Scheherazade Daneshkhu and Sophy Buckley wrote UK grows at slowest rate for 12 years (subscription might be required) for the Financial Times.
Britain's economy grew at its slowest annual rate for 12 years, according to official figures published on Wednesday, suggesting that Gordon Brown, the chancellor, may have to cut his newly-revised growth forecast for this year even more aggressively.
The figures coincided with more gloom on the High Street and the release of the CBI's weakest retail survey for 22 years. Retail chiefs said the falling sales reflected increased pressure on disposable incomes.
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Alan Giles, chief executive of HMV, which has seen a 9.2 per cent fall in underlying sales since the year began, said people on faced increased pressure on disposable incomes which meant they were staying at home. "This perhaps even explains why Premiership clubs are seeing attendances fall," he said. "People have battened down the hatches and that knocks on to us."
In another article Chris Giles, Economics Editor, wrote UK house prices continue to fall in September (subscription might be required) for the Financial Times.
House prices continued to fall gently in September even though the level of new buyer interest and mortgage approvals was rising strongly at the end of the summer.
The Nationwide building society reported that house prices fell by 0.2 per cent in September, leaving average prices in the UK only 1.8 per cent higher than in September last year, a nine year low.
The annual rate of house price inflation fell from 2.3 per cent in August and there was no increase at all in the past three months.
Is the economy in the UK serving as the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the economy in North America? Will we soon suffer the same fate of slower growth as consumers are burdened with debt and higher expenses? As I have discussed in other articles, higher interest rates will lead to higher mortgage and loan expenses and higher energy expenses are certainly biting consumers' disposable income. To add insult to injury, the U.S. has suffered two large natural disasters that have further damped consumer confidence. The markets have been lackluster this year, and if you were to strip out energy companies, the S&P would be down this year. I continue to watch for an indication that the market is either picking up or slowing down. At present, it seems to be stuck somewhere in the middle. So, is the economy in the UK the canary in the coal mine?
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