An prediction about the economy

Yes, I know one should never make predictions, especially about the future, but here goes

As we run up to Christmas there will be tales of woe, fears of a hard Christmas for the retail industry will be raised, probably forecasting the worst Christmas ever*. Shops will be discounting heavily, claiming they are bleeding red stuff all over their balance sheet, but then say that Christmas wasn't as bad as they expected. Foir the first time in a long time year on year sales will not have grown though.

The good old consumer will know that we are in for a real shit time and will think "..hmm, fuck it, if its going to be that bad next year I might as well have a good Christmas and fuck the consequences, I'm going to spend".

There will be a bit of a bounce with the optimists, especially Gordon, claiming that the recession isn't that bad and that we can weather the storm.

Then in January credit card bills will hit the door mats. Reality will set in and retail sales will nose dive. Initially this will be masked by the January sales, but the discounting will be so deep that stores will be crippled. February's economic news will be so dark that we will wonder what is going on. By March key economic figures will be reported as worse than any recession in living memory, bearing in mind that some people who lived through the great depression are still alive.

Unfortunately the crystal ball only looks that far ahead and then the visions disappear in a gloomy haze.

*In the same way that global warming alarmists always claim that some weather anomaly was the hottest/coldest/wettest ever