Growth is on the way, but…

Friday 17th April 2009, 3:00PM BST.

ANALYSTS are forecasting signs of positive growth before the end of this year.

However, there could be further financial shock to come, particularly in Europe, commentator Anatole Kaletsky told a Jersey audience last week.

The Economist and The Times columnist Mr Kaletsky, who was in the Island for a lunch organised by Ashburton, said that there was typically a 12-month lag between economic reality and public perception.

‘I think there are green shoots,’ he said, when asked if the economy would get worse. ‘Personally I think that by the third quarter of the year both the UK and the US will be showing positive growth. But that won’t be perceived by the public, or by the markets.’

• Picture: Anatole Kaletsky. Picture by David Ferguson (00665413)

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1
Al

April 17, 2009 at 3:34 pm

Kaletsky has been consistently wrong time and time and time again since Autumn 2007 when this all started. He has every week in the Times been a veritable Pollyanna dismissing talk that there would be a recession in the US or the UK or globally and seeing causes for optimism where none exist. Read the FT and related blogs if you want some real analysis of what has happened and how things may pan out looking forward.

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2
annie du feu

April 17, 2009 at 5:27 pm

The world does not have enough resources to support its 7 billion with a US lifestyle. e.g. land to provide hundreds of millions maybe billions of steaks per year.
Every country in the world is trying to get a lifestyle more like the US.
Growth cannot be sustained and is the main reason for climate change which will in the long run be realised almost certainly when it is too late.

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3
Boris

April 17, 2009 at 7:14 pm

Al

Having read Kaletsky’s column on the 7th of April it was anything but full of good news with predictions of possible disaster looming for Europe. I also attended the lunch in question I would venture to suggest that Kaletsky presented a balanced argument for his point of view all of which was valid.

Given that no one alive with the possible exception of some obscure Kazak goat herder has lived through anything like the current crisis. I would venture to suggest that anyone’s opinion is as valid as another and no one knows how this is going to ‘pan out’.

In the last quarter of 2008 we came within a few hours of total global financial meltdown. With this as a starting point I think we are doing rather well if you think of the alternatives.

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4
Simon said

April 18, 2009 at 6:18 pm

Al was spot on about Mr Kaletsky. Judge for yourself on how in tune this expert is with the world economy.

The following are his predictions for 2008:

‘I believe that the global credit crisis, far from taking a turn for the worse, is now almost over’.

‘There will be no US recession’.

‘Stock markets around the world will rise in 2008′.

Couldn’t have got it more wrong.

But as they say even a broken clock is right twice a day – who knows…

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