Thursday 9 August 2012

No gold medals for UK economy

Yesterday the governor of the Bank of England Sir Mervyn King said "Economy faces headwinds and a black cloud of uncertainty hangs over investment".

He also said "The big picture is that output's been flat for two years, and has continually disappointed expectations of a recovery,".

"We are navigating rough waters and storm clouds continue to roll in from the Euro area,".

"Unlike the Olympians who have thrilled us over the past fortnight, our economy has not yet reached full fitness."

Apparently it's 5 years today [9th August, 1997] when BNP Paribas Bank closed or suspended certain accounts due to issues with "Sub-Prime Mortgages". BNP Paribas announced that it was ceasing activity in three hedge funds that specialised in US mortgage debt.

It took a year for the financial crisis to come to a head but it did so on 15 September 2008 when the US government allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt. Up to that point, it had been assumed that governments would always step in to bail out any bank that got into serious trouble: the US had done so by finding a buyer for Bear Stearns while the UK had nationalised Northern Rock.

Well, where are we now?

This current year growth has been downgraded to 0% and so has next year. Those still employed are still not feeling the effect of recession, never mid depression and the real cuts in the over inflated public sector have still to take effect.

Perhaps there is going to be another five years of the same...

No comments:

Post a Comment