I have just sent this short letter to David Smith, who writes about economic matters for The Sunday Times and The Times.

Dear David Smith,

I read your columns in the Sunday Times and The Times with great interest but mounting confusion. 

 

I am not an economist but have spent my entire adult life around the international financial markets, firstly at Midland Bank International for five years after graduation in 1979, then the FT group as a writer and editor (just over eight years, from 1984-93) and over 25 years as a freelance in the sector, so I have (in theory) a better grasp of financial matters than many lay people.

 

I find myself increasingly shaking my head at what I read in commentaries. I see that bargain retailer Poundstretcher is closing its store here in the bustling market town of Towcester. People are setting up home in the underpasses and open fields of nearby Milton Keynes, often regarded as one of the true new town successes. 

 

And I do mean setting up home, not just sleeping rough; this is truly appalling and will surely cause a public health issue as people defecate in the open and are unable to clean up afterwards. 

 

Consumer spending, I gather, has fallen in eight of the past nine months. Car sales are down. The housing market has largely ground to a halt. Everywhere I look I see grandparents looking after young children because both parents have HAD to go out to work. 

 

Yet we are told that central banks are concerned about inflation, particularly wage inflation. I find this baffling, but then personally I am today earning annually in cash terms approximately what I was earning 30 years ago as a full-time staffer at the FT. There has never been a worse time to be freelance in the quarter century I’d been doing it.

 

If there really IS growth taking place, I simply do not see it, and wonder if there has ever been a greater disconnect between the rarified financial economy and the real economy.

 

Just had to get that off my chest. But if you can offer an explanation, I’ll read it avidly.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Brian Bollen