Billions of pounds have been thrown at our banking industry to save it by the British government, unemployment has risen above two million, saving and mortgage interest rates are at their lowest level ever, house prices are still tumbling down, inflation is high on food costs at 11.3% over the year, imported goods and raw materials from abroad have risen sharply, exports have declined, energy costs are still rocketing, housing cost are down by 9.5% over the year, high street sales have down by around 5%, our exchange rate is in free fall against other major currencies, the Footsie titters around under the 4,000 mark, and now we are told inflation has arrived at zero percent and deflation looks like the new big word. We are told that the rest of the world is in the same boat and we should keep spending. Does anybody really know how to solve the problem?



The poisonous Chalice

The newly elected American President Barack Obama has inherited a poisonous chalice from the previous delinquent war mongering President Bush. President Obama now has the un-envious job of trying to correct the problems of the last administration. He is reported to be spending copious amounts of dollar to get America working and functioning again. The credit crunch started in America and has spread around the globe like a virus on the internet.

Lost market confidence

Finance markets around the world have lost confidence in the banks and everybody including me has an opinion about this recession. My thinking is that we should leave this mess to market forces. Yes we would go into a long and deep recession and national growth would shrink and yes things would get worse. But market forces would prevail and the strong would survive and economies would rebound without a mass of debt to be paid for. If governments continue to prop up their failing banks and economies what legacy will we leave our children? I fear that we will leave a mountain of debt to be paid for by our children and their children.

We have enjoyed the good times

We have all enjoyed the good times and now that the bad times have arrived governments around the world are all trying to cushion the fall. Everybody knew that the last ten years would come to an end. Any fool with half a brain knew that the good times would end. We could not go on spending and expecting house prices to keep rising and have cheap money thrown at us forever.

Gordon Brown the Saviour of the World!

Gordon Brown is touring the world like the pope of Finance before next week's G20 summit calling on governments around the world to back the American and the British plans for possible further stimulus. Meanwhile back in London Dr. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England has thrown caution against any further significant government spending to stimulate the UK economy. Dr. King has questioned the wisdom of increasing debt by spending more. But he has said there was room for further targeted and selected measures in some areas of the economy. In the words of Stephen Flanders, the BBC economics editor, “Dr. King is effectively saying that the government would be mad to consider another large stimulus package.”

You need only look to America to see the size of their national debt which was already a few trillion dollars before President Obama started to try and spend his country out of recession and into further debt. Does anybody really know how to solve the problem?