Don't make a drama out of this financial crisis
The scale of what has happened is breath-taking. The oil price has halved since July. Wheat prices have halved since spring. Rice prices are down by a third. Remember that early this year there were riots in many developing countries – not over the antics of Wall Street investment bankers but over the price of food. And in many countries, until recently anyway, the forces pushing towards recession have been more about the squeeze on real incomes than about the credit crunch. What will happen now is that, thanks to the fall in commodity prices, the squeeze will go into reverse, thereby handing purchasing power back to the consumers.