actually believe this nonsense. Unemployment is "down" thanks to zero hours contracts, temporary "placements" where the government pay the employer to take on an unemployed person for a fixed period of time and the use of "work for benefits" type labour. Earnings are "outpacing" inflation due solely to a fall in energy prices on the RPI (food prices continue to roar ahead) and the inclusion of "bonus payments" in the wages and salaries figure. How many ordinary people actually receive bonus payments? You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/04/benefit-claimants-taxpayers-alliance-work-dole_n_3863951.html?1378280866&utm_hp_ref=uk Benefit Claimants Should Work For Their Dole, Taxpayers' Alliance Demands The TPA was founded in 2004 by "a group of "libertarian" Conservatives, frustrated by what they saw as the party's decision to ditch its traditional tax cutting message." The Tax Payers Alliance. A fringe pressure group, lurking somewhere on the right of British politics, who regularly come out with some headline or other, usually ill conceived and certainly ill-considered, seeking to grab attention and peddle what they consider may be popular with public opinion. When looked at more closely, the TPA argument is clearly unrealistic nonsense. The number of people out of work is 2.51 million in June, according to the Office for National Statistics of which 1.4 million are actually claiming Jobseeker's Allowance.The Tax Pa...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10262201/Growth-upgrade-points-to-sustainable-recovery.html#top Growth upgrade points to 'sustainable' recovery "revised second quarter GDP growth up from 0.6pc to 0.7pc," "Economists have hailed the first signs of a “sustainable” recovery". (Again). This must be at least the fifteenth time we have seen the "first signs" of economic recovery. Perhaps the Chancellor, the ONS, the Treasury the CBI and the DTI will forgive a number of us being just a tadd skeptical. (They all have a vested interest in playing the situation up. The rest of us live in the real world.)
This government and The Office for National Statistics are at it again. The Office of National Statistics report shows 2.7 per cent rise in annual inflation during October On the 16th October last, I wrote a piece on this Blog following the announcement that, according to the Office for National Statistics, inflation had fallen to a three year low. Essentially, I was a little sceptical of the figure and the way in which the euphoria of the press and media immediately leaped onto the band wagon of announcing that the worst of the economic crisis had passed and the “green shoots” of recovery were plain to see. The reasons for my scepticism were that the announcement of the new lower figure came just days after the energy companies had started their usual round of winter price hikes, and the fact that the lower rate announced in October but using the September figure, is the one against which State Pension increases and State Benefit levels are calculated...