With economic turmoil at our shores it is easy to forget that others around the world are facing similar hardships. I was reading today that Japan’s economy isn’t looking too hot at the moment. The base rate is set to 0.1% (lower that the UK or the US), unemployment has risen to 4% and output has dropped 8% in November with another expected 8% drop in December.

The problem is that forcast sales of the goods produced by the Japanese economy is down. This is felt by factories and support industries, all the way down janitor and programmer jobs, everyoen is affected. Unfortunately until a positive outlook appears, everyoen is going to be affected and this is the net effect of the economic crisis we are facing.

There have been a couple of ripples here in the Isle of Man, but the politicians feel that we will not technically suffer a recession. The reality is that the Island has had a number of years of unprecedented growth and the hope is that any short-term blips will be cancelled out by long-term growth. We’ll just have to watch that …