Perceptions of the recession

BuddyBonthenet

Conrad wrote: »

I see where your'e comming from.
As I've touched on before, the way we process the world is in large part down to our position on the optimist/pessimist - 'reality spectrum'.

Most of us think our own position on the reality spectrum is merely 'the most realistic' position based on 'the facts:rolleyes: ', but of course only 1 position is actualy 100% accurate, and all others are to varying degrees less accurate.

So the escence of percieved reality is affected by our individual processing and importantly, filtering of the facts.

Have you noticed how people take mental shortcuts:D
For example, they type that equates Woolworths closing = recession evidence, whereas a more realistic less biased thinker might also factor in the fact Woolworths was a depressing space with a very losely focused model.

Furthermore, a rationalist will also by definition not filter out the fact more and more online trading abounds, that of course means the death of many high nstreet operators.

I must have missed the thread where someone gave Woolworths closing as the only sign that would suggest to them we were in a recession.

There is a definite hint of arrogance on this thread with glaring assumptions being made about intelligence and knowledge of the business/financial world.

chewmylegoff

lostinrates wrote: »

Most people buy things though. Noticing changes in food cost, quite dramatic swings in fuels of various sorts, changes in mortgages and bank interest rates might all trigger people to try and join the dots, and even perhaps go into their bank and ask?

how would the bank respond? no-one in there knows that there's a recession on, as there's no media to tell them it has happened. or do the banks somehow know?

chucky

BuddyBonthenet wrote: »

There is a definite hint of arrogance on this thread with glaring assumptions being made about intelligence and knowledge of the business/financial world.

nothing new on this board - the armchair economists on here are experts at it :beer:

lostinrates

chewmylegoff wrote: »

how would the bank respond? no-one in there knows that there's a recession on, as there's no media to tell them it has happened. or do the banks somehow know?

It might well be presumed that the bank managers do know....no media, but I guess still telephone and indeed, orders from above on how and why lending/saving rates are changing etc etc


The thing is this is an interesting, deeply interesting, question.

A lot of people have blamed the media for hyping, and there is a growing contigent of people who feel the press should be more heavily restricted. I find this a very worrying development, not just for the economy, but for all things. While I don't particularly care which royal or celebrity wears knickers or gains weight, I do care about the actions of my legal representatives and the way the world works, especially where my choices of how I interact with the world are in question.

The counter arguement is, people panic, they cannot handle the complexity or the specifics of these difficult, sometimes almost impossibly complicated sectors.....and yet we can all vote and understand the complexities of manifestos and political theories as opposed to spin? Something, to me is very worrying.

I too, incidently, thought fewer people might have voted for 'knowing', but its hardly a scientific measure. People's reasoning is at least as revelationary as their vote!

BuddyBonthenet

chucky wrote: »

nothing new on this board - the armchair economists on here are experts at it :beer:

Just didn't want to let it go unmentioned!

ess0two

chucky wrote: »

nothing new on this board - the armchair economists on here are experts at it :beer:

Yeah !!!!!! has the biggest armchair.

tyllwyd

Conrad wrote: »

But an objective view would also want to consider what effect changing shopping habits brings to bare on this.
I agree, the recession is bound to have an impact, but no thinker would merely equate boarded shops with recession, thats far too restricted a view.

I agree that there are lots of reasons why there might be boarded up shops without the country being in recession.

But perhaps the whole idea of this thread is flawed. If you say that a few boarded up shops don't mean a recession, equally a few people losing their jobs doesn't mean a recession, bank rates going down doesn't mean a recession, my pension pot going down doesn't mean a recession - its only when you start putting everything together and getting the picture for the country as a whole that you are going to see whether or not we are in a recession .... and how are we going to do that without access to the media?

chucknorris

GrammarGirl wrote: »

So, those without a vested/regular interest in the financial movements of the country are less intelligent?

Let me ask you, could you explain a passive verb or nominalisation to me without googling it? If not you're obviously less intelligent than me.

I don't think that would class you as being more intelligent than someone who didn't know, I don't know but I don't feel unintelligent due to that particular lack of knowledge.

I think intelligence is the ability to use knowledge to solve problems not merely the knowing of certain things in itself.

GrammarGirl

chucknorris wrote: »

I don't think that would class you as being more intelligent than someone who didn't know, I don't know but I don't feel unintelligent due to that particular lack of knowledge.

I think intelligence is the ability to use knowledge to solve problems not merely the knowing of certain things in itself.

I wasn't proposing a new way of measuring intelligence! I completely, completely agree with your point... I made that remark in response to someone else's equally ridiculous statement. It was meant to highlight the flaws in the argument - one person's lack of knowledge in a specialised field doesn't make them unintelligent overall.

If taken out of context, it seems as if I am lording it over everyone with my grammatical knowledge, which I'm not at all!! :rolleyes:

chewmylegoff

tyllwyd wrote: »

I agree that there are lots of reasons why there might be boarded up shops without the country being in recession.

But perhaps the whole idea of this thread is flawed. If you say that a few boarded up shops don't mean a recession, equally a few people losing their jobs doesn't mean a recession, bank rates going down doesn't mean a recession, my pension pot going down doesn't mean a recession - its only when you start putting everything together and getting the picture for the country as a whole that you are going to see whether or not we are in a recession .... and how are we going to do that without access to the media?

a recession is two quarters of negative growth. the only way you could know that has happened without the media is by visiting the ONS website and checking the figures each quarter - although that said i would could their website or any press release they made as part of the media.