economy

George Osborne/serious changes to the British banking system over at Robert Peston’s blog. I quite like George Osborne. Like a lot of the better Tories* he seems to have gone from an idealist to a pragmatist. Because it’s easy in opposition. People who like politicians to have a firm message and not to flip flop, are simple. If you want bold charismatic politics and politicians you get the likes of Tony Blair and George Bush. They did wonders for … something. I can’t think what. All short term gain and fuck all insight into the future.  Faith.  Lol.

* I don’t want to you to think I show any particular bias towards political parties. Politics is the decoration on cakes for morons. A memory filter for the ignorant. What matters is reality. Most politicians know this – know that what they say is dependent on whatever realities are presented to then on the day they take office – but have to spout a load of bollocks so that twats like you, reading your twatty partisan pseudo pamphlets, will vote for them. If you’re not a twat, regard the last line as a comment on search engines.

I was just about to post the following, with something along the lines of “oh, FFS”:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7836941.stm

The most depressing day of the year my bollocks.

Y’know reporting this sort of shit in the absence of reporting some very bad news regarding share prices of certain things, and what that actually means, may make it the most depressing news day of the year. There are things going on in the financial world that will likely affect you more than the weather and the time of the year. It’s either self-censorship, like I’m doing, or that they’ve decided the morons in front of screens are bored of it.

So bollocks. I’m off away from blogging, back to my grim existential crisis brought on by how completely mental the world is. That and eat some toast.

Today Barrack Obama painted a wall blue in a homeless shelter. There is hope. That or I’m being sarcastic.

Robert Peston’s thoughts on the future of the world economy. PDF linked from the blog entry.

I’ve intermittently wanked on about the credit crunch for quite some time, in many ways it’s been like watching a railway crash, in that there’s been a fixed trajectory, and from a great distance things don’t appear to be moving that fast. I have a couple of comments; firstly, none of the underlying problems with the affected economies have been solved *, and secondly, there aren’t half some head cases that comment on Robert Peston’s blog. I haven’t blogged about anything financial or economic because it depresses the living fuck out of me (plus typing fucks my back). I have kept up with the situation, and, as a part of that, I’ve read RP’s blog. It’s good. I think RP is a credit to the BBC.  As for Robert Peston having a political bias – bollocks – he’s pissed people off of all stripes, which is an indicator of how good he is.

There are a lot of people who are sane enough to type their mad ideas (how would I know if I was one of them?), and it appears they’re attracted to Robert Peston’s blog like nutters to church. If you’ve got a few minutes you must have a chuckle at the comments on this post. Some of them go from fat-cats to socialist apocalypse faster than Hackney carriage drivers.

* I think there’s a 50/50 chance this will turn into an aggregate cluster fuck rather than a mere cluster fuck. Oh yeah – and nobody has mentioned the affect St Barack’s election in the US has had on British government tax policy, and/or speculated about what that indicates with upcoming US fiscal policy. I suspect the broad direction of fiscal policy was informally discussed well in advance at a well publicised visit to the UK. Lol.

Sometimes it is necessary to be simplistic.

£400,000,000,000

400 billion pounds is a conservative estimate of UK government money going to help troubled financial institutions.

$690,565,489,736.23

At $1.72641 per pound. The current exchange rate. Roughly $690 billion.

60,943,912

Population of the United Kingdom from the CIA World Factbook (July 2008 estimate).

£6563.41

Price per man, woman, and child, in the UK

$11331.14

Price per man, woman, and child, in the UK at $1.72641.

$700,000,000,000

A figure put forward by the US Federal Reserve in a package to rescue troubled financial organisations.

£405,465,677,330

That figure in the Great British Pound.

303,824,640

Population of the United States of America from the CIA World Factbook (July 2008 estimate).

$2304

Price per man, woman, and child, in the United States.

£1334.54

Price per man, woman, and child in the United States in the Great British Pound.

The banks that are going to be bailed out by the US taxpayer are going to profit, possibly substantially, from the big bail-out.  Not US taxpayers.  They get all of the risk though.  Specifically from the ludicrously nebulous ‘reverse auction’ that talks in terms of ‘hold to maturity prices’.  This is simultaneously unbelievably funny and scary all at the same time.  I had a chance to watch most of the US senate hearing today and as far as I can tell it’s more of the same thinking that got us all in this mess in the first place. From and by the same people that got us in this mess.

