Reality check - public says we're still in recession!

According to the latest Consumer Confidence Survey by the Nielsen Company and the British Retail Consortium (BRC), one in three people do not have any spare money to spend ... and yet the Government's austerity measures have only just begun!

Yet the most startling revelation in this report was not this, but the fact that their study also found that 82pc of consumers still believed Britain was in recession!  

It also revealed that only 14pc of consumers believed the country would be out of recession in 12 months time!

Stephen Robertson, the BRC's director general, said: “The survey shows mounting worries about household costs, an unshakeable belief that we are still in recession and record numbers with no spare cash. A significant and permanent strengthening of consumer confidence is clearly some way off.”

You can say that again ... as this is yet another reality check from the consumer questioning the reality of the supposed 'recovery' ... will this lead to a self-feeding negative downward spiral ? ... no wonder the Government's looking elsewhere for someone to bail this broken economy out (e.g. business investment, exports) ...

And according to the IMF, they should not be pushing the myth of 'trickle-down' economics and proposing tax cuts for the rich! 

NB Watch out because politicians are experts in spin ... and the Government are lining up to tell us that tax cuts for the rich are essential for creating growth and tackling 'the forces of stagnation' ... what rubbish ... as the rich aren't going to spend it and put it back into the economy, they'll just save it so they can become more rich!

UK scepticism about climate change growing

The British public has become more sceptical about climate change over the last five years, according to a recent survey ... twice as many people now agree that "claims that human activities are changing the climate are exaggerated"... four in 10 believe that many leading experts still question the evidence ... one in five are "hard-line sceptics".

The survey, by Cardiff University, shows there is still some way to go before the public's perception matches that of their elected leaders. Although the findings are similar to those of other UK surveys, this is the first to show that people may be becoming "tired" of claims surrounding climate change.

Half of the people surveyed believed the media was too alarmist ... and a third said there was too much conflicting evidence to know what is actually happening. Other surveys have shown that people in the UK are more sceptical than those in Europe, but less than those in the US.

However this article fails to mention any science, particularly about the critical role played by water vapor/clouds and the reasons behind people's scepticism (e.g. water vapor/cloud making up over 90% of the 'greenhouse effect' - whilst man-made carbon dioxide accounts for only 0.12%) but my previous post covers some of this, as well as a few of the conspiracy theories too ...

We all want to understand what's happening and to tackle the problems we face, but alarmist reporting and fear may well make the problem worse (e.g. pushing car companies into making hydrogen cars - which generate water vapor)!