As I start my day, I review the "green shoots" that I can see sitting and waiting for me to peruse them in my short list of relevant RSS feeds (I had a long list, but found it was taking far too much time to keep up with all of them, so I have ruthlessly culled them recently).
JJB Sports sales slump by 25%
All Bar One boss quits over debt millstone
Birthday's card stores in administration
US economy to contract more than forecast this year
Standard & Poors downgrade outlook for the UK from stable to negative
IMF warns more banks may need to be nationalised
Really, does anyone think these are "green shoots of recovery" for our economy? I can't find any GENUINE examples of green shoots of recovery, but plenty of brown, withering, parched seedlings spread over an arid landscape, kept on life support by government intervention of issuing national debt instruments and buying those with newly-printed money, then swapping those "AAA rated securities" for junk assets held by the banks. The hope is the private banks will take the new money and use it to make loans to consumers and businesses, but the reality is that the banks are insolvent still, even after relieving themselves of more of the toxic holdings, and they still cannot make new loans because their losses have been so catastrophically huge, their reserve ratios are still inadequate.
Sadly, this has a long way to run yet, and the government is only making it take longer and cost you more. Bummer.
As previously advertised, don't believe the hype.
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