ANYONE wondering what will happen to retail sales when the Government stimulus handouts end has only to look at yesterday's official reading on the sector.

The retail sales figures showed department sales fell a whopping 9.8 per cent, compared to the increase of 8.3 per cent in December, when the payments were made.

The February fall at department stores was five times steeper than the overall retail market, at 2 per cent.

David Jones and Myer have the most to lose, along with discount chains Big W and Kmart. Is it a coincidence that DJs has launched a mid-season sale to clear excess stock?

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Most people in England who got such a "bonus", "tax break", "lower interest rates" or "gift" from the government, spent it on repaying their mortgages... :

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January lending figures from the Bank of England The monthly lending figures from the Bank of England were released today, and predictably the newspapers have reacted with screaming headlines saying that Mortgage lending plunges by 60% and lamenting how this would affect the economy.

Delving into the figures shows a more interesting picture, however. It's net lending that had plunged (i.e. new lending less repayments and redemptions). Mortgages issued for purchases of houses were slightly higher in value compared to December. Remortgages are down - but that's because of a lot of people coming off their fixed-rate onto the standard variable rate are deciding to stay there instead of remortgaging for another fix (rational as the arrangement fees on new fixed rate mortgages have soared). As a result, gross lending is down by £875 million.

But net lending is down by £1104 million. Which suggests that in January households made a concerted effort to use the money released by falling interest rates to pay down their existing mortgages. This is actually a good thing. It puts households in a stronger position, and as explained in my previous post, repayments of capital help banks and building societies who wish to reduce their wholesale funding.

 

VALÉRIE BOYER is 47, a member of the French parliament and a divorced mother of three. She is tall, fashionable and, dare we say it, slim.

But she has also created a small furor here and abroad with her latest proposal: a draft law that would require all digitally altered photographs of people used in advertising be labeled as retouched.

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In advertising, most photographs are usually as they are taken... It takes a long while to set up a single shot... But in magazine publications that could be a different story... the excess baggage on models is trimmed, the skin is deblotched, etc... But this is not new... I started to do photo-retouching in the early 1960s. Then, it was lots more complicated as it had to be done by hand (fine brushes, air-brush and special inks) on prints, while the most skilled operators used special techniques to do it directly on large positve transparencies... In the long run, some of the process was to "improve" the shot, but we would never allow ourselves to cheat on the hour-glass figures, would we?

See toon at top.

French First Lady Brigitte Macron is said to have come face to face with a promotional campaign using her image to advertise a ‘revolutionary’ anti-wrinkle cream, according to Le Parisien.

Mrs Macron reportedly ordered lawyers to launch an investigation into the case after the unauthorized use of her photo to advertise a ‘revolutionary’ anti-wrinkle cream, Le Parisien claims.

The newspaper says that the 65-year-old spouse of the French President has slammed the rumors that she was collaborating with a cosmetics company called ‘Truth and Beauty’. She said she was in no way linked to the creation of a facial cream that the company was advertising as an "anti-wrinkle solution that could change the skincare industry forever".

The attempt [to] lure women into buying a product that could magically turn them into a first lady, was reportedly built in two stages. The first involved the spreading of fake news articles featuring testimonials of the revolutionary effect of the “Beauty and Truth” serum, while the second stage provided support to their claims by using a photo of the “radiant” First Lady.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/426376-macron-brigitte-aging-cream/

 

Read from top.

 

See also: 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/28096

First ladies Melania Trump, Brigitte Macron and other world leaders’ wives are touring Basque wine country as they accompany their spouses to the G-7 summit in southwestern France.

The women traveled to the village of Epselette on Sunday where they had lunch at Villa Arnaga, which was built by the French playwright who wrote “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

As they toured the grounds, Trump and Marcron were joined by Akie Abe, wife of Japan’s prime minister, Jenny Morrison, wife of Australia’s prime minister, Chile’s first lady Cecilia Morel, and Malgorzata Tusk, wife of the European Council president.

The women were treated to a wine tasting and a traditional dance in the garden, as well as a song performance in the Saint Etienne church.

The meeting of the G-7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S. — kicked off Saturday night and will involve talks about trade policy and climate change.

Notably absent from the festivities was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds, who didn’t travel with him due to work commitments, the Daily Mail reported.

 

 

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2019/08/25/g-7-leaders-spouses-enjoy-wine-tasting-as-...

 

 

Read from top...

 

Of course, Merkel is with the boys, pulling a few punches...