« American Apparel: Overpriced fairtrade jersey handbags at dawn | Main | Famous last words »
We're in trouble
It's said that one of the best leading indicators for a recession is the ease with which you can flag down a taxi - in the rain.
So this evening was a bit of an eye-opener. During rush hour, when it was peeing with rain, in the half-mile walk between our Soho offices and Leicester Square, we counted no fewer than nine black cabs with their orange lights on.
Oh, sh-------! We're in trouble!
In the interests of complete disclosure, Andrew should explain that he's cited this "cab in the rain" metric as a harbinger of economic collapse before - in Financial Director's "recession watch" column almost exactly ten years ago. Things got hairy for the dot-coms a couple of years later, but it wasn't until 9/11 that the pot really went off the boil.
Besides, as I'm sure Ken Livingstone would point out, fewer people need to take a black cab now that the buses have less congested roads to play with... Socialism, you see Andy, that's the key to capitalism!
Posted by :Richard Young | June 4, 2008 11:32 AM
Yes, well, I think one reason we avoided recession in 1998/99 when it seemed so certain was that businesses were lean and trim and ready for it, rather than being fat and flabby and taken by surprise. So maybe the orange light harbinger of doom is but a mechanism to avoid doom. Forewarned is forearmed, or something like that.
I will ignore your comment about Ken Livingstone's buses other than to say that if we still had the Routemasters your point might be more valid! Jumping on and off a Routemaster was almost as convenient as flagging down a cabbie. Bendy-buses can all be redeployed to route 666 to hell, as far as I'm concerned.
As for socialism being the key to capitalism, you remind me of the old Soviet joke: "Under capitalism, man exploits man - whereas under communism, it's the other way round."
Posted by :asawers | June 6, 2008 7:07 AM