From The Sunday Times
December 7, 2008

How bad is the economy going to get?

Last week saw jobs slashed, interest rates cut, house prices plunge and a fixture of Britain’s high streets go to the wall. When is all the bad news going to stop?

David Smith and Richard Woods

Like the cartoon character Wile E Coyote, the world economy raced off a cliff of debt and for much of this year was left in mid-air, legs spinning madly. Then in September, realisation dawned – gulp! – and everything began to plummet.

Bank values, jobs, houses – they all seem to be falling with the sort of whistling noise that presages something nasty. Is there a vortex below that will swallow them up? Or could a parachute yet unfurl?

Such is the speed and scale of the downturn that some eminent economists not known for hyperbole now talk in doomsayer terms. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said last week that the global economy is in danger of “disasterâ€