Confidence Man

We all know, because Gordon has told us, that Britain is uniquely well placed to ride out the global recession with only minimal and acceptable casualties among the people who really matter. For this reason, Lord Mandelbrot the Infinitely Recurring has had occasion to bring his unique combination of rhetorical flair and intellectual gravitas to bear upon some comments made by one Howard Schultz. Lord Mandelbrot is Britain's business secretary. Howard Schultz, by contrast, has made a fortune from selling bad coffee to the kind of people who like to perch on hard plastic in the midst of loud noise. Schultz said he was concerned about "unemployment, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, particularly in the UK," and noted that "consumer confidence, particularly in the UK, is very, very poor". Lord Mandelbrot responded with various inquiries, mainly in words of one syllable, as to the grounds for Schultz's opinion, the specifics of Schultz's identity and the state of Schultz's business empire, and questioned the logical validity of utilising a single business concern as a snapshot of the British economy as a whole. Lord Mandelbrot also stated that Schultz's business was "in a great deal of trouble ... because of their over-expansion given the state of the market".

The profits from Schultz's business dropped by almost seventy per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, while the British economy only shrank by one and a half per cent. This may explain the statement by one of Schultz's minions that, despite Schultz's statements on the direness of the economic situation in the UK, there was "no intention of criticizing the economic situation in the UK".