This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Bachel, a Joseph Sternberg member of the editorial

board of the Wall Street Journal. He's in London, so he's exactly the right place in

a heatwave to explain a headline that surprised me when I saw it from Reuters in these last

hours. UK set to dodge recession, but big problems remain.

Joe, the recession has not arrived here. Now, the recession is not going to arrive in London.

Explain, please. How did London, with the troubles, the political and the economic and the

military troubles of the last year? And then there was Boris Johnson. How did it avoid a recession?

What's the trick? Well, I was kind of surprised by that news too, because I'm still not sure

the UK is going to avoid a recession. I mean, I certainly hope that it will, and there are,

you can imagine some scenarios where it would, but I think that it's a very difficult environment

over here. Because one of the other things that's happened today is that stronger than expected

labor market data have really set the stage for more interest rate increases from the Bank of

England moving forward. And borrowing rates are now higher than they were when we had the market

panic after Liz Truss's tax-cutting mini budget last autumn. So I think that there are a lot of

signs that health-solden businesses are going to continue coming under strain here, although falling

energy prices are offering some reprieve. So I think that this is a very challenging period for

the UK and economy. And I really have a feeling that it is on the knife edge where one

gentle puff of the breeze in one direction could tip it into not having a recession,

but just a slight movement in the other direction, and it could find itself in a contraction.

You have a profoundly different economy when it comes to housing. Explain that, Joe.

And does that influence this recession, non-recession of rapport?

Well, I think that one of the key differences between the US and UK economies is that

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