Fall In Retail Sales Confirms Gloomy Picture

The fall in retail sales announced by Statistics today stands out in contrast to the survey of services activity that also came out today. This suggested that retail was the stongest performer! Of course, both could be right, in which case we are in real trouble. We hope that Dr Bollard had a good read of these results (and that he enjoyed his coffe this morning at Rise). While inflation is still a worry, most of the inflation is occuring in areas where purchasing activity won't be influenced that much by interest rates remaining high -- eg fuel.