The recession is a blessing
During the past ten years of boom, a small, rather Eeyorish, group of American economists and psychologists has been trying to work out whether people really are better off in what Gordon Brown once called "the Golden Years" and now refers to as the "Age of Irresponsibility", says Alice Thomson. Their answer is that recessions (rather than booms or depressions) might actually be a blessing. People tend to drink less, smoke fewer cigarettes and lose weight. They enrol in higher education, the air is cleaner, the roads are less crowded. The number of suicides rose by an average of 2 per cent during recessions in this period and cancer deaths by 23 per cent, but this was easily outweighed by the decrease in deaths from heart disease and car crashes. Alice Thomson The Times
Full article: Why the recession is a blessing in disguise 
Peregrine Worsthorne: In praise of the financial meltdown
Business Pages: Stocks plunge around the world
Our taxes will pay for this
Forget that the price could be as much as £500bn of your money, part-nationalised banks, a melted stockmarket, a ruined pension system, a mountain of debt, taxes through the roof and eventually an axe being taken to public expenditure. At least Gordon Brown is enjoying himself. The great leader is in his element. The telephone rings off the hook as presidents seek his counsel: tell us, mighty recapitaliser of the banks, how did you rescue the situation? The real answer is simple. You take a large pile of money (which you don't have and are forced to borrow or print), give it to misbehaving banks, and pass on the resulting debt to the rest of us to service by way of dramatically increased taxes. Iain Martin Daily Telegraph
Gordon Brown should enjoy himself while he can
Crotchety Meldrovian grump
For all his energy, on the other hand, McCain could pass for 92 because he radiates the sourness of the crotchety Meldrovian grump, slumped in a high-backed, plastic chair snarling 'dunno they're born' whenever a middle-aged politician appears on the telly, writes Matthew Norman. Everything about his debate demeanour bespeaks a man struggling mightily to subjugate his rage that, after all he gave up in the Hanoi Hilton - his freedom, health and, as seems increasingly evident, a portion of his sanity - this smartarse liberal from Chicago swans along, not yet out of his congressional diapers, to steal the prize to which he believes his sacrifice entitles him. Matthew Norman The Independent
Full article: The peculiar tragedy of this flawed hero, John McCain
US Election: McCain pressed to choose Palin
Don't bully Iceland
But how far should Britain go in demanding protection from the Icelanders for imprudent investors? The British are not alone, either, says a Telegraph leader. There are 100,000 Dutch depositors with money in the collapsed Icelandic banks. Mr Brown is stoking up an international crisis by threatening Reykjavik with legal action and freezing Icelandic assets in Britain, so he had better be pretty sure of his grounds and not merely rely upon an appeal to jingoism. Once the state, any state, starts bailing out people and institutions for making careless financial decisions, where is it going to end? A line must be drawn. At some point, surely, the ancient adage caveat emptor must be applied. Leader Daily Telegraph
Full article: Little to be gained from blaming Iceland
The unknown Nobel winner
Made last week, the choice of Jean-Marie Le Clezio has merit on its own terms - as well as somehow looking like the topical reflection of a hunger for a world that spreads its benefits beyond a now-disgraced elite, says Boyd Tonkin. The work of his that I know (a small fraction of the copious whole) reminds me of figures such as Michael Ondaatje, Ben Okri or even, sometimes, Bruce Chatwin: haunted landscapes, harsh, hidden lives in beautiful but accursed places, perilous voyages across hallucinatory scenes of miracle and terror. He names his own favourite novelists as Stevenson and Joyce: despite their disparities, both authors who could always see the dangerous wonders of the world through a child's unblinking eye. Boyd Tonkin The Independent
Full article: The best writers aren't all English
People: Le Clezio wins Nobel prize for literature. Qui?
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio: the reading list
