EU Referendum: why we're all suffering from electile dysfunction

Boomerang kids

Young adults who appear to have left the family home for good but move back in due to the high cost of living outside the home and their limited ability to find a decent paying job (youth cashtration). The number of people in this category in Britain is now more than two million.

Zigzagging

A strategy deployed in grocery stores and shops to confuse the consumer and make it easier to hide upward price movements. Two-for-one or three-for-two deals are offered and then removed so as to mask the fact that the price for one is suddenly higher than it used to be.

Shrinkflation

The process by which the consumer pays the same price as ever for a product but now finds far less of the product inside the packaging. Cereal boxes are now only half full and crisp packets contain far fewer crisps.

Meltup

A “meltdown” occurs when the stock market suddenly falls by a lot. A “meltup”, by contrast, occurs when money enters the economy so fast that asset prices (stocks markets and property) increase in value very rapidly. Policymakers always want to avoid meltdowns at all costs but are happy to threaten them if or when the public chooses policy options which current policymakers do not like. For example, the economy will “melt down” if the public chooses to exit the European Union.

Dr Pippa Malmgren is the author of SIGNALS: How Everyday Signs Can Help us Navigate the World’s Turbulent Economy, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, price £20