Actually its media causing panic that is more to blame for the sheer severity of this economic hiccup.
Northen rock wouldn't have collapsed if it were'nt for the media scaring everyone into withdrawing their money.
Or the financial markets if the media didn't cause selling storms.
I actually know of no one person who has been directly affected by this economic down turn in any serious way.
Business has begun to fear investment.
Its all about animal spirits maaaaaaaaaaaaan........
Look at a scenario for how stupid humans are en masse:
Bad growing season forecast therefore a bad harvest for orange trees in florida will occur.
The stock market will panic massively selling of shares at lower and lower prices until the value is halved even though they likely paid double and if they thought about it they'd realise it's a short term problem.
However the company in question has a rich balance sheet which would cover the costs of a non profitable season but there you go a load of people who just lost a lot of money because of myopia. however a load make money because they buy low and sell high, which I respect more in people. And yet this season was just a forecast so infact it turned out to be a great season and all that cafufel was about nothing, but losing money.
Then next killing to be made from the buy low crowd is BP.
Of course it was going to happen eventually the whole recession thing but it happened sooner and mutch worse as a result of a doomsaying media. They couldn't have done a better job even if they shouted "we're [LIFTED], we're [LIFTED]" at the telly screen over and over again.