"Are we talking ourselves into a recession? John Botham thinks it's possible. He tells Today that although markets are volatile and lower oil and commodity prices are a cause for concern, other parts of the UK economy are doing very well. The danger, he says, is that consumers might put off a purchase because of the volatility in stock markets or that banks, becoming fearful as their share price takes a beating, stop lending. He doesn’t believe we are repeating 2008 again." BBC
Always a warning sign for me this, only true idiots can think it is possible that recessions are entirely induced by the collective state of mind of the markets and human population the world over.
On the other hand, people making these kind of statements were rife in early 2008. I recall clearly day after day hearing vested interests - from bankers to recruitment consultants, saying all was fine and we should be happily spending and changing jobs etc.
Of course, none of this is true; but at the same time this is not 2008. As much as the Banks are having a nice little run on them in share price terms they are not as exposed as they were in 2008 to crazy derivatives or sub-prime mortgages. Also the low commodity prices have upsides as well as downsides, in 2008 commodity prices were at all time highs and managed to start both the Great Recession and then the Arab Spring in due course.
Yet, business cycle wise, we are due a slow down in the next year or two and the world is full of intractable geopolitical issues. So a mild slow down could happen although it feels unlikely in the UK services based economy.
