Financial Times FT.com

Consumer spending outlook may not be as bad as painted

By John Dizard

Published: July 17 2009 20:52 | Last updated: July 17 2009 20:52

The choppy “correction to rally to recovery” markets for risk assets are distracting investors from the central tendency of the economy: we are in a recovery for consumption, and for investment in productivity goods.

Three months ago, it was collectively decided that we were not all going to die, now. Still, it remained an article of faith that while we were not going to die, the world, defined as the US, the UK, and other countries that get major movie releases at the same time, would wallow in poverty and enforced savings forever. We would resole old shoes and repair ancient cars as they do in Havana. China might recover, somehow, but that would happen on another planet. In place of an industrial base, we would have Twitter.

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