To the tune of Away in a Manger, we wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas, and we’ll be back in January 2017.
Come gather, Dear Readers for the last time this year,
And enjoy what in our world, represents Christmas cheer,
We’ll tell of the economy, In twenty-sixteen, and we’ll start looking forward
To what next year might bring.
Well here in Dear Old Blighty, our economy grew
Something it has now done for, seven years in a row
Employment expanded and real wages rose
While inflation remained at an historical low.
An Englishman’s home is his castle, they say,
But for too many people, It’s no longer that way,
Supply’s insufficient, To meet rising demand,
Can the housing White Paper draw a line in the sand?
Most measures of profit, are historically high,
More through costs that have fallen, than seeing top lines rise,
With input costs mounting, from a much weaker pound,
Repeating that trick will be hard next time ’round.
Price pressures are growing, inflation will rise,
But there seems little prospect Of rates doing likewise,
In setting the balance ’Twixt inflation and growth,
The MPC’s clear that it wants more of both.
In springtime in Britain, there were many who feared,
That the June referendum, wWould make this a bad year
The Treasury warned us, of a shock so profound
But the sole big effect’s, been a fall in the pound.
Outside of these islands, big news overseas,
Was Americans choosing, their Commander in Chief,
More spending, less taxes will both prime the pump,
But can free trade survive, a protectionist Trump?
Now one of the lessons, of America’s polls
Is that trade has eroded, some community’s souls,
While trade makes countries richer, it leaves some folk worse off,
And a challenge we face is, to shift that trade-off.
So growth should continue, thro’ the course of next year
With inflation more frisky, at least that much seems clear
Then Article 50, we will come to invoke
Will it unleash potential or act as a choke?
