If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. George Bernard Shaw

With the sub-prime housing disaster in the USA, drop in property value in the UK and 40% increase in food prices in both those countries things are not looking as rosy as they have in the last 30 years. Add to that the huge increase in the price of oil (one of the reasons food prices are so much higher) and the economists out there are being pulled every which way to predict what will happen in the future. After all people are shitting themselves that they won't be able to afford their next holiday on the slopes or upgrade their BMW from the xzk200R to the xzl300S. Okay there are some legitimate fears ... like my best mate who, with the fear of making a loss, will now not sell his London home that he has DIY'ed into a page from a IKEA catalogue. It also means he and his wife have put a hold on the return to the mother land and all the more chance he will be calling me 'mate' when he does come home.
Needing my favourite drinking buddy back in my hometown, I have taken to reading or listen to a few of these economists from a wide variety of platforms waiting on the call that all will be just fine and dandy if we manage to wait it all out. The only clear thing to come out of their accumulative speculations is that each one has his/her own decisive conclusions which are never the same as the next one I listen too. All are all pretty dour mind you, as they stick their necks out of those designer shirts and well tailored suites to proclaim a totally different cause for the gloom to the next one.
Only with hind-site can we go back and plot these details to a wavelike graph, off course then it's all just too easy to point out what happened to result in a full tank of petrol costing about as much as the car it's being pumped into.
Fortunately for South Africa we do not have to worry about any of these economic woes. After all the World Cup is coming to the Republic in 2010 with wheelbarrows of cash in tow and a cure for all thirsty cars, empty pantries and ready to buy or rent what ever house's are on the market.

post script: Even with all the press of the rise in food prices, the largest super market chain in the UK has just posted a 28% profit. Nice one Sainsbury's.