Pick your crash : how bad is it out there?
So, a year on from Lehman Bros collapse and the Lloyds / HBoS merger, is life getting anything like back to normal?
There are plenty of pundits out there offering opinions, and the BBC website is awash with Lehman anniversary analysis. I offer you a photo quiz. I'll be trying it on people coming to the Bristol Business Show in Brunel's old station today, but you can have a go here.
On Wall Street in 1929 they stopped trading and started queuing. Is your trade going through the equivalent of the Great Depression now? It might sound ridiculous, but on the Avonmouth trading estates I've heard people say it's not been so quiet for 70 years.
Or maybe it feels more like 1984. Dole queues lengthening, miners striking, businesses collapsing - but not quite the financial disaster of 1929.
For some, it's milder yet. Remember Norman Lamont? This is him keeping ahead of the press pack in 1992 after Sterling crashed out of the ERM and interest rates sky-rocketted. Britain's output sank, of course, but not as badly or for as long. Will business bounce back soon this time round?
And yes there are some firms out there trading happily along, with nothing more than the blip of the dot com bust of 2001. Bristol has a large digital media village employing over 50,000 people, and ironically many of them tell me the current recession is passing them by.
Over to you then. I'll blog again after the show, when I've heard how Bristol firms are feeling, but in the meantime - pick your crash.
Hello, I’m Dave Harvey – the BBC’s Business Correspondent in the West. If you’re making hay in the markets or combine harvesting; scratting cider apples or crunching tricky numbers – this is your blog too. 
Comment number 1.
At 19:05 16th Sep 2009, sweetsteveo wrote:I own a small property maintenance company and I am feed up with the way that points west and others report negetively every night of the week about how bad things are. As you sore today at the networking meeting there is a lot of good things going on and I wonder why these do not get reported on in more detail. Could it be that there is brain washing going on as you want Gorden Brown out? The pubic are sceared to spend money as they think it is all doom and gloom. There are a large poposion of pepole I dear say like yourself, who are much better off with intrest rates so low there pay the same and much better deals to be had out there. Why dont you get these pepole to have a say. Without finding a goverment bashing spin on it.
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Comment number 2.
At 02:17 19th Sep 2009, dennisjunior1 wrote:Dave:
So, a year on from Lehman Bros collapse and the Lloyds / HBoS merger, is life getting anything like back to normal?
Per se, life is not getting back to normal; But, it is in complete free-for-all....
=Dennis Junior=
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