No doubt people will swallow this shit and the ‘hold to maturity prices’ issue will not be addressed by any of the presidential candidates.  Stunningly. mindblowingly, unbelievable.

Robert Peston’s take.

Edit @ 2:32

The more I think about it this may actually be a good plan, with the proviso that the estimated matured prices are a fair representation.  E.g. the prices are what you’d expect for matured dodgy debt and not what you’d expect from vanilla debt.  That could end up costing less than the alternatives.  It was a shame it was so vague.

I for one hope that whatever happens it happens quickly and puts some kind of end to the present turmoil.

This makes me angry.   The BBC has some really good people, including Robert Peston, so when they talk complete bollocks re: oil prices they’ve got no excuse. Here’s what the BBC has to say about today’s spike in oil prices (believe it or not the biggest spike took place in the space of five minutes!) Keep in mind all commodities are up, not just oil:

Record one-day jump in oil price

The price of oil has jumped by more than $16 to $120.92 a barrel, the biggest one-day gain on record.

The increase in the price of US light, sweet crude was driven by concerns about supply.

Production in the Gulf of Mexico is still affected by Hurricane Ike and Saudi Arabia is cutting production.

Oil traders also believe that the US government’s bank bail-out plan will help the economy and therefore demand for oil.

Last week oil traded as low as $91 a barrel. It had fallen from its peak of $147 a barrel that it reached in July.

The volatility in the price has been exacerbated by the fact that the contract for the supply of oil in October expires on Monday.

From here (I’ve cut and pasted for the purposes of discussion and that the BBC has a tendency to edit articles days later).  In my opinion what they have written is unmitigated bullshit.

Here’s what Bloomberg had to say (I’ve cut and pasted for the purposes of discussion and commentary):

Oil Posts Biggest Gain as Traders Caught in End-Month Squeeze

By Mark Shenk

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil climbed more than $25 a barrel, the biggest gain ever, as traders scrambled to unwind positions on the October contract’s last day of trading. The more-active November contract rose $6.62.

“This looks like a squeeze play,” said Phil Flynn, senior trader at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago. “All of the contracts are up, but nothing like October. This is the last day of trading and someone is scrambling to guarantee supply.”

Crude oil for October delivery rose $16.37, or 17 percent, to settle at $120.92 a barrel at 2:46 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the highest settlement price since Aug. 21. Futures for November delivery rose 6.4 percent to settle at $109.37 a barrel.

Prices climbed today as traders who sold the October contract last week, when oil dipped close to $90, had to buy the futures back. In a squeeze a trader has gone short by selling contracts hoping the price will decline. In the last days before the contract expires the trader must buy back the same number of futures or be forced to deliver the underlying oil.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that’s the indication of a huge squeeze,” said Craig Pirrong, director of energy markets for the University of Houston’s Global Energy Management Institute. “It’s just stunning this could happen” given the recent scrutiny in Congress and among U.S. regulators concerning the crude oil markets, he said.

`Yawning Gap’

“It’s a very small pool playing in this market right now, and that’s why you’re seeing those massive differentials” between the October and November contracts, said David Kirsch, an energy markets analyst at PFC Energy in Washington. “Somebody did place a wrong bet and is trying to cover that position.”

“The overarching factor is that the October futures contract expires today,” said Ryan Oatman, an analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in Houston. “This is a classic short squeeze. What lead up to it was a strong euro, up on concerns U.S. government actions will ultimately result in a greater budget deficit, higher inflation and a weaker dollar.”

Investors looking to hedge against the dollar’s decline earlier this year have helped lead oil, gold, corn and gasoline to records. Oil rose as high as $130 a barrel, up from $104.55 on Sept. 19, as the dollar dropped on concern that a U.S. proposal to buy $700 billion of troubled assets from financial firms will deepen the budget deficit.

The dollar declined 2.4 percent to $1.4817 per euro, from $1.4466 on Sept. 19. It touched $1.4818, the weakest level since Aug. 22.

