{"id":61958,"date":"2022-02-20T08:23:43","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T13:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61958"},"modified":"2022-02-20T08:23:43","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T13:23:43","slug":"the-devil-is-in-the-detail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61958","title":{"rendered":"The devil is in the detail"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-cover-head\">\n<div class=\"single-post-thumb single-has-thumb\">\n<div class=\"post-cover-title\">\n<h3 class=\"name post-title entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consciousnessofsheep.co.uk\/2022\/02\/18\/the-devil-is-in-the-detail\/\">The devil is in the detail<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content post-cover\">\n<article id=\"the-post\" class=\"post-listing post-7024 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail  category-economy\">\n<div class=\"post-inner\">\n<div class=\"entry\">\n<table id=\"amazon-polly-audio-table\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td id=\"amazon-polly-audio-tab\">\n<div id=\"amazon-ai-player-label\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"amazon-ai-player-container\"><audio id=\"amazon-ai-player\" class=\"amazon-ai-player\" preload=\"none\" controls=\"controls\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/audio><\/div>\n<div id=\"amazon-polly-subscribe-tab\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"amazon-polly-by-tab\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/polly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"tie-appear\" src=\"https:\/\/d12ee1u74lotna.cloudfront.net\/images\/Voiced_by_Amazon_Polly_EN.png\" alt=\"Voiced by Amazon Polly\" width=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>If you get your news from the BBC, you might be forgiven for thinking that the economic hit from the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions has come to an end.\u00a0 Indeed, if you merely skim through the headlines in your social media feed, you might believe that the UK is poised for an explosion of growth, the like of which we haven\u2019t witnessed since the late 1960s.\u00a0 \u201cRetail sales,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-60427985\">we are told<\/a>, \u201crebound in January as Omicron eases.\u201d\u00a0 The \u201cUK economy rebounds,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-60344573\">they say<\/a>, \u201cwith fastest growth since WW2.\u201d\u00a0 Chancellor Sunak \u2013 who wants to be seen as a prime-minister-in-waiting \u2013 announced that:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cToday\u2019s figures show that despite Omicron the economy was remarkably resilient. We were the fastest growing economy in the G7 last year and are forecast to continue being the fastest growing economy this year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The GDP figures are certainly better than they might have been if more businesses had been left to go bust during lockdown.\u00a0 Nevertheless, they are still well below February 2020, following the massive crash immediately after lockdown was ordered.\u00a0 As the\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/grossdomesticproductgdp\/bulletins\/gdpfirstquarterlyestimateuk\/octobertodecember2021\">Office for National Statistics<\/a><\/em>\u00a0explain:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cUK gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 1.0% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2021\u2026 Compared with the same quarter a year ago, GDP increased by 6.5%.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cFollowing the large 9.4% fall in 2020 because of the initial impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and public health restrictions, UK GDP saw an annual rise of 7.5% in 2021.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Worse still, manufacturing GDP was negative, and continues to lag well behind its February 2020 level:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cProduction output fell by 0.4% in Quarter 4 2021 and is now 3.6% below its pre-coronavirus levels. The fall in production output was because of a 3.2% fall in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (energy) and a 4.5% fall in mining and quarrying.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The devil is in the detail If you get your news from the BBC, you might be forgiven for thinking that the economic hit from the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions has come to an end.\u00a0 Indeed, if you merely skim through the headlines in your social media feed, you might believe that the UK is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[64,15605,353,4549,391,607,30640,31360],"class_list":["post-61958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bbc","tag-british-broadcasting-corporation","tag-gdp","tag-gross-domestic-product","tag-growth","tag-pandemic","tag-the-consciousness-of-sheep","tag-tim-watkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61959,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61958\/revisions\/61959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}