Not as extreme as last year, but a steady build. We can t do that, the banker said, after a suitable pause to be sure it was his turn. You know what any upward trend, however slight, would do psychologically. We haven t even begun to recover from last year s fiasco. There s no investor confidence.
Bankruptcies are rampant, unemployment is at record high levels.
It makes no sense economically. Unemployed people pay no taxes and they can t spend money on goods and services, so they only serve to deepen the recessionary cycle. I d rather talk about the twenty billion dollars worth of your treasury bills that we control. He paused, allowing himself a faint smile, as the banker began to mop the perspiration from his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief. The story announced a half-percentage point increase in the central bank s prime lending rate.