A Long Hard Slog, 1968

When we took stock of the situation in April, two indicators — consumer spending and imports — were particularly disturbing. In the first quarter of 1968, the consumer boom was more swollen than ever: consumer spending was running nearly 5 per cent in volume above the level in the middle of 1967. Yet we had held out the prospect to the IMF after devaluation of finding resources for the balance of payments at the expense of consumption and on those grounds had argued in Economic Trends that ‘there can be little if any scope for an increase in personal consumption next year ’.1