Green shoots with shallow roots

It’s true there are signs of an economic recovery, says Martin Vander Weyer, but we should also beware a ‘third wave’ of destruction

It’s springtime in North Yorkshire, which traditionally means lashing rain and temperatures like February. But however unseasonal the weather, nature knows when it’s time to wake up: in the first few days of May, my beech hedge always sheds its dead brown leaves and bursts into fresh green.

And so it goes — with rather less certainty of timing — for the economic cycle. We may poison the ground with too much fertiliser, we may plant scarce saplings in the stoniest places, we may waste money on useless seed that was advertised as miraculously fruitful, we may experience ‘weather events’ we never imagined, but in the end, despite it all, the natural course of events is that green shoots must appear. It is only a matter of when, and how many of them are strong enough to reach full bloom.

That’s more than enough of Gardeners’ Question Time, but you’ll see my point, I’m sure. There has to be a recovery at the end of the current recession, and although there are still a few pundits who believe we’re heading for a new economic ice age, the smart money is beginning to bet on recovery peeping through, just as the Chancellor said in his Budget, before the end of this year.

You can see the trend in commodity markets, where copper and zinc prices have been marching upwards for the past three months, as speculators stockpile in anticipation of a revival of Chinese manufacturing. As for stock markets, in April, despite the swine flu scare, the FTSE 100 index of leading UK shares had its best month since 2003, and it has continued to rally in May.