Are we there yet?

In the media you can see report after report suggesting that we are out of recession and a sustainable economic recovery is under way. This is just perception-management, with the governments of the world all hoping and praying that you will all get out to the shops and spend money, ideally on credit if possible, and that you will resume buying houses at ever-inflating prices, again on credit with mortgages.

But my own feeling is that the worm has turned -- people are now switched from being credit-happy, to debt-wary. This is a secular change in consumer habits, whether politicians like it or not, which will play out over a number of years and if they attempt to fight it then they will only make it take longer and be a whole lot worse. This is bad overall for the economy, which is geared up for ever-expanding debt and inflation of money supply, leading in turn to inflation of consumer prices. If this system goes into reverse, as it has, then we need to find a whole new economic model and start using it lickety-split! Instead, politicians hope to get the old system they knew and loved to restart, but they will be unsuccessful and future historians will point to today's politicians as being culpable for what is about to come, for this very reason of their denial of the inevitable. History will not be denied, I don't care if Gordon and Barak don't like it.

But don't trust me -- who the hell am I to speak, with my council estate comprehensive education, a Youth Training Scheme in lieu of any further education, and my staunchely non-specialist attitude to work and life? How could I possibly know about anything better than all the highly-training Cambroxetonian specialists running every aspect of the country and its economy?

You could try listening to guys like these though? They specialise in global economic analysis, and they will tell you exactly what I tell you. They have been right all the way along, in spite of disagreeing with the powers that be and the mainstream media, so I wouldn't bet on them being proved wrong now.

Rig for another storm. More likely two, and probably both worse than the last...