Golden generation’s turn to face downturn

Posted by admin on 23 August, 2008 under Business news | Be the First to Comment

For a generation which has only ever known full employment, rising house prices, low inflation and uninterrupted economic growth, the arrival of a recession will be a new and unwelcome experience.

Things are about to go all topsy-turvy and early 1990s on us, if anyone remembers the era of John Major, Norman Lamont and Mr Blobby.

So, instead of every twenty-something in the land believing house prices can only ever go up, they will instead soon be gripped by the almost paralysing fear that house prices can only ever go down.

Dinner party conversations will move from how much the guests’ properties have risen in value to how near they are to negative equity; gentle competition over the superiority of Tuscany or Turkey will be supplanted by the case for just staying at home for a fortnight (much greener, of course).

The office gossips’ radar will reorient from bonuses and hirings to the next round of redundancies, voluntary or not.

Cost-cutting exercises will sweep through offices. The San Pellegrino will give way to tap water; the Porsche will be traded in for a Mini; Waitrose swapped for Aldi. There will be more misery about, more dismay that things are still getting worse, more searching for the “green shoots of recovery”, more tales of people being repossessed and bankrupted, and a little more humility about the narrow gap separating prosperity from destitution. We will vow not to borrow so much ever again.

And as in April 1992, in 2009 or 2010 we can choose between an incompetent government and a possibly more incompetent, untried opposition party. Something to look forward to, then.

News reported by The Independent