Friday, Apr 25, 2008
Has the ONS finally been caught cooking the books
Times: High Street's boom figures under question
City economists have lined up alongside the British Retail Consortium, and senior retailers to attack figures from the Office for National Statistics that proclaim a consumer shopping bonanza has been underway since the new year. The ONS has insisted that “underlying growth in retail sales remains robust”. Note the words 'underlying' and 'robust', favourite Darling & Broon speak.
Posted by enuii @ 12:01 AM (514 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. who stole my pension? said...
I thought the figures looked at the actual money side rather that by volume or mass. If its only money then I suspect that the volume is down but the price is up. We all know that real inflation is more than CPI.
2. Perishabull said...
Hey, don't forget to look deeper. "Lying" is part of underlying and "bust" is part of robust.
3. planning4acrash said...
Wsmp, too right. This is retailers asking for a statistical change from money volume to sales volume. Why?Because it suits there agenda 4a rate cut. Yet more of the incessant drive towards statistical manipulation 4 greedy commercial interests.
4. planning4acrash said...
Who is here to support consumers? and their need for low inflation, and wealth preservation via good stats and consistently higher rates? The Unions r useless, govt is corrupt, newspaper support commerce only, Where does the common man turn?
5. uncle tom said...
None of the major retailers see the recent ONS stats as being accurate - but is there a grand conspiracy to mislead?
Incompetant data gathering seems much more likely..
6. nobby1963 said...
I was in Currys , and then next door to Comet last night , and in both cases I was the only one in there. The places were stuffed to the brim with LCD tvs and Hoovers , Laptops and Computers. There was an uneasy calm in the air , you know the one before the storm ! I feel a bit worried about what actually is going on out there in this world of ours?
7. Jackas said...
This was/is a a crisis of liquidity caused by mis-pricing of risk. that could be solved by central banks, by pumping the system.
However it is also a crisis of confidence. People are now openingly questioning the credibilty of:
1. Governement statistcs (I've seen at least 3 "real cost of living" indices in the last week)
2. Ratings agencies (Everybody can see they stuffed up. The three letters AAA has never before meant so little)
3. Bank's balance sheets (how many £bn of your "assets" are actually worthless?)
4. The £10 note in your pocket. Why is it not staying in my pocket for as long as it used to? Why am I visiting the cashpoint more often these days? Is it because I'm earning more money so I'm spending more £10 per week? £10 today doesn't really feel like ten pounds used to, though*shrugs shoulders and assumes its just a temporary phenomenom*
These crises of confidence can not be solved by the central banks and represent the biggest risk to economic stability. In the same way that you never quite recover from finding out that someone you love is not the person you thought they were, the people are now getting used to the fact that the things above maybe can't be relied upon and that changes the shape of the game beyond recognition.
I've never seen it so bad. The only hope is that Merv can keep the politicians at bay, raise interest rates, and let house prices fall. Otherwise the "Great" British Pound will be sacrificed at the alter of the homeowner. The homeowner that is so selfish, ignorant and greedy that he fails to realise that the £200,000 he just "made" in his house is also owned by everybody else on the street, so he hasn't actually got richer in relative terms. AND it only buys half as much as £200,000 bought only six years ago.
Unless of course the whole point is to make homeowners rich relative to non-homeonwers. Is that the point? Is that what this government wants? Is that fair? Is that labour?
Two solutions: Give the workforce outside of the city a 100% pay rise overnight, or raise interest rates and let prices come back down. The second seems a more sensible solution to me....
8. denzil said...
What? The ONS and debateable measurement methodology, surely not.
Aren't these the people that produce the Chinese Product Inflation (CPI) figures that use a basket of Chinese goods that exhibiting the characteristics of falling inflation!
9. bystander said...
sounds like the VI's are lining up to bleat for another interest rate cut next month.