I have decided to ignore all media hysteria on the economy. Recession is a very personal matter and so I have evolved the RGV/PRB index as the most accurate method of gauging public confidence and economic trends, this being structured from weekly data gleaned from about 30 friends, colleagues and family.
The Regularity of Grandchildren’s Visits Index is a useful tool for measuring one’s tolerance levels of working your proverbial **** off for no return. When measured against the Posh Restaurant Bookings Index, one gets a clearer understanding of how underlying financial factors affect ordinary people.
Together, they form a useful picture of current recessionary thinking, or to put it another way: just how depressed out of our brains are we?
The degree of depression or “fermished factor” is directly affected by a strange new phenomena, the “whydidntIgetatrackermortgage” syndrome and its crippling but rare“ifonlyidphonedkaupthingadayearlier” strain, although these have been overshadowed by “Madoff Madness” in the US, the effects of which some consider worse than getting divorced — you lose half your wealth but still keep your wife.
You can either laugh or cry. Thanks to the media insistence that we are in a handcart trundling towards to financial and political Armageddon, we are punch drunk on doom.
But reality will reign ultimately and “it will change”. We have to be optimistic and believe that what seems like fruitless effort will pay off in the future. Wallowing in the depression of the obvious global setbacks is beginning to be boring.
We are starting to see banks lending again — albeit they want your left leg as security, and payback in 15 minutes. We are feeling a stronger demand for deals, and landlords are mostly acting as partners and not feudal lords with their tenants.
Ok, these may be false signs of recovery, but I am an optimist. Keep everything up — I am off to cuddle a few grandchildren and have a row with their parents. Might even pop into Little Chef for dinner (for a salad and a glass of water, of course).
David Coffer is chairman of the Coffer Group and its subsidiaries