www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news...y-curve-1786974.html

A massive drop in retail sales in August. I can only say that for the non big names the drop could well have been in the 30 - 60% area.

Many retail shops have gone out of business in London in the last couple of weeks. Some shopping streets outside the big main streets are decimated and are over half empty because July and August was so bad.

The Government has poured money into the STOCK MARKETS and the SCRAPPAGE scheme in order to make the "Economic Indicators" look better for them - but the reality is that people have no money and are not spending. Shops and businesses are collapsing at a rate that has never been seen in history.

While BROWN and MANDY carry on pretending everything is great ( supported by the BBC ) the country is literally going to the dogs.........

We have Postal Strikes and Bin Strikes and now the TUC is saying WAR if any spending is cut - which has to happen because BROWN has given all our money to the BANKSTERS and now WE have to pay the price.

There are loads of campaigns taking root on the net saying to people not to pay their credit cards or loans or even mortgages - because the banks do not have the resources in order to do anything to collect the debts !!! In many areas this is already happening. That is why even Stock Market money is moving into Gold and Silver and foreign currencies.

I predicted the retail slump correctly. I now predict the BANKS will get hammered in October and November with some of them going out of business unless the Government pours more money into them.

July and August are generally bad for sales as most people spend money on holidays. It picks up again in late September.

Yes the sales are bad in the summer - but this is compared to last year.

Sept to December are the most important spending months of the year - but I cant see any great surge onto the High Streets yet of shoppers.

The cheap shops and supermarkets are doing good business. Asda - Iceland - Tesco are all selling virtually everything at £1 a go !!! to match the 99p shops also on the High Street. They are seeing bigger volume but lower profits because of this - and sadly they are making it impossible for small shops to compete with these bargain basement prices.

It is basically a squeeze.

Fresh meat and vegetables have almost doubled in price in the last 2 years. Meat in particular is now going up in price substantially.

PS Just announced on Bloomberg - UK bands facing £215 billion loss !!!! which shows that there is more banking pain to come.

Just announced on BBC - house prices to fall because the current small rise is a bubble and not sustainable.

Spend wisely ( as MANDY would say ) to keep the local shops open that you like or we will lose our whole High Streets and local shops.