Where there's muck, there's brass
Skips make good economic indicators and hold the rubbish
FORGET ABOUT RETAIL price indexes, employment figures and the like, apparently the best economic indicators checking out how many skips there are on your street and how busy the tyre repair businesses is!
In a recent FRP Advisory seminar Sunday Times chief economics writer David Smith revealed some novel ways on keeping up on economic activity.
Skips on your street can indicate how well or badly a country is doing.
“None means we are in recession, four or more and it’s an unsustainable boom, two means the economy is growing at trend. Currently there is one, which I take as signalling that the recovery could well be underway.”
Apparently if there are lots of skips there’s construction or refurbishing taking place but a skip barren street means no-one has money to pay for the work.
But, skips aren’t the only way to keep up-to-date on the state of the country’s health. If your local tyre repair store is busy, chances are it’s a good sign and not a case of poor manufacturing.
“Builders usually leave a lot of nails etc on the roads bursting car tyres so the busier the tyre repair firms are the more building work that is going on and the more activity there is in the economy,” he says.
We here at TS are wondering if anyone else has any novel ideas on economic indicators such as your local greasy spoon running out of bacon sarnies because the builders have eaten them all, or how about your local pub – empty during the lunch hour because no-one’s at work anymore, they’ve all been laid off?
The indicators are limitless.