October 24, 1929 vs 24th October 2008

Don't want to worry you but back on the 24th October 1929 the Wall Street crash started. Are we looking at this again?

October 24, 1929: start of Wall Street crash - Telegraph

BBC says "Downturn" ends £1bn plant project in Scotland

The "Downturn" is apparently responsible for the end of plans to build a £1bn wood processing plant that could have created thousands of jobs. Note the BBC statement it was the "Downturn", not the Recession.

Forscot said it had decided not to proceed with its proposals for a paper, pulp and energy plant at Invergordon due to a lack of funding.The company said there was also little chance of attracting investment in the current economic climate.

This is a sad end to a project which would have provided much needed employment in this area.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Downturn ends £1bn plant project

Not the R word page - BBC Mandied

As I said a couple of days ago the BBC has been Mandied and we are now in a "Downturn".

Need I say more.

By the way Sterling down 6 cents to day. FTSE down 6% and GDP down 0.5%. No more "Boom and Bust"

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | downturn

Wot - No R word here says BBC

Sister Moonshine from the album Challenge, What Challenge by Supertramp.
I would have used The Meaning but I can't find a decent video of it

Mandy and that nice Mr Campbell must have on the blower to their old pals at the BBC to explain to them that the R word is forbidden. There is no R word and they must not use the R word. They will have explained that under Labour the R word it is not a R word but a "downturn", this is because as we know under Brown there is no possibility of "Boom and Bust". Also they are now turning a Crisis into a "Challenge". So officially for the BBC Friday when the latest figures appear it it will be a Downturn day rather than a R word Day. Will it also be D-Day for Brown.

As Matthew Parris says in the Times

Corporate challenge

Crisis? What crisis? I'm looking forward to catching out BBC newscasters and editors using that word. From tomorrow there is to be a corporation-wide ban on broadcast references to any “economic crisis” when discussing what our Government might prefer to call the “global financial challenge”. In place of “crisis” BBC staff have apparently been instructed to say “downturn” - the same word, incidentally, that Cabinet ministers are pointedly employing in place of “recession” or even “coming recession”. Friday is D (for Downturn) Day in corporation-speak.

Move along now no bias at the BBC.

Now that we've come to the crunch... | Matthew Parris - Times Online

Sterling Plunging - Labour Recession is here

After last nights speech by Mervyn King saying we are in recession Sterling plunged on the markets.

Not really surprising when you consider the state this country is in.

Guardian has this

The pound began tumbling last night as the Bank of England governor told business leaders in Leeds that the economy is shrinking and hinted at fresh interest rate cuts.

By this morning it had fallen by seven cents to $1.6209, a drop of more than 4%. Traders reported frantic selling as investors rushed to cut their losses by selling the UK currency.

Shares also fell sharply in London this morning, with the FTSE 100 shedding over 100 points, or 2.3%, in early trading to 4127.29.

Sterling had already been hit yesterday by unexpectedly gloomy manufacturing data showing that confidence has collapsed, and King's comments appear to have added to concern over quite how weak the British economy now is.

Guido has this

Government borrowing is at record levels, unemployment is heading towards two million, car workers are on a 3-day week, public sector workers are threatening strikes, nationalisation is back, Deripaska-owned Leyland is even in back the news and we are entering a recession. To complete the whole 70s era feel we have a sterling collapse. 6% last night, 20% since the beginning of the year.

The BBC's business editor is focusing on political gossip. Guido will therefore have to take up the slack on the business reporting front..

Pound falls to five-year low as Bank head admits recession is here | Business | guardian.co.uk

The R word has happened

Recession is apparently upon us or so the Governor of The Bank of England whispered in a speech to the CBI last night, hardly reported by the MSM yesterday. Mr King had this to say

Why has the outlook deteriorated so quickly? The banking crisis dealt a severe blow to the availability of credit. Growth in secured lending to households fell to an annualised rate of 1.9% in the three months to August, its lowest level in more than a decade. The Bank of England’s survey of credit conditions suggests that the terms on which banks provide credit to companies have tightened even further. And, on some estimates, the supply of finance to the UK corporate sector has ground to a halt. This credit shock has come on top of a fall in real disposable incomes resulting from the rise in energy and food prices earlier in the year. So, taken together, the combination of a squeeze on real take home pay and a decline in the availability of credit poses the risk of a sharp and prolonged slowdown in domestic demand. Indeed, it now seems likely that the UK economy is entering a recession.

So what are the media concentrating on instead, the story that George Osborne might have discussed a donation to the Tory Coffers of £50,000 pounds from a possibly illegal donor. Not a donation but a possibility of a donation that was refused. Even the main protagonist Nat Rothschild needed 3 attempts to get his "idea" of the facts correct.

Here we are in the middle of a crisis that has seen banks collapse, the apparent almost collapse of the banking system in Britain and on a day we learn that we are officially in Recession and the media are frothing at a Mandelson spin story.

As Hezza said in an interview on Radio 4 interview for the PM programme

Extraordinary, bizzare, have we all gone mad

How better can I express it.

Market jitters continue as bank chief uses the 'R' word - Scotsman.com News

Markies are Struggling

If Markies are struggling it means the UK is in a bad way. If we can't afford to occasionally shop at Markies it means we have little or no spare money. According to the BBC shares are down over 15% today on the back of poor sales figures particularly food.

They are one of life's little rewards when you need a bit of "Feel Good" factor or just want a nice bit of luxury without the hard work.

Another marker in the slow death of Gordon Brown's tenure as Labour Leader.

BBC NEWS | Business | Sales gloom sees M&S shares dive