Crunch Time

One was always told that banks were the secure places you went when everything else was crashing down. It seems like the world order has been reversed this year with, first, Bear Stearns and then Lehmans and Merrill Lynch hitting the decks at break-neck speed. With necessities 50% up on last year and everything else 50% down, it is bizarre to see economists still debating whether and when we are going into recession. By the time they make up their minds we will have sailed past recession into whatever the next stage is - slump, armageddon, meltdown. But hopefully its all a bad dream.