Hard Assets

“Gold, silver, oil, copper, just about any hard asset, is looking good at this point,” said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president for energy risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York. “With the dollar down and stocks getting hit, commodities look like a safe play.”

Oil has risen 33 percent since Sept. 16 as lawmakers pledged fast consideration of the Treasury’s plan to buy devalued mortgage-related securities.

“There’s a flight to quality and the energy markets are benefiting,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. “The dollar is down again and investors are fleeing to commodities. We are back to the cycle that pushed prices to records earlier this year.”

Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators increased their net-long position in New York crude-oil futures in the week ended Sept. 16, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data.

Speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 19,379 contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Washington-based commission said in its Commitments of Traders report.

Gasoline

Gasoline for October delivery increased 10.41 cents, or 4 percent, to settle at $2.7038 a gallon in New York. Heating oil rose 14.52 cents, or 5 percent, to settle at $3.043, the biggest single-session gain since June 6.

Regular gasoline, averaged nationwide, declined 1.8 cents to $3.739 a gallon, AAA, the nation’s largest motorist organization, said today on its Web site. Pump prices reached a record $4.114 a gallon on July 17.

Crude oil prices are “too high” because the global economic slowdown may spread and cut consumption, the International Energy Agency’s deputy executive director said.

“The economic slowdown in the U.S., Europe hasn’t gotten into China, India much, but at some point you have to presume it will,” William Ramsay said in an interview in Bangkok today.

The Paris-based IEA, which advises 27 developed nations on energy policy, was set up in 1974 in response to the Arab oil embargo.

Brent crude oil for November settlement rose $6.43, or 6.5 percent, to settle at $106.04 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange.

From here.

Who do you think gives a better idea of what happened today?  The BBC or Bloomberg?

This could be bollocks.  I’m no expert.

The price of oil has jumped today and will continue to rise.  If you remember a while back this year lots of people were talking about how supply and demand was responsible for rising oil prices.  It’s not difficult to find them.  Do a Google search.  There were serious editorials about peak oil, how little had been invested in infrastructure, Chinese demand etc. etc.   The oil demand situation between last Friday and today has not changed.  Yet prices are going up and will continue to do so.  Demand is going to go down.  All commodities are going to go up.  They are going to go up because the Dollar is going to go down and equities are volatile. It will affect inflation as much as a devalued Dollar.

Take a look at the following chart here (via Index Explorer) market cap on loan percentage is an indicator of how much short selling is going on.  People have noticed, here’s FT.com’s Alphaville, and, with all of that in mind, why not browse today’s front pages here?

There are very few people asking if there will be any unintended (or blindingly obvious *cough* inflation) consequences from all this.

I’m no fan of the Labour Party.  I’ve gone into why in the past and won’t bore you.

The present problems with certain UK banks are not the fault of the UK government.  The reasons are quite abstract, but can be summarised by a loss of trust in the US banking system, precipitated by the problems with complex repackaging and selling of debt in the last 9 years.  (It started under Clinton, so it’s not entirely a Bush problem – although the unchecked free market policies of his government have played a large part).  The failure of Northern Rock would not have happened, despite widespread over-lending in the mortgage market, without the backdrop of the so-called ‘credit-crunch’.   UK government policy, and Gordon Brown, are not to blame.

Likewise short sellers are not responsible for the situation.  Short selling has been better explained by the likes of Robert Peston, but it’s essentially borrowing an asset, selling it at market price, buying it back at a lower price, and giving it back to whoever you borrowed it from.  That way you profit from falls in the stock market.  Of course, if the price goes up, you end up losing money.  It’s not risk free – by any means.  Short sellers can only profit when prices are falling.  The only potential abuse is traders breaking the law and spreading false rumours.  That isn’t happening.  Short sellers are an easy scapegoat. Alastair Darling (chancellor of the exchequer), Alex Salmond (Scottish nationalist leader), and Vincent Cable (an irrelevance) have attributed blame to short sellers.   They’re talking out of their arses.

The only thing they’re right in saying is that short sellers make the situation worse.  But they’re a symptom, rather than a cause, despite what politicians say.  This armchair economist is somewhat in favour of some kind of rules to limit short selling in these kinds of situations.  It’ll be difficult to do though because it’s international.   It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Via CBOE.  The explanation.  In short things are in panic mode right now.  Not good.  The price of gold has lept, which is a symptom.   Money markets are fucked.

