I guess, given my history, I’m as much to blame for the speed with which news is being distributed around the world today, as anyone else.

The media often paints ‘one-sided’ pictures, which may not help, but as I mentioned the unbelievable stupidity of governments and bankers, in this context, is mind-blowing.

I’ll drop you a line by email and then we can have a chat. I’m looking forward to it.

Thank you for engaging with me on this topic, hope to see you back on my blog with comments.

VB, Stefan

I’ll keep this comment brief and to the point.

I do not argue with the facts regarding government backing of the banks nor do I argue that the banker’s bonuses in most cases are completely ridiculous.

If I refine my argument regarding ‘the media’ to something more general and less blame oriented. My argument is the mass media has perpetuated and hindered public and small business (within the service industry mainly) spending.

I will back track slightly and say that if the media had not been there we would still be in recession however many more businesses would still be around. However people see the doom and gloom in the newspapers, TV and radio and think that they have to hold on to their pennies.

Please feel free to get in touch. My email address is Patrick(at)PMJohnson.com. I’ll email you back with contact details for you to get hold of me and we can have a chat.

I really enjoy reading your blog and you cover almost all of the topics any small business needs to know about.

Patrick

I’m glad we agree on Mr Sugar.

As far as your ‘let’s shot the messenger’ mentality goes may I remind you that you and me are part of this media, you write a blog, I write a blog and so on. What you class as media is slow, you want to know what is happening right now? Go to twitter, Patrick we ARE the media!

This problem with credit was highlighted in 2003 by the FT (media) – everybody ignored it. The banks did nothing as did our government. So to call this a media hype is not even close to the mark.

I do understand you are suffering with your business, but pretending all is OK with our economy and blaming the media is not going to help.

I’m also a little concerned about your business finance understanding – you may not know but it is the banks job to finance new business. I’m talking about new business, not financing overheads which they have been doing in part.

There are many businesses out there needing business finance and they can’t get it, they are loosing out to other companies – often from other countries – how is that going to help the UK?

The banks are being self-centered and totally irresponsible when it comes to our domestic business infrastructure.

The UK taxpayer has spend £200bn to bail the banks out, that is not media hype that is a fact! This money is not being used to stimulate the economy – it is being used to help the bankers and their £20bn+ bonuses that they will pay themselves.

As far as unemployment is concerned – inflation is rising, the government will have to cut public spending, quantitative easing will have to stop sometime soon, VAT is going to increase in January, interest rates will have to go up, we are still in a recession, the US may very well get back into a recession Q1 next year – but hey, I hope you are right.

Thanks for your comment again, maybe we should have a chat, I love to talk about this stuff.

But you want to be mad at people start with Gordon Brown, Darling & Co – and don’t forget the bankers.

VB, Stefan

Thank you for your reply.

As you would expect, I do not agree with your standpoint, fact is:

1. this recession was caused by the banks and governments, not the small businesses;

2. the interest rates for small business have gone up by sometimes over 100%, while banks can borrow at the lowest rate on record;

3. the recession is nothing the media hyped up, since you lost your job because of it, you should know;

4. you are right it is a problem with lending, but not a problem with lending to small business, but to people who can’t afford the house they bought and banks who believed in a lending model without risk – had they done some basic cash-flow planning they would have known better;

5. only big businesses use the recession as an excuse to restructure;

6. many manufacturing companies need cash-flow in form of loans, to take that away from them means killing their cash-flow and sometimes their business.

We have over 100,000 business clients and some had to stop trading not because their business was bad, but the banks pulled the plug, to help their own balance sheets.

I disagree with your view that all businesses owners currently in trouble are ignorant, maybe you need to start talking to some small business owners who are not in the services industry to get the real understanding of the problem.

IMO, Mr Sugar has not a clue what he is talking about, he is just helping his Labour pals with some PR. Just imagine saying we are no longer in a recession, when we just had the numbers. Even Labour could not spin these numbers.

This recession is not over until unemployment falls, and we are a long way from that, wouldn’t you agree?

VB, Stefan

Lack of planning and lack of working capital and a dependency on lending is what has caused companies to go bust.

The simple facts are that whatever your business does you should be able to work at less than half capacity and be able to tick over. I also think that we are business people and loosing staff is something that happens in a recession. As business people we need to take an objective stand point and work not run our businesses into the ground for the sake of emotion.

Don’t think I am being arrogant or even ignorant. I was made unemployed in January for the same reason.

We all need to face facts and stop following the medias over hyped version of what is essentially a problem with lending and nothing else. Surely this should prove the good from the bad businesses. However because of all of the hype people stop spending even though they never would have been borrowing anyway.

Surely this ignorance and businesses using the recession as an excuse is the main problem.