STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 28 June 2012

[Ghost Dog]

75. UK mired in recession, central bank poised to act

You guys missed this, today (surely, not censored over there?):

(Reuters) - Britain's economy fell back into recession faster than first thought and seems unlikely to recover for some time, data showed on Thursday, echoing grim predictions from a central bank now all but certain to revive its stimulus program next week.

The economy shrank by 0.3 percent between January and March, the Office for National Statistics said. That confirmed an earlier estimate, but revised figures for the last quarter of 2011 showed a slump of 0.4 percent, steeper than initially reported.

A spread of downbeat data highlighted broad weakness in Britain's economy, which has struggled to gain traction since the 2007/08 financial crisis as government spending cuts bite and the debt turmoil in the euro zone crushes confidence.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said on Tuesday that the outlook had worsened significantly in recent weeks and Britain risked falling into a downward spiral as businesses put off investment due to uncertain global prospects.

Thursday's data bolstered an already strong case for the BoE to restart its quantitative easing bond-buying program, a day after a Reuters poll of economists give a median 75 percent chance that the bank will flood the market with another 50 billion pounds of cash at its July 4/5 meeting.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/us-britain-economy-idUSBRE85R0KX20120628

Comments:

1. The finger-pointing scapegoating (at any factor not anglo-american) is beyond deeply shameful. It is irretrievably pathetic, as if we who pay attention, and even most who don't, don't know where the crux of the problem really lies;

2. Wow. It's a long time since I've seen the sacred term "confidence" mentioned so explicitly by scribes servants of Reuters or the like... The end is close, very close now.