The current news are all just doom and gloom over the world’s financial crisis. Recession, unemployment, bankruptcies and home repossessions – it is all just a tad too serious. So was the American presidential election, but Sarah Palin made it fun! Not deliberately, of course, but every morning I would wake up and read something said or done that would tickle me, and make my day. Why I miss Sarah Palin.
In a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour party at Westminster on Monday night, Gordon Brown accepted that his party has suffered badly in recent months as the recession has hit the UK. He warned MPs to ‘brace themselves for a fresh battering from voters in the coming weeks as the recession deepens’. Brown admits recession will be bad for Labour.
World leaders and financial experts were not surprised when the UK and the US entered deep recessions, and some were even smug enough to suggest that it would not hit their own country as their economy is not based on ‘a property boom and massive consumer debts’. Recession hits Europe, not just the UK.
More than 2000 business and political leaders have for 5 days discussed how best to tackle what is now being called ‘the crisis of capitalism’. They found no collective answer. Mostly, the problems, and not the solution, were discussed. This was not quite in tune with the forum’s official theme this year; shaping the post-crisis world. That was a bit premature. No answers from Davos.
The IMF said today that Britain will be the hardest hit country in the developed world in what is now forecast to be the ‘deepest recession since WWII’. The IMF now expects e the British GDP to fall by 2.8 % this year, not the 1.3% that was previously thought in November. Furthermore, a UN report expects 50 million jobs to be cut worldwide. A bleak outlook for the UK.
Mervyn King, the Bank of England’s governor, has warned that ’people should be concerned’ about the difficult times ahead. He said that interest rates might have to be cut to an all time low below 2 percent to help Britain’s ailing economy. Mr. King even indicated that the Bank of England was prepared to cut rates to 0 percent – or ‘whatever level is necessary’. A stark warning to Britons.