Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Recession is Apparently Over

Not a feeble April fool's gag, the PMC is above such puerility of course (!) but according to a Moody's report this is the case. They were the people who (I think, or was it Standard and Poor's?) downgraded Freddie Mac in the US from the highest rating to the lowest in one fell swoop.
According to the report Estonia's outlook has been raised from negative to stable due to impressive Governmental fiscal performance (1.7 per cent budget deficit), a stabilizing of overdue bank loans and the likelihood of joining the Euro in early 2011. Furthermore there's likely to be gradual recovery from here on in, tempered by the high degree of debt leverage in the private sector.
All well and good, but more important than that what does that mean for the PMC? Does that mean people failing to pay us on time (delayed and incomplete returning of rental deposits, tenants being in arrears month after month, failure to pay for orders made, just failure to pay really) is going to be a thing of the past? Well, maybe, but the point is, we think this recession was primarily in people's minds anyway. The PMC's editor was in Riga this time last year and, though the economy was a mess, doesn't recall anything terrible happening, no bread queues or people starving in the streets, just a fairly insipid riot.
These things are really just numbers on a page which cause some 'experts' to go on TV and trumpet their little learning and knowledge like, well, a tuba and everyone follows suit causing a mass hysteria which is completely unnecessary, unhelpful, and leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, there has been a high degree of unsettling things like defaulting on loans and job losses, but we can't help thinking that a lot of it needn't have been so and was a part of this knock on effect to follow on from the giddiness of the 'boom' years.
Let's hope that once the dust settles some pointed lessons will have been learnt and Estonia can continue to progress and get stronger.
Oh, April fool's by the way.
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