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Lucy Radley condemns media hysteria surrounding the recession and looks at the bigger economic picture.
Page 12
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Driving means I can have the radio on all day if I so choose and be as up-to-the-minute on the news front as I could possibly be. But I can't decide if that's a good thing or not. First, we had the non-event that was swine flu. Now it's MP's expenses. But on the bright side, at least the state of the economy seems to have taken a back seat.
But how much of this has anything to do with me, Joe Average? There's very little news these days — otherwise, how could the bulletins keep being filled with the same old guff? I've been up near Falkirk and didn't sneeze. I've resisted the temptation to claim the weekly consumption by the great dare as expenses. I wasn't stupid enough to get myself up to my ears in debt, so the credit crunch hasn't had that much of an impact on me, and I only spend what I have, so a lack of easy credit isn't making me cry, either.
OK, so we're all a little slack on the work front, but my wages have barely altered, so no problem there, and the company I drive for seems, by all accounts, to be doing very nicely, all things considered.
Many people, myself included, have had good cause to wonder how much of the muck we find ourselves in has been made a lot worse by the media harping on about it. Confidence being everything, and all that. But then, maybe a few months of panic buying is exactly what this industry needs. Perhaps those who represent it should be calling the BBC warning of empty shelves due any day, so that a selffulfilling prophecy can be created and we can all be snowed under once again. Just an idea.
In the meantime, the world will continue to turn for most of us with comparative ease and in relative luxury. The fields are green and the lambs are a-leaping, and they will be shrink-wrapped, transported and delivered to a supermarket near you in the near future.
At the moment, times may be a bit hard, and transport may be the first and hardest industry to be hit, but I will always be the last man standing come the revolution.
The fact that hysteria is so quickly induced speaks volumes for the kind of society that we live in and the attitude it has towards need. Things will inevitably pick up, at which point cargo and produce and the like will need shifting again. We just need to hang on tight and keep an eye on the longer view.