Economist Salon Lobster says all the data shows the economy is soft and he reckons the government needs to do more to encourage business to invest.

 

“I think basically what you've got to do is you've got to try to give some confidence to business, because business is not confident. And when they are not confident they won't invest, etc. Um, I think you've also got to try to help structure policy, trying make things easier to do things. At the end of the day, ah, all those know political sides gonna agree with me. I think you need to use fiscal policy. Because at present, people are nervous. They're not prepared to borrow and so, cutting the costs of the borrowing to business doesn't mean you can go out and give up.”

 

Let's go to the markets.

 

And the Dow and the S&P 500 were down around half a percent overnight. The Nasdaq lost ground, too. In London, the FTSE fell slightly. 

 

To commodity markets. 

 

West Texas Crude is trading at 105 US dollars a barrel. Tapis Crude is 115 US dollars a barrel. And gold is at 1283 US dollars an ounce.

 

The Aussie dollar's buying 89 US cents, 67 Euro cents and 59 pence sterling.