Top Gear (Economics)

You've probably heard of it, a television lad's magazine fronted by Jeremy Clarkson talking testosterone fuelled nonsense about cars. If you are unfortunate enough to watch it you'll think the motor industry only consists of top marques, and as an aside some rather pedestrian econo-boxes for the poor.

Well the numbers for August are out, and car sales are at their lowest since 1966 (the year we won the World Cup) but the real meat and potatoes is in the actual numbers of cars sold within these shores of some 60 million people, many of whom are extremely affluent.

Aston Martin, sold a whopping 19 cars... Jaguar and Land Rover a measly 422 cars each...

The good news doesn't end there, the stock markets are tumbling again, and this graph from the two biggest UK house mortgage companies tells its own story.



While many people have complained / observed that if the media consistently talk up a recession, then sooner or later it is going to happen, it is a very long stretch from admitting that the media has an influence, to admitting that what we are seeing here are actually signs of a shift in the economy.

The thing is that this isn't just happening to luxury items or big ticket items like cars and houses, the speciality cheap supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl are also showing a 20% increase in turnover, while sales of "organic" premium foods are already down some 20 million pounds sterling.

In America Bill Gross, chief investment officer of the world's biggest bond fund, Pimco, said the US was confronted by "systematic debt liquidation". He added: "Unchecked, it can turn a campfire into a forest fire, a mild asset bear market into a destructive financial tsunami."

Back here at home one of my own little barometers is watching the prices of Juke-boxes on eBay, and the fact is that right now anyone trying to sell Juke-boxes to people to put in their homes is certainly going to be looking at Aston Martin's pathetic sales numbers with envy.

40" TFT televisions that accept PC input so they are monitors really are now available for not around 700 UK pounds, and that is brand new in the box big names like Samsung. Everyone is cutting margins so even the stuff that is selling isn't generating the revenue it once was.

I have been saying for a year that Marsh Barton trading estate just down the road from me, which is the biggest by far nexus of car sales in the south west, has been nothing but empty (of customers) showrooms and bored staff.

Even the massaged and everything useful excluded from the index food inflation figures show food inflation at nearly 9%, and as for electricity and gas bills, UK Pounds 1,000 a year is the "average" now and it is going up, with widespread talk about fuel poverty, not just for the elderly living on pensions.