Unhappy daze

And so the downturn looks like it will come upon us partly because everyone seems to want it to be so, and partly because we respond to change rather than normal conditions.

Ann Pettifor, the debt campaigner, was on the radio last night asserting that we were experiencing a massive financial meltdown. In the interview, she had the final word, with the interviewer happy to leave her exaggerations unchallenged.

And so it is in the financial markets. Dramatic stories fly round the market faster than the prosaic. Peoples' innate desire for excitement seems to trump their own self interest.

So, we should be interested in the facts of economics and politics but actually people are far more interested in set-piece human dramas like 'The Apprentice' and John Prescott's surprising love life (and unsurprising eating habits).

Our focus on fun rather than fact does little good for society as a whole, leaving a yawning gap between the benevolent technocrats and the rest of the population, but it's a bit of a laugh innit?

And so in the markets this year, the downbeat, the depressing, and the impending disaster are the news stories that have salience.

We are in a house price crash, even though the numbers do not show it. Nor is there a stock market crash, nor sharply rising unemployment, nor a significant problem with managing debt.

But there will be soon.

PS A little bit more on this here.

PPS And yet more here. Why won't the b*stards get the message and stop spending! Don't they know they're supposed to be in a hysteric, downturn, spiral, crash now?