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5LNPI: Why can't we cope with the snow? 22 Dec 09
10:26 Tue, 22 Dec 09
Thousands of people were trapped in their cars overnight after snow and ice brought roads to a standstill. At airports, runways have been closed and many flights cancelled. Eurostar has this morning resumed a limited service. Why can't we cope with these wintry conditions? Was it any better in past? Where have you been where they deal with snow better than us? How have you been affected?
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As my daughter has just been made redundant, I would say no, it's not over yet.
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A nice little juxtaposition today: the question you are asking followed by the obscenity of an £80 million bid for Ronaldo. Last week the news Gareth Barry will "earn" £110,000 a week left me cold, especially with the piece in the papers at the weekend outlining how these overpaid "stars" can avoid tax on their earnings by being paid by tax-free loans, can someone please just abhor these abominable earnings publicly so that ordinary people facing debts, re-possessions, redundancies and so on, can at least have some faith that the world hasn't gone mad?
I feel very sorry for your daughter zeldalicious. My own daughter has a freelance career and is struggling. They may all laugh in the studio about the absurd offer for Ronaldo, but it isn't so funny out in the real world, away from even those highly overpaid people at the BBC.
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Thanks carrie.
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Just because a bunch of right wing economic analysts believe that the recession is over you, you have to jump on the bandwagon yet again 5 Live and have a phone in on the issue.
On Wed, your 'Wake up to Money' team announced euphorically that Lloyds had paid back to the exchequer a few £billion of taxpayers bail out money.
Lo and behold, the next day Lloyds announced that the Cheltenham and Gloucester which it owns is going to close all its high street branches making hundreds unemployed!
Relegating any discussion of the economy to subjective issues like recessions and booms will hardly be productive especially when the majority of callers you put on air are only looking at things from their own financial or commercial perspectives. It implies that all was right when the economy apparently wasn't in recession.
The question should be about why recessions occur in the first place and how even if the economy does recover after £1.4 Trillion bail out it doesn't mean that the same thing won't happen again!
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If there was a dumbed down GCSE question that posed the scenario of a collapse of the World financial system and showed some data that showed an upwards blip in output of 0.2% then asked does this mean :
a) the problems are over
b) its too small and too soon to say but its probably just a blip
then the correct answer is b) How come the top economists cant get a GCSE question right ?
Glenis Devereux
socrates2005@live.co.uk
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Nope, the recession is not over, it has barely started.
The entire last decade's growth was based on cheap and unrestricted borrowing.
It was not based on improvements in productivity & efficiency. Any improvements in these areas (which there was) was more than suffocated by government red-tape.
The consumer boom fed on credit cards, store-cards and equity-release. We have all maxed-out on our cards now, and are over-mortgaged on our homes.
In business, everyone was told to leverage up the to the hilt, growth was fake and hollow. Huge sums were sucked out of businesses to directors and bankers, cashing in notional profits. Most companies cannot process their debts now, and a huge percentage of -pretty big- companies are effectively bust. When they try to renegotiate terms with their banks in the next year or so, don't be surprised to see a fresh wave of collapses.
The banks are now desperately saving themselves and hoarding all money they receive. Interest terms at 1-2% above Base Rate are now a thing of the past, daily invention of ridiculous charges, bespoke rates charged on what the bank thinks the customer will pay, and a squeeze on all new borrowing.
Industry has been clobbered, it will take years of incentives and investment for them to recover confidence. The motor sector is moribund.
The Government refuses to tackle a lumpen public sector which is crippling the balance of payments. Instead we print money and steal from future generations.
They have also sold the family silver, raided the inheritance and pocketed the petty cash.
The only plus we have currently is that savings rates are so pathetic, that we are being told to spend, spend, spend. No-one who suspects their pension is going into meltdown is likely to freely burn their money on short-term consumer goods.
A miniscule reverse in April/May of some figure or other -based on (no-doubt) a tiny sample questioned, is meaningless.
This recession won't hit bottom until it starts to affect close to your home, my home. At the moment, none of the following are affected, and what percentage of them work in non-productive (in a 'wealth-creating' way) markets -Healthcare, Defence, Local Government, National Government (Revenue & Customs, Law enforcement, Accountants and Liquidators.
Until such times as librarians, middle management Hospital-Trust paper-shufflers and gay-teen pregnancy enabling counsellors jobs start to be lost, this recession won't be for real.
The people taking the brunt of this at the moment are Manufacturing industry, Construction, Leisure & Travel, Conveyancing, Transport, Retail, and Banking. All of them in 'first-wave' recession activities.
Long way to go.
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The economy is no longer in freefall and the worst of the RECESSION MAY NOW BE OVER...
There are signs of stabilisation in the housing market, of bank lending moving forward and of recovery in private sector investments...
British consumer confidence also rose to a six-month high in May on expectations that the economy may recover from the recession
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