BV economic spotter: Anniversaries are a good time to take stock. A year after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the world has still not got over the shock. The failure precipitated the worst global recession since before the Second World War. The numbers are now getting better, but only fitfully. The Breakingviews Economic Spot-check even fell back last week, from 2.4 to 2.3 on a scale of 1 to 5. The BES has been stuck between “Slower Decline” and “Stability” since early June.
The good news is that world trade and consumer sentiments are recovering. The bad news is that the recovery remains slow and fitful. US imports and exports were up, but Japanese machinery orders fell back in the most recent month. Consumers are getting less gloomy in the most of the world, but unemployment is still rising. With domestic car sales up 90 per cent from last year, China may be growing again. But around the world the most resilient sector seems to be the one that caused much of the trouble in the first place: finance.