We have been in a very strange limbo type state in the last year, there had been a massive positive trend in the economy that was occurring off the back of exiting Covid times - plenty of jobs to go around and lots of accrued savings that needed spending. It feels like we're at the point where everything is just running on fumes and is very shortly about to fall off a cliff. The economy has been doing all kinds of crazy things but was severely upset after Russia invaded Ukraine - damaging the prospects of both countries. Ukraine exported very many raw materials and Russia was a large supply of oil & gas. This jacked up prices and has been hard to balance back out in the short term.