According to a lot of the newspapers the past few days we’ve been making some really good progress as a nation. There are stacks of reports saying that we’re looking at a 2% growth in the economy over the next 18 months. There’s been a drop from the summer months of a 0.8% increase to October/September’s meagre 0.5%, but this is still better than most averages, apparently.
The fact that we’re making some form of progress has caused the media to sniff out the potential of an incoming firefight between political minds. The red-tops are firing on all cylinders and the politicians are hook line and sinker. The arguement is such that we’re in a secure enough position that if nothing else goes wrong we’ll start progressing; if something – anything – goes wrong, we’re back to square one. 2008 was our most recent sunny patch, and we’re still not up to speed with that. Not to worry though, because we’re all depressed, not recessed: which is much nicer!
The NIESR added: “Unless output turns down again, the recession is over, while the period of depression is likely to continue for some time. We do not expect output to pass its peak in early 2008 until 2012″. The National Institute defines “recession” to mean a period when output is falling or receding, while “depression” is a period when output is depressed below its previous peak.
So here we are being told the recession is over, but only to sate the pedantic tongue of “the man”. The banks are still on the front line and they’re doing the acid test day in, day out; business banking is rife with proverbial fall out and we’re starting to run out of litmus paper.
A cricketing analogy seemed in order. Like an English batsman preparing to defend the Ashes, the Governor said, the Bank must remain poised at the wicket ready to play forward or back and to adjust policy in either direction according to the incoming data.
There have been tos and fros with the government and there has been a lot of complaints about “fat cat” bankers getting their “corporate kicks” off our tax money – but it simply isn’t the case. It does seem so unjust to have the service that stands between you and your money to be dealing with the free payouts from the government, but if we’re going to get help for what matters we need to believe in the thinkers no matter how controversial it seems.
It’s not getting better any time in the near future – let’s just hang on to our wallets be thankful that the coalition has seen to it that it’s not getting worse.
What I’m fast realising is that “when we were young” is a time when teachings and information levels were lower than they are in the modern day. I wander past a park nowadays and it’s full of 6 year old kids that are pulling off Christiano Ronaldo street tricks. Your average supermarket assisstant wouldn’t stand a chance against the modern day school kid in a pop-quiz.
