My Thoughts on the Recession
Today there has been yet another melodramatic revelatory (as in the style of the book of revelations) story about the recession, which will soon be upon us destroying everything we love, because the ether bubble has finally burst and we’re all going to start killing babies as a cheaper option to bread, which will cost us the equivalent of six months salary a loaf. Once again, the only voice of reason out there is that of David Mitchell (I wish I were David Mitchell) talking several weeks ago on BBC2’s ‘Mock the Week’
How can we live with an economy based on how the richest people in the country feel? If they feel a little ill or grumpy, they sell things instead of buying them and we go into recession because people see other people selling and pinic, so they sell their stuff (which doesn’t actually exist); everyone copies until some innovator decides to buy things while they’re cheap, the idea catches on and then we come our of our recession… why? Seriously, this is quite vexing to say the least.
We live in a world so fragile that our economy could be floored if Richard Brandson catches a cold, but could it really? Other than the rise in petrol prices which was based entirely on share prices and confidence (not on any increased difficulty in sourcing oil or transport or anything real) is anyone really spending less? Surely if house prices go down it’s good for me and my young friends who will want to be buying houses in the next 5 years of so. I haven’t seen anyone pick up a melon in the supermarket only to stare forlornly at it for a moment, then put it back and buy a cheaper fruit grumbling about recessions.
It’s amazing how people seem to have become desensitised to the media hysteria that regularly grips our country (or at least thats how our media describe it). I for one am bored of being told that one disaster or another is going to cripple or destroy us. It’s exceptionally worrying when laymen journalists write about a highly technical area that they simply don’t understand (insert by Small - for instance, one of the red-tops called the CERN centre a ‘black hole machine’ - doom-mongering much?) and I simply wonder if we’re not experiencing another ‘Roy Meadow‘ or ‘combined MMR vaccine‘ controversy where someone hears a vague rumour in their office and decides to put it on the front page.
A final note; please people, don’t let the third world suffer because of our imagined financial issues and don’t stop buying free range or fair trade etc.