Robert Peston on what’s going down. It was hoped that someone would merge with it.  Didn’t happen.  Barclays pulled out.  Nobody panic.

The situation in Georgia is a nightmare. I haven’t kept up with the region for a long time but here’s what I recall, which may not be entirely correct (this is aided by some notes I took): South Ossetia was originally colonised by Ossetians from across the caucus in the 17th/18th Century. The Imperialist Russians first invaded Georgia in 1801 but didn’t really conquer it until 1864. Because of fights with the Turks. With all of the stuff that went down in 1918 Georgia briefly achieved independence until 1921 when the Bolsheviks regained control. They made Abkhazia and Adjaria autonomous republics. South Ossetia was an oblast – which is different.

In 1988 the Ossetian Popular Front got annoyed that the Georgian Government intended Georgian to be the only official language. Some may say rightly, given about a third of Georgia is not ethnic Georgian, and multiple languages were in use. The OPF wanted South Ossetia to merge with the distinctly Russian North Ossetia, and in 1989~1990 declared an independent Soviet Republic. At which point the Georgian government stripped South Ossetia of its autonomy. The shit hit the fan – by which I mean violence – the Russians sent in troops and thanks to Yeltsin and Shevardnadze in 1992 both sides established peacekeeping forces.

Georgia is important to the West disproportionately to its size. Why? Central Asia. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan have vast oil, gas, and mineral resources. Without a long detour, or reliance on Russia, Georgia is an extremely important strategic point. Georgia cannot win against Russia. The attack on South Ossetia was like kicking a bear up the arse. Why they did it is difficult to fathom. I don’t see that it serves anyone’s purposes. Both Russia and the US/UK have hundreds of ‘military trainers’ (often drawn from elite units – who train/advise/arm), there is a huge vested interest in having Georgia in NATO (incedently you can’t join NATO if your country has outstanding border disputes), and as a result this could be the first Cold War style proxy war of the 21st Century.

Both sides are right, both sides have legitimate claims on South Ossetia, and as a result, nothing good can come of this. A good compromise leaves both sides unhappy, and that isn’t going to happen. It’s like a flashback to the early 20th Century. Not good. One hopes world leaders are sane, but evidence suggests otherwise. Hopefully it won’t spread.

FFS x 10.

See this.  He’s one of the few people writing about a market and considering incentives in their broader context.  Rather than the pathetic form of supply/demand pareidolia and ad-hoc fallacy that defines most mainstream media coverage of oil prices. These guys are OK though.

Remember:  Generally speaking it’s more fucked up than you think.  If ‘fucked up’ is used a profane shorthand for complexity.

I am aching – bad – hence slow blogging/sitcoms.

PS – Journalists:  Why not fly out to the gulf states and see for youself if there’s any problem keeping up with demand by examining shipping in-depth.   You may or may not be surprised.  I don’t know.  It’s not my job. If I were a journalist I probably be a lazy bastard who spent time lunching with people whose companies have huge vested interest in rising commodity prices, staggering out at about 16:30, and bashing out copy before playing online games.  But that’s just me.

See this.  I thought that would be the case.

I has a suspicion that this would be the case. Just a gut feeling based on high-streets I’ve been to in the last couple of months. People are still spending. The interesting bit is where they spent their money (I suspect Lidl, Matalan, Aldi, Netto, TK Max, Tesco etc. – given the Sainsbury’s figures). See here – the textiles, shoes and clothing bump is interesting. If there hasn’t been a shift to stores that offer better value and this represents public insouciance, it’s a bad thing, because it makes higher interest rates a possibility, and more importantly means that there is less likely to be a controlled slowdown.

Edit: Yep (totally disagree with the Lidl comments from the Dragon’s Den twat though – Lidl is the best new store in the UK for ages – a pile it high sell it cheap attitude that appeals to me).

I often disagree with the BBC’s Robert Peston, but his blog and television/radio reporting are shit-hot, and his blog is worth bookmarking. Read yesterday’s “… open letter to the governor of the Bank of England and to the chancellor of the exchequer from Mr Two-Point-Two, a thirty-four-year old school teacher from Anytown, UK.” Inflation is a nightmare and there’s a whole rather cosseted generation of people that haven’t experienced it as as adults. Or falling house prices. Or major lay-offs.

