The pound slipped against a slew of currencies on Wednesday as the Prime Minister prepared to trigger Article 50, officially kicking off Brexit negotiations.
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Even the Daily Mail have started to realize that Brexit is turning toxic.
According to the latest household finance index survey by IHS Markit, reports the Daily Mail, Britons have become increasingly pessimistic about the long-term effects of Brexit on the economy
Just days before the UK triggers Article 50 to formally set the Brexit process in motion, the research firm found even the older generation and the poorest households, who were initially the only segments of population to be optimistic about Brexit, have changed their minds.
And in the North East, which was one of only four out of the 11 regions to be positive on balance shortly after the referendum, has now turned negative.
The survey comes as job site Indeed warned that EU workers’ appetite for the UK jobs market was cooling ‘dramatically’.
Since the start of 2017 the number of people in other EU countries searching online for UK jobs has slumped by 18 per cent, according to Indeed.
13.6. That is the average length of a marriage before a divorce in the mostly rich countries of the OECD, says The Economist. Italians stick it out longest (perhaps because formal separation is lengthy and expensive). Americans, stereotypically impatient, only stay together eight years before divvying up the wedding gifts. Qatar, where polygamy is legal, has both a short length of marriage prior to a divorce and low divorce rate. Across Europe the divorce rate is around 2.5 for every 1,000 people; America’s is 3.6. As for marriage, the rate in many Western countries has long declined, but plateaued in recent years. (In Russia and China the rate has increased).
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Russians live some of the shortest lives in any large economy. Life expectancy for a Russian man was roughly 65 years in 2012, compared to 76 years for the US and 74 for China.
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The Netherlands consistently ranks as one of the best places in the world to live, says The Economist. Dutch kids are among the happiest in the world, according to Unicef.
Some attribute their high quality of life and general good nature to a rather laid-back approach to work: more than half of the Dutch working population works part time, a far greater share than in any other rich-world country.
On average only a fifth of the working-age population in EU member states holds a part-time job (8.7% of men and 32.2% of women); in the Netherlands 26.8% of men and 76.6% of women work less than 36 hours a week (see chart).
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Pay at the bigger companies outpaced compensation at the smaller ones by a cumulative six percentage points between 1996 and 2009. After that, the split grew to 14 percentage points. Goldman Sachs, who published the report, blames post-recession regulation.
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UK grocer J Sainsbury is expected to post its first annual loss in a decade today.
Like many of the other chains that built up vast estates of out-of-town hypermarkets, only to find more Britons are now doing smaller shops at local convenience-style stores, Sainsbury’s are taking a write down of their property portfolio.
But the figures are also set against a fierce price battle as the more established supermarket groups plough millions of pounds into lowering prices in order to compete with the German discounters Aldi and Lidl, who have won over middle class shoppers to their discount produce.
Food inflation has fallen dramatically since the beginning of last year.
That in turn has seen changes in the UK’s benchmark inflation rate, the consumer price index (CPI).
This is how the market shares of the major grocers have changed in the last decade.
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It’s been the week from hell for social media.
TUESDAY
Twitter shares dropped as much as 26 per cent after it missed revenue expectations and lowered its guidance after warning that user growth was off to a “slow start” and that changes to its advertising formats had reduced click-through rates.
THURSDAY
Yelp closed 23 per cent lower on Thursday after it missed revenue and earnings forecasts for its first quarter, as well as cutting its outlook.
FRIDAY
LinkedIn saw some $7bn wiped from its market capitalisation in after-hours trading, as it warned sales in the current quarter’s revenues would be $45m below Wall Street’s forecasts at $670m-$675m, in part because of currency fluctuations.
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The UK is back to work, but productivity is awful.
Household debt is expected to surge.
The US recovery has been much better.
Interest rates haven’t budged since 2009 (though many believe they may rise next year).
Tax hikes are on their way.
Employment is good.
Don’t forget to vote.
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