Tag Archives: recession

Christmas Tree Inflation

Christmas! I said, or words to that effect. I definitely invoked our saviour, and I was as flabbergasted as anyone involved in the Nativity Story itself. I stood stock still like the ass on seeing a child being born in a manger; I gaped like the Wise Men beholding the star in the east; and I quivered like dear old Joseph on being told by his wife that she was about to give birth to someone else’s child, but it was really quite all right, darling, and there was no case for jealousy and it was indeed a great compliment that she had been chosen by the chap in question. Continue reading Christmas Tree Inflation

Are we on the verge of a recession?

A million jobs to be gone by Christmas. That was one of the chirpier headlines in the weekend papers, and oh boy, I don’t think I can take much more of this doomstering.

Spending an hour with the FT is like being trapped in a room with assorted members of a millennialist suicide cult. If their pundits are to be believed, the skies of the City will shortly be dark with falling bankers, and then for the rest of us it’s back to the 1930s, with barrels for trousers, soup kitchens and buddy can you spare a dime.

By this time next year, if the pessimists are right, Gordon Brown will have nationalised most of the British economy and a representative of the Treasury will be attending the editorial conference of The Daily Telegraph. Continue reading Are we on the verge of a recession?