Cliff Taylor

So, for example...

The Department of Finance came out with three scenarios in its forecast last week.

And one of them was a severe scenario in which inflation by the end of the year was 6.5%, 6.7% heading into next year.

And they still had the economy growing at the same time.

Now, you'd have to wonder if inflation does get that high, what kind of hit it would take on the economy.

I think you put a question mark against that.

Let's hope it doesn't get to that.

Endlessly.

The Department of Finance did refer to that actually in their forecast.

So they're saying consumer spending is still going to rise by a couple of percent this year.

And one of the reasons is that a lot of households have that leeway, if you like, in their finances.

Yeah, and also rumours that companies aren't hiring at the lower end like they used to.

It is.

It's hard to get under the skin of it, to be honest with you.

Some of it is...

Obviously, AI doing jobs that people would have done before.

Software development being the most obvious area where that seems to be deployed at the moment in businesses.

But some of it also, for example, in the case of the big tech companies...

They're spending a lot on AI.

They need to save money elsewhere.