It’s going to be an interesting time in the next few weeks on the stock markets. I have previously found The Times (feat. the wonderful Anatole Kaletsky), Bloomberg, the avuncular business reporter on Sky News (Michael Wilson?), and Robert Peston to have the most reliable financial reports. But I’m no expert, and I frequently disagree with people, so this isn’t a blanket endorsement. Just a self-important explanation of where I get my news by the way of nothing.

Edit: Sky News do a good job on their blog also.

Reporters seem to be able to report without the constraints of television, via their blogs, which is self evident.

Yup. With the caveat that I disagree on a few points, and could, as a mere armchair economist (like an armchair general), be totally cocking wrong. I can live with that. Special pleading is often partially warranted.

This. The testimony of Michael W. Masters at the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate.

No more oil related posts.  I’m obsessing too much.  And, on a very fundamental level, I can’t be arsed.

Via Oil and Gas Journal.

Alexander Kwiatkowski and Grant Smith on $135pb oil.

… but this column by Anatole Kaletsky of The Times is worth reading.  About how oil prices are currently detached from supply and demand.

The English countryside has not been in full-on production mode for decades. Farmers have been bummed by supermarkets and international competition is intense. Wholesale prices had gotten so cheap. However, if I had a spare couple of hundred grand, I would be speculatively buying arable farming land. I strongly suspect farming is going to become profitable again. In line with world consumption of meat and livestock products. There are less barriers to buying farming land than many other land types provided the intended usage of the land is made explicit. There’s likely people who want to sell too. Do you know what percentage of grain in, for instance, the United States, goes to feed livestock? It’s more than half. Way more than half. Animals require a fuck-load of feeding. In the next decade more people than ever are going to be able to buy meat.

So, blah blah, meat – value of arable land already bottomed – hard up farmers: buy-outs, mega farms, profit, blah blah blah, mega profit during droughts elsewhere, England uniquely exploitable for profit. Etc.

• Oil prices are rising because of speculation. The current supply, believe it or not (I don’t care), exceeds demand, even taking into account China. The speculation is a result of uncertainty and people moving into commodities (rather than equities).
• The rise in wheat prices are partially the result of increased demand for meat in China. Not a ‘western style diet’. More meat requires more food for livestock. But it’s not the principle factor. Last year there were several droughts. Not least in Australia. Similar things happened to major rice producing countries last year. Blaming China is wrong and misleading.
• There is not a linear relationship between inflation in China and the prices of Chinese exports. That would be overly simplistic in the extreme. China is going to suffer from inflation, but as a side effect of increased prosperity and modernisation. Rather than a simplistic relationship between food and oil prices.
• There is a weak causal relationship between biofuels and the price of food.
• Chinese imports are one of the factors that has helped control inflation in the UK. A minor factor given the percentage of Chinese goods as proportions of inflation indices.
• The Government measures of inflation are reliant on indices. So to say prices “on average have risen 3%” is an unwarranted generalisation based on an index. Real inflation may differ. A better phrase would be that prices tracked by X index have risen. Anything else is lazy.

With that in mind please watch the following:

What keeps inflation rising?

And ask yourself whether it did a good job. I think it is misleading and does a poor job of explaining things. One gets the impression that Richard Scott thinks the increased wheat prices are because of Chinese people eating vast quantities of toast.

Certain Nasdaq tech stocks have, in my opinion, been unfairly tarnished by the fuckwitted problems in the financial sector. They are bargains and had I the cash between one and two years time I’d be laughing. During the dot-com bust it was horrible to watch loads of companies that were fundamentally sound dragged down with idiotic companies. The stock for companies that survived could have been picked up dirt cheap. Had I the foresight to invest, which is easy in retrospect.

The market hasn’t bottomed by any means, but here’s my theory, pulled out of my arse: 1) The tech sector is going to reach a bottom faster than other sectors, not quite as fast as Eliot Spitzer reaching a bottom via an escort service, but within two months. 2) The exact time a bottom is going to be reached is difficult to predict, but less so in the tech sector (there’s unlikely to be bad news to come) than other sectors. But a short loss is worth swallowing for the long term gains. 3) The risk in much of the tech sector is different from other sectors because of transnational assets and sales. It’s diverse rather than localised risk.

