Tuesday 30 September 2008

Why Are We Being Forced Into Recession?

I'm amazed at the amount of UK reporting on recessions and economic slowdowns that are full of weasel words!

For instance, take today's reporting of the drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Everything is full of "biggest one-day drop ever" and "massive slump". It was in numbers, 770 points, but not in percentage terms. Only 6.9%.

Yet when you look back at previous large falls, October 1929, was a fall of 22%, albeit across three days of trading on the 24th, 28th and 29th. And 19th October 1987 was even larger at 32%.

But we aren't told these percentages. Just that it was the "biggest one-day drop ever!"

It's like the results of the poll that were announced a few weeks back that said that three million people in the UK are afraid of losing their job. No details were given for:
  • who conducted the poll,
  • what the sample size was, or
  • where the people who were surveyed came from.
I'm used to hearing things like "In a survey of 10,000 households across the UK that was conducted by the Gallup Organisation this week, 10 out of every 6 people...." But no such details were provided. More weasel words!

Wonder why the government wants to talk us all into a recession?

Is it because they want people to stop spending and start saving more? Like they do in Japan? Here's an interesting article about the Japanese bailout that occurred in the 1990's.

I wonder if banks that are "flush with cash" from savings don't have to have such an interconnected and complicated set of borrowings between themselves.

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