What came first, Gordon Brown or the recession?
You can believe the headlines too much; do so at your peril as you will only talk yourself into a state of gloom and despair. All this talk of "lowest sales figures this and that" would make us think that it us the consumer who has caused the recession - utter nonsense!
The total shambles, irresponsible lending and unquantified risk-taking of our financial/banking sector is entirely to blame for our economic problems. There are untold examples of perfectly sound businesses going to the wall purely because banks are refusing to continue to finance them in desperate bids to reduce their exposure and improve their own liquidity.
Where there were teams of workers within such institutions actively encouraging businesses to take on more debt and lending, they are now replaced by teams actively encouraging businesses to wrap up and and shut the doors or move to a new bank..........except their competitors are equally stuffed and so wont back them.
All of this has nothing to do with people keeping their hands in their pockets and refusing to spend. However the secondary effects are that it does then create unemployment through such 'forced' liquidation, with the resulting market jitters that follow and a ultimately a lower marginal propensity for consumer consumption......the result = sustained periods of 'reported' actual negative growth (i.e. recession)
What the country really needs is a monumental shot of confidence and I think that can only now come from a general election.
And as far as wannabees are concerned, is now not a good time to prepare yourself for the upswing when it comes?
Last edited by George Zipper; 8th Jan 2009 at 02:10.
Reason: a bit of a tidy up