ONS postpones GDP revision

[NoelWatson]

http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/ons-postpo...

"The Office for National Statistics yesterday announced that it would postpone its revision to first-quarter GDP because “quality assurance revealed potential errors in some of the detailed figures”.

[supersingle]

In other words: Labour were fiddling the books?

[odyssey2200]

Stand by for more bad news.

[NoelWatson]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/po...

[johnfm]

maybe they got it wrong the other way and growth is 8% - may explain why all the lefties want us to borrow more.

[F i F]

supersingle said:

In other words: Labour were fiddling the books?

Must admit that was my immediate and admittedly cynical reaction. Be interesting to hear the reason in the final event.

If our cynicism is proven correct then stuff like this needs to be added to that long Billy Hague list of Labour failings. The Lib-con coalition will be quite unpopular with the stuff that has to be done to sort out the mess Winky et al has left, and this will coalesce the opposition i.e. Labour and disaffected Lib Dims.

Labour in particular will come out fighting hard, low and dirty.

[JagLover]

Bit worrying that the release is delayed because they show the UK back into recession.

We shall have to wait and see.

[NoelWatson]

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)

so what would GDP have been if it hadn't been for Labour's rampant spending?

[tinman0]

musclecarmad said:

JagLover said:

Bit worrying that the release is delayed because they show the UK back into recession.

We shall have to wait and see.

i really feel that labour were as crooked as possible. i wouldn't be surprised if we never came out of recession.

Nor would I.

Remember that the recession started the quarter before it officially started as well. ONS re-released the figures for that quarter a couple of quarters later.

[NoelWatson]

Forecast was 0.3% QoQ, actual was 0.3%, so not sure what fuss was about

[odyssey2200]

perhaps they were going to report 1% but CMD didn't want to let NuLaba look good.

Next Quarter they will record a step in the right direstion and CMD will claim the glory!

[Somewhatfoolish]

I don't think this is of any interest tbh

[turbobloke]

It would be more interesting if we knew what the +/- % error is on a typical GDP construction.

[Somewhatfoolish]

Depends in what sense. In theory the uncertainty in the final figure (GDP comes out in three figure, preliminary, actual, and final) is under 0.1% (couldn't tell you exactly what), but of course that measures only the uncertainty is only a statistical measure of how well the sample corresponds with all data... relies on the model being right...

[NoelWatson]

Somewhatfoolish said:

(GDP comes out in three figure, preliminary, actual, and final)

I think it can also be asjusted further down the line.

[Somewhatfoolish]

NoelWatson said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

(GDP comes out in three figure, preliminary, actual, and final)

I think it can also be asjusted further down the line.

Yeah, it can be for two further quarters iirc

[NoelWatson]

Somewhatfoolish said:

NoelWatson said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

(GDP comes out in three figure, preliminary, actual, and final)

I think it can also be asjusted further down the line.

Yeah, it can be for two further quarters iirc

They are still revising 2008!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6684E42010071...

"As part of a major annual revision of previous quarters' GDP data, the ONS said that Britain's economy contracted by 6.4 percent between the second quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2009, more than the 6.2 percent formerly estimated."

So if Q1 is +0.3%, and Gunment "added" 0.4%, where does that leave us - still in recession

"Monday's data also showed the first quarter was more dependent on government spending than initially estimated.

Government spending rose 1.5 percent on the quarter, three times faster than previously thought and at its fastest rate since the end of 2008 to add 0.4 percent to GDP."

[turbobloke]

And in essence we still know nothing of the % error +/- in constructing a GDP figure.

[Somewhatfoolish]

NoelWatson said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

NoelWatson said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

(GDP comes out in three figure, preliminary, actual, and final)

I think it can also be asjusted further down the line.

Yeah, it can be for two further quarters iirc

They are still revising 2008!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6684E42010071...

"As part of a major annual revision of previous quarters' GDP data, the ONS said that Britain's economy contracted by 6.4 percent between the second quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2009, more than the 6.2 percent formerly estimated."

So if Q1 is +0.3%, and Gunment "added" 0.4%, where does that leave us - still in recession

"Monday's data also showed the first quarter was more dependent on government spending than initially estimated.

Government spending rose 1.5 percent on the quarter, three times faster than previously thought and at its fastest rate since the end of 2008 to add 0.4 percent to GDP."

Jobs for the boys, obv