We keep on working through economic shifts

Political tub-thumpers will argue about George Osborne's Autumn Statement for a few days.

The Right will tell us how the cuts have worked and we've all made sacrifices together for the greater good as the economy improves.

The Left will tell us that any improvements are based on flimsy house price rises, an unpredicted rise in customer spending, that we're all worse off, and the recovery is slower than Osborne predicted.

All good stuff, and the politicos will enjoy the distractions from buying Christmas presents.

For most of us, though, the bottom line is that times are still tough and we're working as hard as we can to pull through this. We understand that the country's finances have been in a bad state since 2008. We hear that the Eurozone is suffering too, and about the rise of China's economy compared with that of the US. We hear that the UK's economy is improving, that energy prices are for ever on the rise. We're grateful that petrol prices have been stable for a couple of months.

For those of us who run our own small business, we look for smarter ways to work as technology moves on apace (one example this week: car tax discs will be scrapped), and we look for better ways to advertise our services among the tangle of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blogs, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest - where will it end?). We also try and predict what will shape our business and the work we do in years to come. And we work as hard as we can.

Predicting the way the economy will turn is beyond us (and them!).

We'll continue to work through it.