I am utterly fed up with the way the current economic climate is being reported by the media. This came to a head yesterday when better than expected GDP growth was reported in the UK. Growth of 0.5% in a quarter is more typical of an economy in normal growth rather than one that’s struggling. Now, I don’t pay much attention to figures from single quarters – just as the tiny growth in the previous quarter didn’t phase me.
However, given the predictions of Armageddon that accompanied the next-to-zero growth in the previous quarter, you might expect somewhat brighter reporting of the latest figures. Not a bit of it. Every single report I heard started with a phrase like “GDP grew by a higher than expected amount in the last quarter but…”. There would then follow a whole host of reasons why, in fact, the figures were NOT good, despite the fact that they actually WERE.
All this doom and gloom is being spread by economists and journalists. The tone changed completely when actual business people were interviewed. Over lunchtime on BBC 5live, after the usual negative reporting, three business people were asked how they were doing. Of the three, one was doing brilliantly thank you very much, one was doing ok and one was complaining that he can’t offer Chinese-level wages to UK workers. In other words, exactly the sort of responses you’d get from a random set of three businesspeople at any time. Later, after qualifying the good figures by saying manufacturing in this country is doomed, the head of an manufacturers’ organisation came on and was asked what he thought of the outlook. His answer was that it was looking very positive in the medium term and that while some aspects of the figures were poor, others were much better.
Don’t get me wrong. I fully accept the difficulty of the current climate. Of the four limited companies I currently own, one has collapsed, one has seen profits dive, one is doing well and one is growing exponentially. Of course, I’d love it if they were all doing as well as the last two but I’m not sure I would ever expect that to be the case. These are challenging times and for some businesses, the current difficulties will prove too much.
However, this constant negativity is driving me round the bend. I am not asking journalists, economists and commentators (who don’t run businesses) to hide uncomfortable truths from us but simply to give balanced reporting. Maybe they feel that the role of an “expert” is to dampen down enthusiasm. Well, I can reassure you all I wasn’t planning to run down the street naked in celebration of one quarter of modest growth. I just want figures to be reported objectively with a proper mix of caution and hope.
Continually running down our businesses and economy generates false negativity, making people feel less secure about spending and becomes, therefore, a self fulfilling prophecy. It isn’t big or clever to be a prophet of doom and whilst I don’t advocate blind optimism, a little positivity would go a long way.
Let’s face it, the economy today is, according to 5live, 96.5% the size it was before the banking crisis. In other words, very nearly as big. That’s still a whole lot of business to play for. Businesspeople are, by nature, optimists but it’s a shame we tend to be the only voice of hope in a climate of doom.
