If only the Chilean miners could be replaced by double-dip doomsters

Martin Vander Weyer’s Any Other Business

If life was a Doctor Who series and I was the scriptwriter, I would have the courageous Chilean miners tele-ported instantaneously to the surface — and replaced at the bottom of the collapsed shaft by 33 gloomy economists and market commentators. They would range from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who says that the present recovery isn’t really a recovery at all, to Société Générale strategist Albert Edwards, who says investors should brace for a ‘bloodbath’ as the US slides back into recession. Instead of the antidepressants that are being sent down to keep the miners’ spirits from sinking, the economists would be fed a constant diet of cheerful news items.

‘Good morning down there,’ the daily bulletin might begin. ‘Up here, dozens of British companies in every sector from engineering to estate agency have reported increased profits, following a round of spectacularly improved results from the banks.