SURVEY: Recession or Media Driven Hype?

[Ingenuity]

Hi everyone

I'm currently running a survey about the economic climate, what peoples views are compared to what the media are continually reporting. And as part of that i wanted to ask the people of East Dulwich (and i'm a resident too!) what views they had.

The survey will take no longer than 5 minutes and its totally independent. We've not been commissioned to do this by anyone, we're not being paid any money to do this, we simply want to know the truth and report it as such.

To take part simply visit, www.clarityuk.net and follow the link.

I've asked the administrator's permission to post this here, which was granted. So please take part, give your view and if you want to see the full results when we close the survey, simply register at the end.

We'll be running regular surveys which people can take part in and we'll share the results in our secure area, warts and all. So have your say and thanks for listening.

Paul

ClarityUK.net

[????]

er...a random sample survey on the interweb tnigy ain't the 'truth'...sorry, I'll do your survey but it's hardly representative....up there with thse polls on Breakfast TV

[will dex]

yep, did survey, felt the questions being asked were totally subjective and not at all factual and were designed to contrive 1 particular outcome..

[????]

Agree - intersetig concept looking at the website but they don't know how to do objective market research imo...and it's not a quotad representative sample either, so in reality the views of some vocal people on the internet.....

[????]

Finally, no-one's actually saying we are in a recession yet...the economy's still growing...it's jut going to happen

[Ingenuity]

Thank you to everyone who has so far completed the survey, much appreciated.

Thanks to ??? and willdex too for your honest opinions. I'll always listen to feedback with the intention of constantly improving what we do.

Again thanks for your views.

Paul

[bawdy-nan]

Don't we have to go through 2 successive quarters of decline before its official?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Sounds like you watched University Challenge tonight as well!

[macroban]

That "definition" is downright silly.

Illustrative GDP index:

Q1 100

Q2 97

Q3 98

Q4 95

Q5 96

No recession.

Right?

[Huguenot]

Great point Macroban.

There isn't an agreed formal definition of recession, the newspapers seem to have grabbed this simplistic 'two quarters' and politicians have followed suit because it conveniently means that recessions of up to 10 months can go un-reported.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Economies are built on public confidence, so 'recession talk' generates recessions and damages lives that would otherwise have been unaffected. A 'technical truth' isn't such a good thing if it makes the pain worse.

Secondly, recession can be misunderstood. We expect recession to refer to the bad times. However, recession only refers to a shrinking economy. Businesses are often slow to react to tighter cashflow, and redundancies and smaller bonuses can be slow to show. We often suffer the worst pain from recessions 1 or 2 years after the recession has ceased to exist.

[MrBen]

The current climate has made me feel a bit poorer for various reasons. But I've not really altered my spending habits as a result. Food is supposed to be 10% more expensive. Why have eggs gone up by 37%? If they are free range then its not the bttery farm lighting and fuel to transport them is not quite 37% more expensive....yet.

I'm more interested in the behaviour in this climate by age i.e. how those who have seen 3 recessions before (I'm guessing Macroban) behave vs those of us who have only known the good times i.e. under 32 years of age. Or home owners versus non home owners goven property makes most of us feel "rich" or "poor". That's a good angle Paul, that would be more useful from a marketing perspective. And I think you might get a different response.

Do you become more risk averse with age having lived through at least 1 recession? Or do you take the contrarian view and see it as opportunity? I take the Standard headlines with a pinch of salt - I can see with my own eyes whats happening (and yes its not great but IMO not as bad yet either). Annoying how all these "post"casters have popped up telling us the economy is bad when they didnt have the guts stick their neck out to say it would all end so suddenly in a few months.

What goes up must come down. Before coming up again after some pain. The economy is cyclical. Is that really news? Are we really suprised?

Anyway... expensive eggs? Why?

[macroban]

Yes, I was around in the last real recession which ran from roughly 1978-1982 whatever the "official" statistics say. What came since were just minor blimps. 1978-1982 was difficult to manage but we got through without me making any staff redundant.

This one does not smell quite the same as 1978-1982. It has some striking similarities to the 1946-1954 austerity too.

At present it seems that young people are maintaining their lifestyle and consumerism by increasing their unsecured debt (still increasing rapidly until people hit their multiple credit limits), not saving (savings ratio lowest since 1956), and drawing down on savings (cashing in policies, ISAs and suchlike). Some are said to be paying their mortgages with their credit cards. It may be true that there is a very sharp learning curve coming.

My peer group have a tendency to try and save more in these circumstances. It may be only a few pounds here and a few pounds there and the savings will attract negative interest rates.

[????]

macroban, I know we've had this before but there was a recession in 1991/92.........you, almost uniquely, don't seem to accept that!

[will dex]

Hi MrBen,

i can tell you re ; EXPENSIVE EGGS ;it's because of the fact that chickens are fed on wheat (or maize) and that is what has risen in price massively dut to fuel/demand/biofuels/speculative traders. The other rearing costs have also risen but less so. I may make the final, minor point, that given the above rises, the cot of agricultural land has risen by 40% in 1 year, affecting free range chicks.

lots more to say re there not having been a early 90's recession but the eggs issue is frankly more interestng to all those except people who have no clue how the economy works. Im also interested in why the main dishes in the Bishop dont come with fries!??!?

Will

[Ingenuity]

There's certainly merit in that as an idea Mr Ben. Thanks for putting your head above the parapet.

It's funny you mention comparing age ranges and how people react. It was something we considered at the outset. The reason we didn't in the end was a perception of being branded ageist and also a negative effect on people completing it.

We're currently debating what to run next. The top of the pile is relating to the Olympics. It could be sport related, it could be political, it could be a variety of things and as London is the next host following Beijing we probably have more than a passing interest.

So if anyone's interested or wants to put forward an angle.... we're all ears.

By the way... the economic survey will be closing at midnight Monday.

Thanks everyone

Paul

Clarityuk.net