Recessions compared
Fraser Nelson 11:03pmI’ve noticed that Gordon Brown has stopped bragging about how this recession is not as bad as 1990s. And with good reason. It’s far worse – and not just because unemployment and repossessions are rising more quickly. It’s summed up in a graph – and CoffeeHousers who are into this sort of thing may find it useful. It’s from CitiGroup, which warns that even the below picture for the current downturn is optimistic. Citi is now forecasting a 3.3% contraction of the economy this year – last month it was forecasting a 2.5% drop. It says in the note “Apologies for the frequent updates, but the economy is in freefall”. So is Britain well placed to handle the downturn?, I hand over to Michael Saunders from Citi when discussing the 3.3% GDP drop he now expects for this year:
“To put that in context, no G7 country has recorded a GDP decline of more than 3% in any year during the last 50 years. And it may be even worse. If GDP continues to fall by 1.5% QoQ during 2009, then GDP will fall by about 5% in 2009 as a whole. To put that in context, this would be similar to the worst year of the 1930s slump (1931),which saw UK GDP plunge 5.5%.... From here, a recession that lasts for only a year or two would qualify as a relatively good outcome.”
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TGF UKIP
January 24th, 2009 11:44pm Report this commentThe Blair/Brown gang have got us here and are demonstrably capable of only making things worse and as your piece in the fanzine this week indicates, Fraser, the Cameron Tories are simply not up to the job of getting us out of the mess.
Never, never, has this country been more ill-served by its political class.
Tankus
January 25th, 2009 12:10am Report this commentGordons got his foot hard down on the throttle...
with apathy in the back seat , blankly staring at the scenery as it flashes past .....!
Ive got my wind up torch, radio,
and primus for when the power cuts start ....and cupboard full like a tilda reps ...
black out curtains, bigger water storage, and better locks next ...
TGF UKIP
January 25th, 2009 12:42am Report this commentFor a counterbalancing view, Coffee Housers may wish to go to ft.com and "Recession Britain: All washed up" by Chris Giles and Andrew Bounds.
Fraser, may well claim it's a complementary view but it sure is from a different angle. Certainly just as much gloom, but perhaps not quite so much doom as the Speccie is so persistently painting.
Fraser may wish to kibbitz and Coffee housers will reach their own conclusions.
JohnAnt
January 25th, 2009 1:46am Report this commentUKIP, I agree, but do you seriously think your lot would be any better? They too seem disengaged from economic realities and unable to present a coherent programme of government. Just leaving the EU isn't a solution to the crisis we face, anymore than or pulling the curtains or buying more toilet paper would be.
JohnAnt
January 25th, 2009 1:47am Report this commentSorry, I meant to write: '...any more than pulling the curtains or buying more toilet paper would be'.
Verity
January 25th, 2009 2:11am Report this commentTGF - In accord.
BNP4ME
January 25th, 2009 9:12am Report this commentThese crooks will get their comeuppance one day.
Ken
January 25th, 2009 9:27am Report this commentLet us never forget. Bring the criminally negligent all before Nuremberg 11, they have done what Hitler failed to do:
"In his March 2007 budget, Gordon Brown described a happy land of "rising employment and rising investment; continuing low inflation, and low interest and mortgage rates". ... We will never return to the old boom and bust!"
In the same month, the International Monetary Fund issued a prophetic warning. ...Brown ran the risk of a global financial contagion infecting a country that was already drowning in debt and in no fit state to cope with hard times. The government took no notice."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/25/creditcrunch
RW
January 25th, 2009 9:28am Report this commentNot to worry. Rosie Millard in the Times has got the answer. She advertised for domestic help and scores of highly qualified graduates answered, including some former bankers. We'll do anything, they said.
So there we are. We might be hurtling down the pan, but we'll have the best qualified nannies, housekeepers, handymen and gardeners in the world. Sorted.
Susan Hill
January 25th, 2009 1:36pm Report this commentI still maintain this recession is patchy. In the past two days I went to a very posh organic farm shop. It was heaving, people piling their baskets high, no space to get a coffee. And that is a place where a jar of jam costs £5.
I then went to a new shopping centre with branches of all the usual chains, supermarkets etc. It was Saturday morning, the huge car park was packed and every shop apart from B and Q was heaving. And the sales are over. So some people have money to spend and these are opposite ends of the retail spectrum. I passed five SOLD estate agent boards this morning in a seven mile drive and a house near me sold last year is being completely restored, doubled in size and expensively modernised and fitted out. The local builder doing it has taken on more workers. Local rumour has it that the new owner is an international banker. (Mind you, the last local rumour said that the postman who left his job suddenly had been abducted by aliens. ) But there appear to be some corners not feeling this recession too badly.
TGF UKIP
January 25th, 2009 2:39pm Report this commentJohnAnt, UKIP are not "my lot", I am just grateful to them for being a repository for my vote given that we do not presently have a Tory Party that can in any way be described as conservative.
I would urge you to go to the Policies section of the UKIP site and download "UKIP Policies in Brief" dated August 2008. That summary of their broad range of policies provides an excellent reason, in my view, for conservatives to vote UKIP.
Augustus
January 25th, 2009 4:42pm Report this comment@ Susan Hill
Perhaps they sold their gold reserves at a much better price than Brown did some years ago. (a bar tied in a velvet pouch makes a good door stopper BTW)
JohnAnt
January 26th, 2009 12:09am Report this commentAugustus - many thanks for that useful tip. I've been wondering what to do with my gold bars.
it struck me that the PM too might make a useful door stopper.
hadrian
January 26th, 2009 8:55pm Report this commentWhilst my instincts are totally anti-EU., I cannot help but feel that is far better exprsessed in the MEP elections than in our national election where the utter priority is to dislodge this crummy bunch, even if we sense Cameron and Co are not the ideal tories we could wish for. Voting UKIP for the Westminster parliament would be disastrous in my view as it could well split the potential Anti-Labour vote and let them through yet again. So- I'm going for principle on the EU Elections and for tactical in the national ( which is more complicated up here in Scotland but in England is blazingly simple)
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