Flashback to 1929

It’s getting hard to find inspiring stories these days. The stockmarkets are down, Mumbai has been hit by the worst terror attacks in the country’s history, Chennai had its worst spell of floods in November and it looked as if the world just turned upside down from that fateful news of Lehman Brothers going under on September 18th.

Grim-faced news announcers talk of another spell of layoffs at another prominent company. Nobody’s buying. Nobody’s selling. It’s as if the world is mired in stasis, waiting in terrified anticipation of the next downturn. Company share values have declined to less than the costs of their plants and still, no one’s buying.

What has changed? The appetite for risk. The US just sold zero interest rate bonds and they were lapped up. Doesn’t it make more sense just to leave the money where it is? How do you get people to dream again? That’s going to be the problem for governments the world over. It’s weird. People are scared and they do not know what they are scared about. Looks like we are back in 1929.