With regards of everything other than tech – it’s not bottomed yet because there’s more bad news to come. Anyone that thinks that isn’t the case is being naïve. The Fed does not make moves of the magnitude made over the weekend without reason. History will tell. What I hope is that rationality wins the day, everyone calms down, stops thinking in the short term, and most markets bottom in the next few weeks. But what I hope, indeed, what I say, is pulled from my arse, and is a poor excuse for a blog entry. And could be bollocks.

Here’s what I’d buy, in my imaginary bet:

Intel (Nasdaq symbol INTC) – $20 is not a fuckload off it’s 8 year low and is a bargain. Intel is going to dominate the chip market for the imminent future. Hasn’t been hit by stocking up on a twit load of flash memory.

Nvidia (Nasdaq symbol NVDA) – $20 is nowhere near Nvidia’s lows, but Nvidia has shown surprising resilience in the face of competition from AMD (inc. ATI) and Intel, in both the on-board graphics/motherboard market at the graphics card market. Huge global sales/assets.

Sun (Nasdaq symbol JAVA) – $16 – post acquisition of the ubiquitous MySQL, is a bargain. There will be more webservers and more MySQL. Doesn’t matter which Linux distribution a webhost runs, they still need MySQL.

In two years time I’ll find out if I’m right or not.

I think part of the problem with the media coverage of the financial world is that it is unable to see things in shades of grey. The term recession, for instance, is often used as if it’s equivocal with a depression. It’s not. It’s quite possible to be in a recession and, aside from certain parts of an economy, not have a substantial impact on the fundamental things that affect people. The current situation in the US is bad, but nothing on the recessions of the 1980s or 1990s. It’s going to be bad for upwards of six months, particularly in the financial sector (I reckon there’s a great deal of bending the truth regarding liquidity, to keep baying morons from panic selling), but everything else will recover quickly, which will, in turn help the financial sector. And I hate to agree with George W Bush, the fundamentals of the US economy, even in its current state, are better than people think and shouldn’t be underestimated.

Consumer spending has not been affected terribly by the problems of last year. There is a lag, but it could be that many people who are now in trouble with their mortgages were not big consumers because the percentage of their income was eaten by their mortgage was already high. So the knock-on effect to the economy of defaults and loans may have been severely over estimated. And, I suspect, this is reflected in today’s US inflation data. Prices were kept low because people weren’t prepared, or able, to pay more. Oil and grain prices are to be watched as components of the CPI, and the wider international situation. There’s a fuck load of people in West China who have yet to start consuming with the rest of us. I done-gone-think there’s going to be linear growth in world consumers over the next decade as the 700 million odd people in rural China increase demand.

I think the major problem with the last four years of US economic policy is that the fed severely underestimated the stupidity of the market and how it’s often led by mood rather than rationality. If people panic it will get much worse, if people listen to Bush, and they should, because he’s right in this instance, the recession will be a bit of a pain but nothing like being kicked in the balls. Bloomberg’s coverages has been better than the competition in terms of neutrality and the rationality of its correspondents. As an armchair economist I hope to get my hands on some raw data in the next few weeks and see if I’m talking bollocks.

Heh. Heh. Heh heh heh.  Lol.  There’s potential for much drama today (I reckon), you can watch it live on Bloomberg.  Naughty Carlisle.  Heh.  The stock markets will not close far down, but that’s not the point – it’s specifically about the rate of growth.

In other upcoming news from this armchair economist:

March 14th – Iranian parliamentary elections.  Watch oil prices in the next few weeks.  If it hits $140, we’re all fucked economy-wise, at least temporarily.  More possible than most people realise because they don’t know how OPEC works or the proportion of Iranian oil on the world market.

Interesting times as always.

FYI – a recession is often thought of as a negative change in the rate of growth.  The rate of growth is not the same as negative growth.  So when people say “the economy is slowing”…  You get the idea; something slowing is a negative change in the rate of growth.  It’s like negative acceleration when a car slows down. The press is generally too fuckwitted to work that one out.