Jobless figures up and up and up

It's just miserable news after miserable news at the moment.

Today it was announced that the UK's jobless total is now edging steadily towards 2,000,000 and there is inevitably more to come (in fact there is already many more out of work after these figures were compiled). Woolworths will be closing making 100s of people unemployed at the worst possible time.

This means we have an unemployment rate of 6% which is pretty jarring.

Unemployment rates :


This is coming as a bit of a culture shock to the British economy because we've got pretty used to there being pretty much totally employment and so now the way the rug has been pulled from under the workforce will have long term problems.

Lloyds TSB approves HBOS takeover

Lloyds TSB shareholders approve HBOS takeover

Just read this report on the BBC :

"Lloyds TSB shareholders have voted in favour of taking over HBOS as well as taking government bail-out money.

Members of the Unite union had demonstrated outside the venue in Glasgow against the job losses that are likely to result from the deal.

HBOS shareholders will vote on the deal to create a banking giant with 145,000 staff and 3,000 branches next month.

On Tuesday, the chancellor warned that shareholders could receive much less cash if the deal falls through.

Lloyds TSB shareholders voted 95.98% in favour of the takeover. They also approved plans to raise £5.5bn by issuing new shares and special preference shares.

"This is an overwhelming endorsement for the logic of this transaction," said Lloyds TSB chairman Sir Victor Blank.

The government has allowed the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB to bypass normal competition rules.

When the deal was originally announced in September, the government backed the deal using a special national interest clause on the grounds that a collapse of HBOS would have had a disastrous impact on the UK. "

I suppose that's a sigh of relief moment, the danger that they'd get into real trouble or go abroad looks to have past now.

article ref:HSL05200520

Inflation falling

Consumer inflation falling

This will be good news for consumers in the midst of all the job cuts we're seeing at the moment :

Official figures show that UK inflation fell in October from a 16-year high, as oil and transport costs - as well as food prices - fell.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure dropped to 4.5% from 5.2% in September.

The Office for National Statistics says the month-on-month fall in the CPI figure is the biggest drop in 16 years.

The Retail Prices Index, (RPI) the alternative measure of inflation, which includes housing costs, fell from 5% to 4.2%, the biggest fall since 2003.

The RPI measure is sometimes referred to as the "headline" rate of inflation, and is often used for agreeing pay settlements, or calculating the uprating of benefits such as pensions.

When you add to this the cut in interest rates it's welcome relief (as long as they reduction gets passed onto mortgage holders).

Article ref:HSL05200520

First post

Hello and welcome to my new pet project. These are troubled times for everyone with the credit crunch biting and the economy spiralling downward. My aim is to keep a blog of financial articles and handy money saving tips plus give people the heads up on useful financial sites such as www.moneysavingexpert.com (which everyone on earth is aware of now).

First up is this Ask Owen : Financial Advice Blog.

Owen works for a UK bank is dispensing advice via facebook and blogger. If you have any questions just send them along to him.

Anyway there'll be more to come so watch this space.